001e all right I know the clock there says it's 6:33 or something like that but I try to go by the you know the cell phone time or whatever so that everybody's on the same page uh I will welcome you all to the October 10th uh uh Board of Education meeting um we really appreciate you joining us uh for those of you at home you can't necessarily tell we have a full room here and I believe we have a bunch of folks in an overflow room actually in the other building and we appreciate your attendance and your enthusiasm and we will definitely get to the topic that I believe most of you are here to talk to hear about and many of you also to speak about but we do also have some other business
002that we're going to be attending to first um the first thing I would ask every everybody to do uh is to uh make sure that your cell phones are muted so I'll I'm going to do that myself so that we don't have interruptions during the meeting uh yeah do not disturb there we go um and the second thing will be I would invite you all to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you very much um so does anybody from the board wish to amend the agenda at this time no okay um seeing none uh we are going to move to
003uh recognitions and reports uh there are some recognitions of some of our staff I believe that we're going to hear about and I welcome Brian to introduce those thank you members of the board members of the community good evening it's an honor to be with all of you this evening uh tonight we're honored to celebrate Excellence from several staff members across our district and leading this celebration is our very own Chief Information officer Miss meline noblet mateline welcome thank you superintendent Kingsley members of the board cabinet and uh all of you gathered here this evening as well as those watching from home thank you so much um each of our uh business meetings um we take great pride and joy in being able to recognize members of our staff our colleagues as well as our
004students and Community Partners um it truly is a special special honor to be able to do this and call attention to the incredible people and human beings that make up our district here in PSD so with that we'll go ahead and dive in I'd like to invite director Draper um up to be able to present our first award of the evening as well as my colleagues uh Rob Larsson and Kate Cheryl Miss Cheryl a counselor at Fort Collins High School has received the Yale educator award and Mr Larsson will speak to her accomplishment uh and then we'll pause to take a photo and celebrate her welcome thank you good evening uh I'm Rob Larson one of the assistant principles at Fort con high school I'm here to recognize Kate Cheryl um for being selected as
005a Yale educator um by one of our students Bren Ericson who is currently attending Yale University um a little bit more about this recognition the Yale educator recognition program recognizes outstanding Educators from around the world who have supported and inspired their students to achieve at high levels matriculating students are invited to nominate High School Educators and a committee composed of Yale admissions officers reviews the nominations individually and designates recipients of this year's 385 nominees who represent 43 States and 28 countries 80 teachers and 32 counselors were selected to receive the award Kate was one of two recipients from the state of Colorado congratulations Kate just Kate on the behalf of the board uh thank you so much for all that you do and for all that you do for our students thank you yeah congratulations
006thank you [Applause] yeah congratulations well [Music] done all right for our second recognition of the evening we are going to celebrate our colleague Miss Michelle bomb she is the par educator of the year um named by the Colorado Association of bilingual education Cabe with that I would like to invite Michelle as well as Dr Norma Kelly the principal of Harris bilingual uh to join me here so that we can recognize m and all of her incredible work with students welcome Dr horor KY good evening everyone uh thank you so much um my name is Norma wak Kelly I am the principal at Harris bilingual uh Elementary School laa bilingua Harris and this is Michelle bomb she's an instructional perah at Harris Elementary and I think has done that for 10 years almost 11 years Miss
007bomb is the recipient of the Colorado Association for bilingual education par educator award this is a state recognition and I am so proud to introduce her to you tonight miss bomb has distinguished herself as an outstanding leader and advocate for emerging bilingual students and families she has played an active role in the Harris Community by coordinating The Boro dance group supporting students in need throughout the pandemic by ensuring equity and always being willing to sub in the classrooms as a licensed teacher whenever she is needed Miss bomb is a she's an inspiring leader for all students and especially for emerging bilingual students she supports their academic and social emotional growth by promoting a safe learning environment Miss bomb is a highly skilled and trained educator she is fluent in both languages connects with families and
008children and has garnered the respect of the Harris Community thank you Michelle for your contributions to the Harris community and to the Dual language education Michelle on behalf of the on behalf of the board I'd like to thank you for all that you've done for our children and and for all of your service and um congratulations thank [Applause] you thank you for Shar congratulations all right and last but certainly not least we are going to welcome Dr helli back um she herself is a recipient of the 2023 Cabe ferena community service award and I would like to also welcome my colleague Dr insun Olen to be able to say a few words Dr H Kelly if you would join us once again and now we'll celebrate you good evening uh president peton superintendent Kinsley and
009the rest of our Board of Education um my name is Dr insun Olsen and I am one of the area assistant superintendents and I am proud to say that one of my schools is Harris bilingual Elementary School and so um I know Norma does not like to put a spotlight on herself um but I want to do her justice by reading to you um what this award is and how she earned it so she was nominated as well as a recipient of the annual Colorado um Colorado Association of bilingual education educator and Advocate award are to honor and celebrate some of those who have contributed significantly to the education of Colorado emerging bilingual students um they are proud to inform us um that she has been nominated and awarded for the 2020 3 Colorado um
010Association of bilingual education Federico Pena community service award candidates must be exceptionally skilled and dedicated to the success and future of the Latino community in bilingual education candidates must have distinguished themselves as outstanding leaders and advocates for emerging bilingual students and families they should play in active role and valuable role in their communities as well as in their schools the most important qualific that we consider is the candidates proven ability to inspire emerging bilingual students of various backgrounds to excel among the reasons that you were selected to receive this award is a description of your mentorship advocacy and Leadership that changes the trajectory of a family and individual students I am so proud to share this celebration with you but to truly honor you for all your work when you walk into Harris you know
011your your kids your family your community you are one of the strongest Advocates that I met right away um on the job and I am so proud of you and all that you do to serve our kids in our schools thank you couldn't said it better thank you so much thank you appreciate sorry I can't I can't outo that [Music] or any evening but [Applause] all right thank you uh meline and pardon me now we have uh action items which are several resolutions in support of various uh awareness months uh and we'll start with a resolution in support of blindness Awareness Month uh can I get a motion with respect to this uh resolution go ahead Kristen I move that the board approve a resolution in support of blindness Awareness Month October 20123 do I
012have a second looks like Jess is a second on that uh Brian I believe we have some staff here to speak to us about this yes we most certainly do so joining us this evening to speak to the resolution for blondness aware awareness month is orientation and Mobility specialist Erica stubbert welcome Erica and then while they are making their way up my name is mateline from Communications and I am pulling up our resolution in support of blindness awareness month on the screen so that we can all follow along as we celebrate our colleagues and wonderful student who is here to help us understand the context of this resolution thank you I I I do want to hear from you but I got out of order on myself here and we should read the resolution first
013so that everybody knows that we're talking about if you're willing to hang out for that do I have a volunteer from the board to read the resolution looks like Jim would like to do that if would you no seriously if you'd like would you like to read the resolution you guys can read it okay go go ahead Jim okay in support of blindness Awareness Month whereas there's an estimated 2.2 billion people who have a near or distance visual impairment according to the World Health Organization and whereas there are approximately 5724 us children youth and adult students in an educational setting who are legally blind and whereas visual impairment is a spectrum that ranges from low vision to total blindness and can affect people of all ages and whereas young children with early onset severe Vision
014impairment can experience delayed motor language emotional social and cognitive development with lifelong consequences school-aged children with vision impairment can also experience lower levels of educational achievement and whereas of those reported to have a visual disability in the United States in 2017 31% graduated with a high school diploma 30% had some College education/ associates degree and 15% are a bachelor bachelor's degree or higher and whereas individuals who are blind are highly capable people who have jobs families travel independently and have strong communication skills and whereas blindness awaren month is important as it gives the Blind and Visually Impaired Community a voice and an opportunity for telling their own stories as well as increasing awareness in the community about visual impairments through blindness awaren month Awareness Month society as a whole can become more informed inclusive and
015supportive for those with blindness and visual impairment now therefore be it resolved by the pter school district R1 Board of Education that the district hereby supports October 2023 as blindness awareness month thank you Jim I appreciate it it now if you'd like to share with us your perspective on this resolution we'd love to hear it thank you thank you superintendent and board members for having us here I'm excited for all of you to get the opportunity to hear from a student within Hooter School District Gage okay hi my name is Gage and I am a seventh grader uh student at bolts um my middle sorry middle school I have been visually impaired since I was 5 years old um due to a brain tumor between my pituitary gland pituitary gland and optic wait optic nerve
016I have used a cane since I was six years old to get around my environment um safely I have been told I can't do certain stuff but I take chances and try I read Braille sometimes it is hard but I make the best out of it this resolution has got me me to places I wait in my life where I thought I would have never been being a aware about visually impaired is important to me because not all people know we are visually impaired even when even when we have a cane if someone if someone was trying to shake our hand they should introduce themselves and say my say hi I wait wait a minute my I my name yeah I would like to shake your hand even even though I am visually impaired I
017can Advocate everything thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight good job [Applause] boys [Applause] if you would hang on for just a second and if you're willing we'd love to take a picture with you but we also need to do a vote on the resolution so that we're all all uh checked on that so Jill if you would call a vote on this resolution that would be outstanding DJ Anderson I Jim brokish I Nate Donovan I Kristen Draper I Rob hson I Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion pass is 70 excellent thank you very much [Applause] Joe thank you so much Auntie and Uncle you too what do you love most about being a student at B um honestly what I like well there's two things one I think I think it's pretty
018cool that like I'm the number one Vision c kid here also too I love and all the teach all my teachers that are here I want you to listen to this important all my teachers what I really love that what I really love about all my teachers is that even though I'm visually impaired they they make like they make my work the best way they can for me they make my like instead of giving me the work that's print they actually they go through it and ask teachers to put it in to Braille for me so that's what I love about my teachers and I mean I've never been happier thank you so thank you so much kind of short yes you okay I move your hatches out of the picture so you are Ander
019taking a [Applause] Gage conat good job boy all right so our next action item is an action item uh sorry a resolution in support of lb lgbtqia a plus History Month can I get a motion in support of that resolution Kristen I move that the board approve a resolution in support of lgbtqia plus History Month October 2023 do I have a second looks like Jim in this case would somebody like to read the resolution Kristen would like to read the resolution resolution in support of lgbtq plus History Month October 2023 whereas in 1994 a Missouri high school teacher Rodney Wilson gathered other teachers and community members to dedicate October to celebrating and teaching lgbtq plus history leading to the adoption of LGBT lgbtq plus History Month to learn about the movements and members of this
020community and of their achievements and contributions to all and whereas October 11th is celebrated as National Coming Out day to honor the anniversary of when 500,000 people participated in the March on Washington for lesbian and gay rights in 1987 and the October 20th is recognized as Spirit day to raise awareness for the bullying and harassment that the lgbtqia plus Community faces and whereas prud school district is committed to providing a safe and welcoming learning environment where all students employees families and community members are recognized supported included and celebrated regardless of their gender identity gender expression or sexual orientation and whereas the pr School District Board of Education wholeheartedly Embraces our lgbtqia plus students employees families and community members for their perspectives experiences and contributions they bring to our schools and workplaces and the board strives
021to ensure that they are seen accepted valued and celebrated for who they fully are and whereas while the PR School District Board of Education and staff are committed to making PR School District a welcoming and inclusive community for all we we recognize that there is more work ahead of us to remove the unique barriers that our lgbtqia plus students families and staff face that prevent them from being genuinely included and affirmed in all district environments programs and activities now therefore be it resolved the prudo School District board of education does hereby Proclaim October 2023 AS lgbtq Plus History Month in pror school district and encourages students family and staff to participate in learning and discussions about the rich inspiring history of our lgbtqia plus community and promote the continuation of achievement and contribution from this
022diverse and valuable Community thanks very much Kristen I believe Brian we have uh some more uh folks here to speak to us about this resolution yes we do joining us to speak to the lgbtqia plus History Month resolution is Fossil Ridge High School teacher Todd forner welcome Todd hello all my name is Todd forner I'm an English teacher at fossil Rich high school I'm also one of the co-sponsors of fossil's GSA the gender and sexuality Alliance uh I want to personally thank the board for publicly making this declaration in support of diversity equity and inclusion it means a lot thank you um I am primarily here to introduce Neo schaer who is a senior at Fossil Ridge High School also a leader in the GSA and has uh Been instrumental in leading some of the
023efforts that we're making at fossil to educate other students about lgbtq history month uh Neo is also a leader in our marching band which if you have not seen our amazing award-winning marching band you need to check it out it's really truly a remarkable experience to see them perform and a leader in the school in general and just a wonderful person so uh give a warm welcome to Neo schaer please thank you Mr forkner um I'll get right into it in fifth grade I started wearing boy clothes I cut my hair short and many people around me were confused some bullied me and others ignored it people I was just meeting couldn't tell if I was a boy or a girl and to be honest I really didn't know either um but I knew what
024I was born as and I just went with that it didn't feel right in ele it didn't feel right but in elementary school it is very easy to brush things off cuz we were just kids and we didn't know any better I feel like if I had been more educated on lgbtq I may have discovered who I was earlier and lived comfortably for longer once I got to high school I ended up in a friend group made made up of mostly trans individuals they educated me more on the topic and I had seen trans people online talking about their stories but I didn't really think about anything of it at first but the more I saw them the more I listened and the more I learned none of my education of on lgbtq was through
025the school there was no required classes or history classes never touched on the subject all this also sorry all the support I was receiving through the school was through my peers and not the system when I went to my counselor's office to change my name and gender there were only male and female options this was really upsetting because I felt like me and my peers were not being supported by our school and our school's GSA wanted to do something about it we reached out to the lgbtqia coordinator of the district and we made the change that happened in May which added they them pronouns to the system um and added also a non-binary option pronouns would appear in Synergy on teachers rosters so teachers could be properly prepared for students of any gender identity in
026their classrooms and then in August they added five sub subcategories under non-binary making the system even more Exempted accepting to gender non-conforming individuals these changes add adds to the safety and comfort of trans and nonbinary individuals in our schools and communities and our community highly appreciates it so thank you this was only made possible because of Education it is important to educate everyone queer or not about the past present and future of the queer Community we have been around around for an extremely long time and we don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon this is why we think it is extremely important to recognize October AS lgbtqia Plus history month and some ways to help bring awareness is posters daily announcements during October and for schools that have TVs in the hallways just slideshows or
027anything is really nice I know our GSA um some of our students have preprepared like uh announcements that go on the announcements every morning um recognizing historic figures and some of us have even created a slide to put on the TVs in the hallways to educate everyone and we even have seen people in the hallways um look up and go oh I didn't know that um just about some random historic figure who was queer um because of the support from my family and friends and school I have had a positive experience receiving HRT and Top surgery um and I've been extremely comfortable with my name change and pronoun change within the school especially with the new system change um so please continue to support our community and thank you for what you've done so far
028thank you H hang on hang on thank you so much for sharing your story with us again we want to have the vote and then if you're comfortable with it we'd love to have a a photo to celebrate uh your sharing your story with us so Jill if you would uh call a vote on this I'd appreciate it DJ Anderson I Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan I Kristen Draper I Rob hson hi Carolyn Reed hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 70 excellent thank you very much [Applause] sh thank you got get midle yeah up front here Center Center thank you just a little bit we'll thank you great thank all right so we have one more resolution uh this evening and that is a resolution in support of national bullying prevention month can I get
029a motion in support of this resolution Kristen thank you for my glasses I move that the board approve a resolution in support of national bullying prevention month o 2023 excellent we'll have a second looks like DJ in this case would somebody like to read the resolution other than Kristen sure will great thanks Nate yes he does resolution of the pter School District Board of Education in support of national bullying prevention month October 2023 whereas the pter school district supports the rights of students and staff to attend schools that are St safe and free from bullying which may include harassment and whereas providing an environment free from bullying that ensures both the physical and emotional safety of students and staff creates the conditions necessary to Foster academic achievement and whereas bullying harassment and even the fear
030of harm can create barriers to learning and contribute to emotional distress and whereas a safe School environment is one where bullying prevention education and efforts are present and implemented bullying and fear are not present expectations for Behavior are clearly communicated and consequences for Behavioral infractions are consistently and fairly applied and whereas school districts have a responsibility to ensure a safe School environment that is free of bullying and harassment and whereas the most effective approach to creating safe School environments free from bullying requires a comprehensive coordinated effort including schoolwide districtwide and CommunityWide strategy strategies of bullying prevention where all institutions organizations and individuals must accept responsibility for their critical roles and collaborate to establish a positive environment for teaching and learning and whereas the month of October is National bullying prevention month month which is a
031campaign in response to the need to raise awareness of bullying that provides schools and communities with an opportunity to educate students parents and others about their role in bullying prevention now therefore be it resolved by the pter school district R1 Board of Education that the district supports National bullying prevention month October 2023 and the district's plan to work with local community stakeholders parents students teachers and staff to develop Implement and monitor policies protocols procedures and programs that Foster and support a positive School climate free from bullying and harassment and if we vote to approve it' be approved and adopted this 10th day of October 2023 thank you for reading that uh Nate appreciate it and once again I believe we have some uh folks here to speak with us about this so I look forward
032to hearing that yes thank you one final resolution tonight in support of national bullying prevention month will be introduced by our District's senior executive director of student services Miss Liz DAV welcome Liz and extended team thank you for being [Applause] here thank you superintendent Kingsley and Board of Education we are proud to introduce um members of our bullying prevention and Education team that's supporting much of our work this year and in the coming years and I'm going to introduce them and they're going to speak to the resolution so some of our team members are let me back up for a minute my name is Liz Davis I use she her pronouns I want to model that especially this month so so Leah Jones is our project aware coordinator Leah Hager our Behavior prevention and Inter
033intervention coordinator and Stacy saers is representing Boltz middle school as the assistant principal and dean of students so thank you so much for being here and I'll step out of your bra thanks all right I'm gonna start us off my name is Leah Jones she hers uh we value mental health and belonging as a priority area in PSD and we want to thank our Board of Education and our greater PSD Community for including bully prevention education within our district strategic plan plan the multi-tiered system of support spec specifically related to social emotional and behavioral intervention provides the infrastructure for bringing preventative and proactive evidence-based practices to all students the vision of creating a meaningful safe and healthy climate and culture for our schools district and Community starts with aligning and integrating best practices and building
034capacity for mental and Behavioral Health this cohesive and coordinated work must be built into a sustainable system that goes beyond a program or a curriculum and is built into the fabric of each School community and across all of PSD thank I'm also Aaliyah a different one Leah Hagar she her pronouns um and I just want to emphasize that the call from the state for prevention education and response is one that we take very seriously because we know it's about the lived experiences of our students and their sense of belonging and safety prevention is about creating spaces of belonging where inclusive School culture and positive School climate are a priority and teaching students of all ages social skills helps to promote emotional psychological and physical safety in our school communities this is the job of every
035educator from school counselors to classroom teachers from parent professionals to administrators and when we care about the safety and well-being of all students we need to make sure we are using evidence-based approaches such as restorative practices which focus on preventing and repairing harm and reducing repeat bullying behaviors I am not Leah I'm Stacy zers she her pronouns um we have an obligation to create a safe and inclusive environment in all all of our schools that allows our students to learn the skills they need to be successful if we avoid exclusionary practices we strengthen a sense of belonging and individual accountability resulting in the success of all students regardless of what school they choose to attend in PSD alongside our student rights and code of conduct restorative practices is one example of changing behavior and repairing
036harm this part of the discipline process helps students learn and be accountable and ultimately minimizes the need for punitive consequences as a district we must align our practices to keep our students engaged in school at whatever level of Education they need whether it be traditional alternative schooling addressing all of our special populations including our students who have been expelled and it is our Collective responsibility to ensure we create programming that will allow this experience for every student every day thank you for the opportunity to share the work that we are so passionate about okay then we're going to take a vote on this if that's the end of the remarks right okay don't want to cut anybody off Jil if you would please uh call the vote DJ Anderson I Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan
037I Kristen Draper I Rob hson I Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion passes 70 thank you very much [Applause] [Music] Jill [Laughter] thank much thank you keep the fight going all right thank you very much we really love to celebrate our uh our the accomplishments of our staff and uh students and we think it's very important to recognize some of these awareness months as we've just discussed and voted on now we'll be coming to the superintendent report where uh superintendent Kingsley will be will be making remarks to the board and the community Brian thank you members of the board is my microphone on yes can we just I want to make sure yes okay uh members of the board and and members of the community good evening I'm Brian Kingsley my pronouns are he
038and him and I am grateful to be with all of you today just going to give a moment for the people who are joining our community to kindly take a seat we're glad that you're here welcome yeah there seats up front yeah we're glad you're here I intentionally wanted to step down this evening off of the deis to be in community with you and to speak with you not at you I think it's really important acknowledging the various emotions is that the microphone yeah acknowledging the various emotions that people are holding today uh regardless of how you're showing up this evening I want to acknowledge that your feelings all of your feelings whether you're a student a parent a member of our community and an advocate an employee your feelings are valid uh and I
039want my presentation today to be a space where I can speak from my heart and to acknowledge why are we here and why now as many of you if not all of you know uh I joined uh this incredible school system in this incredible Community just over two years ago and I have been a student of this community and a student of this District trying to understand all of the merits of its 54 schools and academic programs I've also been trying to understand our financial positioning to sustain the academic Excellence that you all deserve and demand of this school system we are not only one of the strongest school systems in the state of Colorado I believe and I know I'm biased but I believe that we're one of the strongest school systems in America
040because of what you saw here tonight students like Gage who learn as a result of their teachers and their families how to take chances you learn from Neo who understands clearly that it's more than okay it's actually more than encouraged it's a human right to be your most authentic self over the last two weeks many of you if not all of you I have stepped or touched upon your Curiosities your anxieties your fears and hopes not just about your individual School culture but what you expect for this school system whether it's a about being a crew being an asprey or a bear thinking about what that means in terms of Centennial and PCA and alternative programming and I can recognize that through this leadership exercise that there are things in hindsight that I might have
041done differently I want to be incredibly clear this board hired me you hired me over two years ago to be bold and to be resourceful acknowledging the way of things in our system were not healthy not just in terms of where academics were trending but in terms of where our finances were going and enrollment trends that have been trending downward since 2016 without any significant changes across the system to make ourselves whole that's not your fault that's none of your faults but I want to acknowledge it is my responsibility to navigate the competing interest of all 54 of our school communities that are equally as proud that equally have strong culture that want to succeed and Thrive well into the future navigate the various aspects of their culture and academic programs and make really difficult
042but necessary decisions to make sure that our system and the various programs that you participate in that are important for all students to thrive not just some are available well into the future and I will share with you in mindsight while being bold and being resourceful and doing the things that I believe in partnership with this incredible governance team I should have hit pause I should have brought the community along a little bit more thoughtfully a little bit more slowly to educate all of us on the actual problem that we're experiencing what's great about leadership is that people like me and you can make decisions and we always have the ability to make another set of decisions and so however you're showing up tonight whether you're anxious curiosity happy hopeful I want to try to
043address something upfront and invite you to be open as a learner be curious with the rest of my presentation if that's okay members of the board I think it's in the best interest of this community for us to not take a vote tonight I believe that we're not ready I have engaged with hundreds of students over the last two weeks I've engaged via email via meetings in coffee shops and in concerts and restaurants in the hallway and in my neighborhood with many members of our community who want to acknowledge that they have ideas of their own that have Merit and value and I respect that well I do believe that the ideas that were put on the table initially were in good faith and trying to accelerate the work moving forward we simply can't do
044do that alone and we need to identify ways to bring the community along with your permission this evening I would like to engage the community more thoughtfully over the next three to four months to break down the proposals that are already on the table to identify where there is Merit in them and where there are challenges that make those particular ideas and ways of work potentially not in the best interest of this District right now while recognizing that we have other more difficult decisions to make there are schools that are here today whe in the aacy of our young people I've never been more proud while I wish it was under different circumstances that people were stepping in to the Democratic process it makes me really proud that our system is working because people like
045tonight and I know we're going to hear from many of you and I welcome your voice in perspective even if it differs from my own I'm not here tonight to seek agreement but I am asking you you to engage with me thoughtfully over the next few months to identify what we can do to address the more the really really significant challenges that this system is facing and we have a choice to either maintain the high level of status quo and I don't say status quo to equate to mediocrity this system is strong it's made up of incredible employees it's made up of incredible children and young adults and it's made up of incredible Community m members who make this system go but the reality is what's taking place in our system from interven or excuse
046me infrastructure needs and enrollment trends that I'll share more details with in a minute are not going to go away my job as the superintendent is to be compassionate and to be bold in my leadership all in service of human beings and what I would want to acknowledge upfront is that we are not going to identify a pathway forward that makes everybody happy I want to be clear about that and I really from my heart love to make people happy that's what made me want to be a teacher so members of the board as I share my presentation I'd like to come back with you on the back end because in addition to taking a pause to further engage the community around their ideas and identify how we can think about that more thought thoughtfully
047I would also like to extend a timeline to not have any plans implemented no sooner than the 25 26 school year to allow any impacted School the time to plan to be thoughtful and to recognize that their number one primary job is to focus on the children that are in front of them today and while we need to I appreciate that so if it's okay with you I'd like to engage and jump into this presentation we know one of the observations that I have clear just indisputable evidence on is that this Community Values its innovative programming it's why many of you here representing your shirts your schools your mascots your ideas your crew your way of life but this community also highly highly endorses the concept of school choice today in PSD one out of
048every three families is choosing into a choice school choice is here to stay but I would also share with you that our district has a fundamental belief whether it's through its Mission or its District ends that we believe that it's not just for some students and here's the challenge how do we ensure all students have access to the most robust programming that District that this District offers there are some programs in this District represented in this room right now that are in high demand and the public deserves and is clamoring for more and the challenge that I have in partnership with you is how to create the need and the demand how do I create the programs that actually support that demand this includes options from ranging whether it's an Expeditionary Learning Program when I
049speak about programming there's so many of them you saw us represent and recognize earlier our dual one of our dual language principles we have core knowledge schools we have IB programs this school system is full of exemplary programs we also know that these programs don't come to life because of the brick and mortar but school buildings do tell the story they have trophies they have blankets that represent experiences of people they have all sorts of things from the past from the present and hopes of the future but what I would Cheng challenge us to realize that it's actually the human beings at the center of these experience that make this program go it starts with our employees our parents our community members and most importantly our students many of them are here tonight and I
050really welcome you we also recognize that as we're grappling with these challenges and I want to invite you to please be curious about this that while we have tremendous infrastructure needs we have to model incredible fiscal stewardship program stewardship and people stewardship I find it uncontable to be able to go out to the community and ask them for more money via taxes when we're not necessarily maximizing the assets and the resources and the people that we have in our system today and so we have very challenging but necessary decisions to make in that space as I shared with you earlier I want to lead from a space of abundance not a deficit and I know many of you might be feeling a sense of loss and that's okay but this system has incredible programs and
051as I've been studying them they're in great demand and we need to identify ways to continue to grow those programs in order to give more people what they want we also recognize and I'll go into more detail about this a little bit later is that when you s you know sum up all of the various needs from our roofs to our mechanical systems our boilers our HVAC systems the potential of installing air conditioning across 33 of our schools who today don't have it the ability to replace our playgrounds who are not at standard the thinks the thoughts of adding a new school in Tim with dealing with exponential growth in that Community the price tag of all of that is $1 billion and I share that with you not to scare you or to be
052an alarmist but to be simply real our budget today has only $800,000 of it dedicated to capital investment and repair that's not your fault but it is my problem to deal with last year in the first week of school The Chiller at Fort Collins High School broke we ordered the parts to repair they are being installed just this week as a result of delivery chain challenges I share that with you as a small story to let you know that the replacement for that Chiller cost over a million dollars and in very in one day in the first week of school our system went into the red to replace Capital Investments that our children our young adults deserve our employees deserve but we don't have the financial resources to do all over the place that's not
053your fault but it is my challenge to deal in partnership with you to find a way forward our enrollment has been declining in PSD and it's been happening Statewide you and I are probably reading the same newspapers watching the same news stations and recognizing over the last two years other school systems are having this very same difficult but necessary conversation and I Shar with you earlier in my introduction while I was here and hired to be bold what I did not want to do in my decision-making to help you make some of to help make some of my thinking more visible the last thing that I wanted to do is have a board meeting that put a couple recommendations of what we're considering and what we're thinking and rather than have schools be emotional and
054curious towards me to do that towards each other what can't happen in PSD is one school lobbying another school elevating one is more important than the other that one is more significant than the other and while my decision- making may be flawed in some ways I want to invite you to recognize that I did not want people to deal with that and I'm still n nervous that it will still happen knowing that the changes that have been proposed are not the only changes that we need to make or if there's other decisions that come up as a result of new ideas from the community there is more scenarios that we have to contemplate but the enrollment Trends are very real and they've been happening since 2016 I would also share with you that Colorado's funding
055model for public education funds districts on a 5year per pupil average which is a good and a bad thing in the event that there was ever an emergency where we dealt with the natural disaster and the number of students that were in our district changed significantly from one year to another the state doesn't punish school systems because it looks at how many students you've had over a fiveyear span that's the positive aspect of that the negative aspect of a five-year averaging budget cycle is that it allows leadership people like me to Kick the Can down the road for somebody else to deal with a decade from now and I would tell you that we can't wait any longer since our district uses a student-based budgeting model and because Colorado fund schools on a per pupal
056basis declining enrollment can result in fewer programmatic offerings in schools it's probably easy to identify that many of the schools that we are talking about this evening that are present here tonight or next door are some of our smallest schools in the district it's not because want to pick on small unique thriving schools I need to figure out a way in partnership with you and partnership with this board of education to ensure that they are viable well into the future and as we deal with future budget cuts that they are not in the crosshairs of being prioritized as something that needs to go away many students many of you thrive in these particular programs not just because of its size but because of its culture of the hundreds of students that I've spoken to to
057in the last week you feel seen you feel heard maybe it's the for the first time that you feel seen and heard and you don't want to be a number you want to be a person all of us have stories including me but the reality is the size of our schools does in some instances matter a lot in terms of the resources that we can provide like school counselors our specials art and music and physical education other types of programs like intensives in small class size those things are not free and that is not me equating you or your school to a number but to in order to make those things viable not just for what you have today but to ensure more people have access to them it requires us to think thoughtfully and
058differently about our school budget model I would also share with you as I've been here over over the last two years that I am learning that there is this assumption that our community is re relatively affluent and I'm not telling you that everybody here is Rich because that is not the case we have many employees that are not yet working and earning a living wage the challenges are real but there is a community assumption with our tax structures that if your property taxes went up recently that you should be anticipating that there is going to be a winfall of cash that enters into PSD to make this problem go away and I want to demystify that today for the entire Community how the state funding model works is that if our local share of contributing
059towards our P per pupil allocation increases at the local level what the state does with their contribution is we simply they will reduce it to keep the per pupil allocation for the district the same as it is today it's supplanting not supplementing and I share that with you because many members influential members of our community are still needing our help in educating and helping them to understand that I would also share with you and I want to just name up front that as I've talked about some of the statistics on this slide some of them are triggering and I don't have any intentions of triggering anybody in this room or who may be watching there are lots of ways in today's world to create and cultivate love in a family bring children into a family
060into a loving home and as I talk about birth rates and fertility rates these are not statistics that PSD tracks They are goo you can search them look them up via Google they're tracked through the census and as I talk about fertility rates I'm going to talk about it just briefly the census tracks fertility rates to identify trends of populations across the country and their statistic around fertility rates suggest that in order for a population simply to maintain the current count of its population that on average there should be 2.1 births for every person of reproductive age when you look at what that means for our school district just PSD it's just more than half of that number 1.09 as I shared with you birth rates have been declining since 2016 this system is not
061new to having challenging conversations about school consolidation and potentially talking about schools in different ways but as I look at the history it has been quite a while since we have been bold and courageous in that space to ensure that our budget is viable into the the future and healthy and the competing interest again not your problem it's ours but I would like for us to think about this as a community not about a specific school but the challenge is of ensuring that every single year that we provide our employees a necessary raise to live in this community while dealing with the competing pressures of the Aging infrastructure of this community while also recognizing we're having fewer and fewer students every single year presents a real Challenge on what's most important I would also share
062with you that when you look at and again not to be an alarmist but to be real the number of graduates on average that I shook hands with or high five at graduation and I see one of them right here over the last two years is approximately 2,000 students per class this year's kindergarten class has under 1600 students and the kindergarten class that's coming behind it is anticipated to be even smaller the blessing that this community has right now is that while our Comm our excuse me our kindergarten is down by 400 students there are people still moving into our community they have children but what I would generalize and I'm not a statistician in the space but when I look at our data of where we're having unanticipated higher enrollment than what we thought
063thought many of the families that are moving into our community for the first time are a little bit more wellestablished to be able to afford homes in this community and have older children which is the reason why our high school enrollment today is higher than what we thought it would be we were anticipating this year we would have 540 students less than last year what I would share with you is we have approximately 225 students less than last year 225 students represents one of our elementary schools it's more and larger than some of our alternative schools it's not insignificant if we lose that amount of students every single year for the next five to seven years we're losing a school's worth of young people while still contemplating on whether our budget should stay the same
064and I just want to be honest as a former math teacher it's not possible I would also share with you that this is not PSD specific when you look at the trends for future decades ac across all of larer County what you are seeing is that we are having an aging population and I say that with love and respect we are having an aging population happen in this community which means two things one the likelihood that more children will be coming soon is quite unlikely I believe in future decades that will change gentrification takes place things happen but it's not anticipated for the next decade or so I would also share that another part of this that is interesting for us to be curious about is that the members of the voting public in this
065community most of them don't have children in PSD any longer they're proud alumni many of them I've talked to over the last couple weeks from many of your schools and they are looking to this District to make make hard but necessary decisions before they provide us additional tax dollars knowing that there are people financially strapped in this community that in order to invest in education invest in PSD they're looking for us to make the hard leadership decisions that are necessary to show that we're leveraging all of the various buildings and programs and human beings that are incredibly brilliant and talented in this district and without doing those things the likelihood that we're able to Garner that Community Support will be more than challenging and I want to also recognize another important challenge excuse me just
066for a quick second another thing to add another layer of complexity to this big audacious problem is that in some areas we're still experiencing growth so where we're feeling loss in some spaces we're experiencing growth in others many of you probably are aware that the town of Timnath continues to grow at rates faster than we anticipated Timnath middle school high school today it was not supposed to be let me back up for a second Timnath middle school high school brand new school that was not supposed to be at 80% capacity until 2026 is over 80% capacity today because of the growth that's over 26% we're still seeing growth at a slower rate but faster than what we're seeing in Fort Collins in Wellington and we anticipate the need to potentially build out there in the
067next you know decade or so and we recognize what's happening in our hometown of Fort Collins where we're located that growth is not there and in many instances we have buildings that are not being fully maximized what I would share with you is that over the last three years and this is something else that I want to demystify I've gotten a lot of emails and phone calls and they're appropriate they're curious and and and that's where we should be in a space of curiosity and being open to learning new things but something that I am challenged by as the leader of this District in partnership with many other leaders is that there are some in our community that believe that because we are incredibly supportive of Dei efforts because we're incredibly supportive of ensuring that
068all human beings are valid and can be their most authentic selves that as a result of our attention and Talent on those particular important aspects of the work and the job that we have more and more students leaving our district to go to Charter Schools that's a false narrative I am pro-charter school we have five district sponsored charter schools and I want to be very clear that we will be supportive of those five but as we think about how many students have left our traditional schools over the last three years to one of our five PSD authorized Charter Schools it's only 293 students now I say that only but that's still the size of an entire school at the elementary level in 2022 to demystify other things that are out there that are just simply
069not true I want to be really clear that the number of students that have transferred back into our traditional schools from our PSD Charter Schools is more than students that have left to go there it's not significant it's almost a wash but there are many students that are interested in thriving in our programs that are a part of our school district that are a part of our traditional offering rings and I would also share that there's a lot of value and interest from surrounding communities many of those students I met today who are driving great Great Lengths to come to our schools that they want to be a part of PSD because of what we stand for and we have a history of academic excellence and we simply value belonging more than anything else and
070we took over a thousand of those students into our school district over the last year which was an increase of 255 students from the year before I would also share that there's uh and I don't have this on a slide but looking at trends of how many students are being homeschooled as a result of the things that we're doing in this system now there's no question during the pandemic homeschooling went up exponentially Across America we had over 800 students during the pandemic experiencing a homeschooling environment within their home within their family structure today that number is 444 down from the low 500s a year ago so more of those students are coming back into our traditional settings this is an important slot to make the case for change because as I talked to you about
071budgeting what I want to explain is how one school's budget has implications on other schools budgets this slide is titled enrollment decline in Impact to school budgets and the sub bullet reads and welcome to all of you we're really glad that you're here come on and grab a seat when you look at this Slide the sub bullet says as enrollment declines PSD subsidizes the student-based budgeting allocation that School receives let me explain what that means before I explain the details of the graph as I referenced earlier our district uses a student student based budgeting model now the state uses a 5-year average our district uses an actual so if a certain number of students walks into one of our traditional schools we provide funding to that school principal to make educational decisions on behalf of
072every student that walks through those doors but when a student enrollment Trends low compared to what it was designed for our district has to subsidize that SBB budget and subsidies means provide more dollars to ensure that our district ends and our district promise to ensure that all students have access to electives that all students have access to mental health care and school counselors and core teachers and principles and assistant principles and order to do that we have to ensure that we subsidize that members of our public members of our board it is my belief system that our student-based budgeting model is broken and I'd like to explain how that plays out the x axis make sure I'm in the cone here the xaxis on this graph represents the number of students in a particular Elementary
073School this graph is labeled Elementary size adjustment for fiscal fiscal year 2024 this year that we're sitting in today the Y AIS which is vertical there represents the percentage of the subsidy that our district provides a specific school in order to ensure that it's healthy and whole what I would share with you members of our community is that our elementary schools were designed for 450 students if you look at this model each of these blue dots on that line graph represent today a school in PSD as our enrollments start to shrink not just since 2016 but today and over the next 5 to seven years what you will see is more schools tracking upward words on this graph which means they will require greater subsidies in order to be whole we are people not numbers
074but as we do this and work as a system and increase those subsidies those subsidies prevent other schools from getting resources other departments and school priorities and District priorities from being funded they prevent us from adding on to the $800,000 capital budget that we have because what we've prioritized are children and young adults and teaching and learning but this model cannot persist into the future and for those of you that are members of very very small schools the SBB model does not work even at all we actually have to have an entirely new financial model for all of you called a zerob based budgeting model which means the subsidy would be so high that it makes no sense of even using that model I want to share with you what this looks like for our
075secondary schools grades 6 through 12 same concept on the graph this graph is labeled enrollment Decline and impact to school budgets this is about secondary size adjustment for the fiso year 2024 the x axis again represents the number of students in any specific school and the Y AIS represents the subsidy that PSD provides out of its own budget to ensure that school Community is whole and can continue to offer the electives the intensives the smaller class size the various school counselors that it deserves in order to actually function and make sure that your culture thrives as you can see we have one school an outlier that is funded at a subsidy level of 25% over its SBB model because its student enrollment is under 300 these schools were designed to be built around 700 to
076750 students and most of them are trending in the 500s moving to the 400s knowing an elementary cohort is coming up through the ranks which is going to push them into the 300s I share that with you not to create alarm but to be a realist that our model needs changing I would also share with you you that our approach has to change I've heard you and I see you and I look forward to listening to you momentarily but there are three fundamental things that we need to do while ensuring that the dialogue and the engagement with you becomes deeper and more meaningful that is my commitment to this community but we must think about reimagining our program placement we are in the next year when a new board comes on and gets settled our
077going to need to have very courageous conversations around attendance areas which means our boundaries which also means that there are more schools beyond the ones that have been named and I'm saying you've been proposed named we're going to reconsider that based upon Community feedback so I want to be very clear about what I'm saying here but in addition to schools like many of yours there are other schools that will have to be identified that are struggling with their enrollment trends that their budget is not sustainable that we may have to completely consolidate I share that with you because the conversation in this first phase of work has been around iterating evolving reimagining the other aspect of this work is about completely consolidating all together it doesn't mean one is more painful than the other they
078all hurt and lead to people feeling a whole range of emotions and all of that is valid and while we approach that work thoughtfully as a community we're also going to need to figure out and this is where I would invite you to see us adjusting to what you desire in good faith because you're important you are the people that we serve but I also want to ask you and maybe I'm being too brave right now but I also want to ask you that we have to Garner more community support for public education not just in this District but across the state it is not your fault but you and I have to comp deal with the complex scenario that out of all 50 states the state of Colorado funds public education at number 43
079it's not acceptable we are in a community of abundance we are well resourced but we are experiencing pain in providing services that are thoughtful and important to our youth so I would ask you to be curious about how you can engage in enrolling other people to be supportive of that oh I went backwards I apologize so here is my promise to you as a shift in addition to the changes that I have outlined in my introduction I want to put together we will put together in short order a steering committee that consists of students staff and family representation to be formed to begin to engage the community around other ideas that have Merit and value around how to address this incredibly complex challenge that is centered at PSD it's not just a PSD problem it's
080happening all across the country but we have to deal with it within our local context within our local values and make very hard decisions more information about how to become a part of that steering committee will be rolled out in the next couple of weeks it won't be rolled out tonight you've asked for a pause I'm asking for a pause to be thoughtful and not just put something into the universe tonight that's not meaningful and truly engaging and and actually super authentic this cannot be disingenuous and we need to think about how to do that together so more information to come on that I would also charge this uh committee to ensure that there is a convening of multiple listening sessions across the entire District to gather feedback these listening sessions and I want to
081just really hone in on here because this is really important engaging with you is a priority I have we have as a system a sense of urgency to engage to listen and to be thoughtful about what your ideas are but the events that are scheduled as early as this Thursday and into next week we are going to cancel them at specific schools and we are going to relaunch CommunityWide listening sessions that impact all of our schools knowing that this is not just about the five schools that I previously mentioned this is about other schools as well and so I please I do not take my cancellation as a means of not wanting to engage with you but this is bigger than the schools that have been referenced in other members of our community have the
082right just as you to be engaged and I want to invite you to reenroll in those opportunities if you're interested we can certainly benefit from your presence these listening sessions will be scheduled over the next few weeks excuse me over the next several months and they're going to be open to all members of the PSD community and more information will be shared in short order both on our website and we will send out information to every member of our school Community to ensure that you're aware Ware of locations of time so you can thoughtfully plan with your families and many of the students who are listening and here in person you are invited to be a part of those sessions as well okay let's talk a little bit about another part of this process we
083talked about reimagining program placement I'm only simply reorienting you in the community to what has already been put on the table I am not restating this to poke at you to ask you for your agreement I'm simply restating for the community's understanding what has been put on the table and why so we can make sure that we're clear that if there are other ideas of how to make this work or counter I you know counter suggestions to think about this differently we want to ensure that those listening sessions flush flush out that best thinking but when we look at our district and thinking and leading from a place of abundance a place of strength not a deficit one of the programs across all of our 54 schools that is in great demand which has a
084waiting list in every single grade kindergarten through 8th grade is Polaris Expeditionary Learning school it's in great demand not just because you're crew not just because of the building that you're in not just because of your intensives but it's because of your way of work your idea of learning through Adventure is contagious the culture people feel seen they feel heard the relationship that's two-way between your teachers and you is significant and when I think about and meet with community members who want more of that I validate that based upon my own experiences of going into the school myself observing presentations of learning that have been just experiences and memories that I will never forget and being a part of graduation experiences where you can visibly see the significance of not just the maturity but the
085depth and the level of learning based upon the experiences those students have this community wants more of that and I need to figure out a way to meet that demand I would share with you that when you look at who are and what are the demographics of the students that are on the wait lists at Polaris a lot of those students are living in the olander community they're living in the bevens community what I would share with you and I will be vulnerable that the three schools are actually competing with one another Project based learning at olander and at blevens has originated with trying to identify ways to get the community to engage and see them as something that competes with Expeditionary Learning they're not the same is there a bridge yes but they're not
086the same and so the proposal that was put on the table that I want this community to continue to Grapple with was to move the K5 program of C today's Polaris Expeditionary Learning school to olander and become Polaris at olander I believe and you can disagree with me and it's totally okay but I believe the location at olander elementary school being adjacent to Spring Canyon Park is incredibly ideal for the Expeditionary Learning model and it also because of the facility size at olander allows our elementary part of the Expeditionary Learning Program at Polaris to grow where those weight lists can go away the proof of Concepts here is to keep olander a neighborhood school where students who live and reside in the old Ander boundary we would ask them to continue to please stay within
087that school but recognize like you they have Choice as well but it would also continue your school Polaris at Expedition excuse me Polaris at olander would also be a districtwide choice school and we believe we have found a way to provide districtwide transportation to Polaris at olander as well as Polaris at blevens the secondary model for Polaris today 6 through 12 has a weight list 6 through 8 but the weight list doesn't exist at high school and that's okay many of our students want to go back to a traditional high school for lots of different reasons and that's more than acceptable as I shared with you earlier Our Community Values choice and choic is here to stay but today blevens is a school that is rebounding academically there's a lot of great things that are
088happening there but the proof of the matter is here that they're only using approximately 40% of their entire facility as a result as a result of their enrollment being what it is our Westside schools are at risk when you look at enrollment Trends it is disproportionately impacting the west side of town this is not just an investment in the community and what they're asking for which is more of the Polaris Expeditionary Learning model to be a part of crew but we also want to ensure that we're investing in two schools that matter olander and blevens who are receiving incredible subsidies to offer the programs they are now because they're under enrolled they're neighborhood schools that are equally as proud as any of years and we need to figure out a way to breathe Health into
089their budgets to ensure that all three of these programs are sustainable the idea at bevens for high school would be students have a choice to maintain a level of continuity in the Expeditionary Learning model at blevens for their High School experience or they can naturally choose to go to Rocky or one of our other choice schools again this is a proposal that was put on the table that I'm simply reorienting the community to right now another part of that proposal was to take two of our Alternative High School programs Centennial High School and pter Community Academy and merge them into one high school alternative program I want to be very clear both of these programs are incredibly proud they have incredible legacies they have generations of people that have thrived in these programs and their
090buildings especially Centennial tell stories whether it's the fabric on the walls the way of work through their disco or Discovery program and you have PCA that is right down the street here that is equally proud in its way of work but is has a and is working in a facility that I will share with you in this public is not up to the PSD standard it deserves better the Centennial program as proud as it is is capped in some ways around how much it can grow because of its facility their strong desire while our enrollment is declining 10% in the next several years what I would share with you is the number of students that need different types of programming that's not declining the needs of our students to be Innovative and thoughtful and personal
091with their educational experience is not only sustaining itself I would actually go as far as to tell you it's starting to be on the uptick and I'm grateful that we're in a community that can provide today but we're not in a position to provide in perpetuity and so the idea was as painful as it might be or maybe you see it from a space of optimism and hope to bring those programs under one facility which would be polaris's current facility and to make sure that we remodel that facility to be what a young adult and a high school student deserves that program and the mergers of those programs is not a reduction in staff because you're bringing two programs together Centennial at 140 students today today PCA at 200 students today bringing them together provides
092more human resources to provide more supports to those students but I want to be I want to recognize it doesn't feel that way in this moment but I'm asking us to be curious about that to think about it and I'm very grateful for the members of not just these two schools but the Polaris Community the olander community and blaven Community as they're going through all of the various emotions that they're feeling hopes and ideas and thoughts around how to make this work are starting to emerge another important critical part of this school system are our students who receive integrated Services students who are 18 to 22 years old who have been members of our school district Community who are learning how to transition into the world of work the world of Independent Living who are
093needing intensive and important and Mission critical supports from our district to make sure that their way of life is not only successful and healthy but allows them to be sustainable and independent well into the future and those programs are all over the place across this District today so the idea is to give those students an upgrade and expand upon those programs by bringing them all together to ensure that there's an academy for those students where we could have not just more centralized supports for them but to ensure that they have the facility that they deserve now while the Centennial location is ideal today for Centennial students and I do not challenge that for lots of different reasons I would also tell you that I'm incredibly curious about what it could be from a facility standpoint
094for these students as well having access to CSU having direct access to the various transport lines having access to the various businesses that exist in Oldtown and all of Fort Collins is really critical for those students to be immersed in ways of work and ways of life that are sustainable the community connections program today which is a building in the parking lot at Rocky Mountain High School like PCA does not meet the PSD standard during the recession and during coid the transport lawn that was adjacent to that program went away due to reductions in Transport Services those students are walking several blocks to engage and access our community that's not your fault it's just the reality of problems that we must deal with and from an equity lens prioritize those students and their needs at
095the same level that we prioritize all of yours we have a Cooper home program which is actually in a home that is designed to be both a classroom in a living area that help students actually deal with the duality of both of those experiences with this particular proposal we would sell that home which is valued today at just under $600,000 and reinvest the savings from that which are one time and it's not a significant amount of money and it does not address the billion dollars of need or the 10% of declining enrollment but it does help us create upgrades to the various facilities that we're talking about in these particular proposals our district also has various leases in strip malls across the community for office space and other programs that serve our integrated Services students
096that I would challenge you in this community that we don't need to have leases when we have buildings that have space and so the idea here is not to just to bring these communities in groups of students together but bring all of the wraparound services with them at today's Centennial High School facility so what I would share with you in addition to those that were proposed there are harder but necessary decisions that are still needed to be made and I want to outline my proposal to how best to approach modifying specific attendance areas we know that we have to continue to offer high quality and comprehensive programming for all of our students to address the long-term needs of our district but also the long-term declines in enrollment and we will have to modify attendance areas
097boundaries as we consider those particular efforts it's okay I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing I'm going to take a drink of water from my heart to yours I really appreciate you and your attention tonight it means a lot to me I know this isn't easy as we go through this process there are other programs in this District that we need to find space for as you know the governor rolled out uh Universal prek in the last year and we're going to need to identify ways and schools where we expand Universal pre programs for students that are in those particular age groups as we continue to focus on ensuring that all of our students don't just graduate but they graduate with options whether that's a four-year program a two-year program
098going directly into the workforce or the military Career Concepts that are built around Career and Technical education we have the desire to expand those programs across the district and whether that's in satellites or different types of schools we want to identify spaces where we can continue to think differently about CTA our district today has a policy around how to approach this it outlines the spirit of what we need to do what I want to outline for you tonight is the process in which we will accomplish it but that District policy is policy JC we believe that modifications to attendance areas and I want to be really clear similar to what I proposed to the board and we will see at the conclusion of this presentation how they feel about it but but I believe they
099should not go into effect any earlier than the 2526 school year that's not next year want to be clear about that it's the year after so this would be the following uh process we will take attendance areas we'll evaluate them and we'll have Community engagement processes similar to what you and many others will experience over the next several months to gather input from students staff and members of our community and our families from that our district will have to synthesize those ideas identify Trends identify where we believe that there's Merit where we have more Curiosities and questions about and bring back to the Board of Education a recommendation not to vote on but for feedback that would include consolidation of schools recommendations will be be based blah recommendations will be based on enrollment Trends proximity
100to other schools of the the same level alignment of programs the feasibility and ease of transportation for students and student-based budgeting subsidies that we talked about earlier that cannot continue in perpetuity for all schools from there we will have Community meetings to gather feedback on that proposal that went to the board following their feedback we'll get your feed back we'll think about what that looks like in terms of recommendations for consolidation the impact on families on staff and neighbors we'll also make sure that that Community feedback allows for further modifications to be made and ensure that that is also made publicly available in V various forms for for people who cannot come to those Community engagement sessions we want to ensure that they have a voice we will ask the Board of Education most like
101likely in the year ahead and we will as the new board gets settles in the next couple of months we'll have to kind of converge and identify where we are on that um but I believe it'll be really important for the Board of Education to take action by resolution on recommendations presented by the district within the next school year school consolidation committees would then be formed to help ensure that any of the impacted schools that we're walking align alongside people that are impacted to make sure that they have feedback on how we can make that better knowing that that is going to be a very very difficult experience for this entire District as I share with you and I will close with these last couple of slides that while we need to deal with these
102CH changes and challenges we also are going to need to engage the community thoughtfully to invest in our facilities to improve our facilities so every single school not just some of our schools are at a standard that we can all be proud of in order and as I shared with you in my introduction I've only been here about two years and the re another reason why we're here now is that I've spent the last several months with this team and with this board of education studying the infrastructure needs that exist like how much will it actually cost to put air conditioning in our 33 schools that don't have it how much would it cost to have a thoughtful roof replacement program a playground replacement program to ensure that all of the safety upgrades on our
103doors and single points of Entry are at a point where we all can be proud of feel safe and not worry about the future of our district we hired a third party independent company called mckinstry to help with that analysis and as I shared with you the life and replacement cycles of all of those various things whether it's air conditioning all of our mechanical systems that are outlined in our facilities condition assessment the Retro commissioning which helps us think differently about how to pay for these things and ensure that they live a longer uh living shelf life life uh we're having things live way beyond their lifespan in our district as a result of incredible maintenance staff but that's not sustainable into the future and we also know we have community and state values that
104are around sustainable energy and future uh and and as we think about that what that means for our future all of those Investments including a potential new school in the community of Timnath costs over a billion dollar to be more specific when you look at our air iing efforts that if we wanted to as a community to ensure that every school every classroom every building in PSD had air conditioning to improve their work environment to improve the learning environment and to provide greater access to our schools not just during the school year but all year round students don't be scared every school is not going to be a year round school but I want to share with you that it has a price tag of 199 million to 268 8 million when you consider inflation
105when you think about our roofs in security and playgrounds to get them on a replacement schedule based upon where they are that's another $600 million and we know that we're going to need dollars to renovate schools and programs to meet the demands of other programs like Universal prek and CTE programs that I shared with you earlier another complex part of the problem and I named this a couple of times but I just want to reiterate it what makes this difficult is this Zero Sum game of mentality that in order for somebody to feel like they won somebody else has to lose we have schools that are needed in certain areas of our community as a result of where growth is occurring right now where homes might be more affordable right now and we recognized that
106a new school most likely a K8 school not just to provide relief to Tim nith middle school high school but to take a look at Tim nith elementary school today which is another school that they're doing incredible things with a very old facility that has a lot of character but it has lived way past its shelf life and putting more money into a school that we're not going to get an Roi in is not modeling fiscal stewardship so we believe that another 80 to100 million will be needed to build a new school out in Tim we're also paying a lot of attention to the northeastern area of our community in Wellington where we believe another school an elementary school most likely will be needed within the next decade probably within the next 5 to 10
107years as I shared with you this requires a multi-million dollar effort that I believe and I don't know yet how our new board will think about this but I believe looking forward into the future we're about 13 months away in November of 2024 from needing to engage the community thoughtfully for their support while also recognizing we're dealing with all of these emotional challenges and changes at the same time no easy task but the capital needs of our budget are not going to be met with our current line item of $800,000 what I would share with you in closing and I really appreciate your time I know this presentation was probably much longer than you anticipated is that all of you are here today to represent you your identities and your individual School culture and I'm
108grateful for that but what I want you to be curious about is that if two weeks ago or a week ago I named five different schools would you still be here the challenge that I'm inviting you to think about is that this is not about one school or five schools or a district of schools this is about all of us my goal and I don't know if I can thread the needle on this Hail Mary is to have people all feel like they won I don't know if that's possible and that's not my job to make everybody happy but I sure as heck want to try but I am inviting you to be as curious ious and as invigorating and as intense and as hopeful about other schools that are in your community our community
109as you are your own recognizing that they all deserve what you want and what many of you might have today which is to be seen to be heard and to have a personalized educational experience that matters to you for the students that are in this room and that are listening I am so proud to be your superintendent the advocacy that you have exemplified not just to me but members of this community whether it's at the weekends in our Parks being here about to ask questions and offer comments that is what learning in this District in this community is about so however you stand and however you feel I'm here for it and will hold space for you but I just want to invite all of us to recognize that this is bigger than our t-shirts
110it's bigger than our mascots and those things matter because they are part of who we are as an educator I still have a t-shirt for every school I worked in 10 years ago during a recession I was sitting in your seat talking to another board in a different Community because I was a principal of a school in your position and I didn't understand why because what we were offering was great it's hard and I care about you and I will try to do this work better as a result of your feedback and members of the board I thank you for giving me the time and the space to engage the community thoughtfully it's what they deserve and I am hopeful you are seeing a response to what you have been asking for so thank you
111very much for your [Applause] time thank you very much Brian I really appreciate it I uh appreciate the detail and the Outreach uh uh and empathy for the community I want to orient everybody to what's going to happen next okay we have um we have do I see something on yeah go ahead well let me take this first and then I will Orient you what has going next go ahead Jess may I make a motion please certainly go ahead I move to amend the agenda by removing action item 9.1 on the resolution regarding facility and program changes and moving item 10.0 board reports to 7.0 before Community comment after Community comment or after Community comment I'm sorry thank you yeah we we've had you waiting but uh so do I have a second looks like
112Carolyn has a second on that that's really great do we have any discussion on this uh motion J if you would call a vote on that motion please DJ Anderson I Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan I Kristen Draper I Rob Pon I Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion passes 70 thank you very much Jill appreciate it so all right now I'll Orient you what's going to happen next um as noted the resolution has been taken off the table um we do have 23 people on the list of community commenters and we will offer all of those people the opportunity to make two minutes of comments and we'll introduce that section in a second uh after right after which was the other part of Jess's motion right after uh the community comment the board will
113be invited to make uh comment or remarks uh on these issues and anything else that they want to bring up to the community so I would encourage you if you're interested uh in hearing the board's reaction to What Brian shared now uh to hang out just a little bit longer uh and uh we really appreciate your engagement and your thought about that so now we're going to move on to community comment and I have some remarks that I make every week in case or every other week in case youd don't like spend time watching the board meetings which I can't I can't imagine why that wouldn't be but we do want to be consistent in the way we introduce this so given uh sorry I want to remind us all for the hope for our
114hopes for this section of the agenda the board desires to hear the viewpoints of all stakeholders including students employees parents and Guardians and community members input that is most helpful to the board of education and District staff is that which celebrates successes that support the educational and social tional experiences of students or which identifies a problem and proposes a solution for us to consider that ultimately improves the educational and social emotional experiences of our students public comment is designed to address issues not personalities or Personnel matters please keep your comments and concerns focused on the district pardon me it is important to note that the board does not generally respond to remarks made during Community comment I suspect that may be a little different tonight but that the general deal our lack of response should
115not be construed to mean that we agree or disagree with what is said or with the description or interpretation of events as presented by any speaker further we recognize that some although by no means all of the remarks that have been made are factually inaccurate and we generally choose not to respond or correct the record here because the formal board meetings are not the time or place for back and forth dialogue although we may disagree on some things I know that we all want the best educational experience for our students and as we participate together in this community comment session we should model for our students how to listen how to interact respectfully even with those with whom we disagree and generally how to show up each day so I will say that this opportunity
116for public comment is for members of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline those people will be called upon to make remarks in the order that they signed up and each speaker will be allowed two minutes to address board I will when when the flashing red light happens on there which is means time's up I'm going to ask you to stop your remarks so I would appreciate your your uh your cooperation there we do have a lot of people tonight we want to hear what you have to say and uh we want to be able to hear what everybody has to say so with that I will and I will apologize in advance I don't know how to pronounce all of these names but I will give it my best shot so
117our first speaker is helary so geez I apparently can't pronounce any names I'm I butcher my own name in a second sorry our first speaker is Hillary Condit welcome yes what you should do is go to uh where where uh our own uh well yes our own Nick is is modeling the uh the speaker Podium thank you welcome thank you good evening my name is Hillary Condit she her I'm a parent of three kids at Polaris I don't presume to speak for everyone but I believe my statements reflect the wishes of many people in our shared PSD Community I'd like to start off with a simple question how do we move forward together less than a week ago the superintendent announced a plan that will have massive implications for thousands of students teachers staff and
118families and he sought zero input from any of these affected communities does that align with the values that we hold in our Community Values like transparency inclusivity and Trust many people who have gathered over the last week have focused on two basic requests one delay the vote and two initiate an authentic process of community engagement that reflects our Val values the vote has been delayed and it sounds like a new process will be kicked off these are good first steps but the Administration has severely undermined our trust and it will need to be rebuilt we understand that shifting enrollment Trends will cause major Financial challenges for the district we've also heard about desires to expand Expeditionary Learning and consolidate alternative education opportunities we take these issues seriously however real solu Solutions genuine solutions that will
119truly work for affected communities must be created in partnership with those very communities and on a timeline that doesn't set them up for failure we need to collaborate to define the problems and create clear goals while at the same time prioritizing the mental health and well-being of our students so tonight we have one fundamental request create a real engagement process that gives us the opportunity to design a successful solution together thank you thank you our next speaker is Jay enstein or Anin oh Einstein okay welcome good evening uh my name is Jay Einstein and I'm the parent of two kids that go to Polaris um I had submitted copies of a letter that I'd sent to the full board earlier today uh as well as uh copies of the letter that Joe gronsky and um
120Jeff koll had submitted as well so I'd like those kind of read as a package and I would ask those be entered into evidence for the for the U meeting and that all the board members do read those because I do think it is helpful um we chose Polaris because the K through2 model um I think initially I'll be honest it was something I was against my wife was for I was reflecting back to when I was a teenager um and so but over time I've come to learn that it really is a good successful model and so the big concern that I have is not breaking that up I know we're looking at what is going to happen with Polaris I know there's a proposal to split the school up but it really is
121a good model and it works for the big kids and the little kids and I think for the big kids those that are high school they're still trying to find themselves it's great because it gives them a sense of purpose U as they're helping out the little kids so please don't break that up would be my my uh request overall the concern that I have that probably you're going to hear from others is how this was handled I'm a healthcare lawyer that's worked in this area for 25 years I've sat on boards and I've reported to boards for 20 years and part of that job is being held accountable and the concern that I have is based on everything that's been Comm unated so far is that superintendent Kingsley is not being held accountable maybe
122I'm wrong and I've got limited information but that's the way it appears to the public and the larger concern that I have is that the public is losing their trust in both the board and superintendent Kingsley so I would ask you to make sure as you're moving forward that you're doing your job in challenging his assumptions validating the information that he's providing for example intensives are not paid by the district it's by the by the uh parents uh and the students um I know that sacrifices are going to have to be made uh but I ask you to I appreciate that you're delaying the vote for you to conclude your remarks thank you thank you our next speaker is Megan Mullen welcome I'm Megan Mullen she her I'm a parent at Polaris but I want
123to stress that I'm here to actually partly represent olander because uh it speaks to our Unity I'm here to tell you that the schools are not divided we are united we are capable of better conduct understanding and compromise than what you assumed in us on behalf of Hedy Huber my daughter Kora is an engaging bright and loving person who has Down syndrome we spent eight years at olander eight years of driving across Town twice a day eight years of learning what we'd hoped for Kora that she'd be seen and valued and included was totally doable olander was already already had a Vibrant Community kids who looked like mine were an authentic active part of it what makes o Lander exceptional is the of course culture of course Kora can learn to read of course she
124can go to Eco week exemplary special education requires that every classroom be open to every student every activity be made accessible there's currently no stated future plan for the ILS program I'll leave you with this today my daughter is a sophomore Rocky she's a unified athlete and an elected student council representative she is a product of an UPC course culture and that culture must be maintained I'm Megan am a PSD grad before getting my masters in architecture my mother taught in the district for 27 years I have always been a vocal supporter of this District this poorly crafted and rushed plan is not the PSD that I know this is not how we have bu built our reputation as a planning professional this plan was rushed and inadequate someone in leadership should have recognized it
125before we had to be here um you ultimately if your phase plans include a mill Levy I urge you not to alienate your biggest supporters the families of this District um the schools expect this to be done with dignity with understanding with Integrity Visions can be wonderful but it means nothing without excellent planning and execution I encourage you the board I need you to conclude your remarks to hold your leaders to a higher standard please thank you our next speaker is Jessica Hamilton welcome good evening my name is Jessica Hamilton and I want to start by thank in the board especially those of you who have taken time to meet with the community in the last few days it is clear to us that you are invested in doing what is best for our kids
126that's a value shared by all of the people in this room tonight and most of the families in the district and that is not the only value we share director Draper you once said in an interview with The Coloradoan that the biggest area for improvement on the board is communication and engagement with the community director brokish you once told the Colorado in that when all is said and done the board of education is a representative of the community I learned just 6 days ago that my daughter Addie's school could be dismantled Community engagement means that parents like me have a chance to ask our questions and collaborate on a plan to consolidate schools and expand programs decisions like these cannot be taken lightly in 2018 a study in Chicago found that plans to consolidate closed
127schools had a negative impact on academic performance and on school graduation rates many of us at Polaris would like to support the expansion of Expeditionary Learning in a way that does not effectively dismantle the one successful Expeditionary Learning School the district already has at Polaris we say we aren't passengers we are crew I'm asking you to hand us an ore please work with us so we can help the district meet its current and future challenges extend the timeline for this process work with us to develop transparent criteria for school consolidation and programmatic expansion thank you thank you our next speaker is Ashley Shor did it okay well welcome good evening um I'm a parent at Polaris um I'm more data driven so I'm sorry if these numbers are a little uh much um superintendent kingsley's
128October announcement stated that we must be take proactive steps to address student enrollment that's been declining in PSD for several years the accuracy of this to me is questionable based on the data available to the public on the Colorado of Department Education website um the data from January 2023 shows continual increase in enrollment in PSD from 2009 up until the school years affected by the pandemic when a o imately 1300 students left during the past two school years 687 students joined the district which is roughly half of those who left so it's true there are around 600 students unaccounted for since the pandemic this does not warrant a blanket statement about declining enrollment over the past several years we are bouncing back from an impactful world event let's make sure the decisions for educating our
129students are not made hastily in response to data from a small period of time for the sake of an example let's take several years is five PSD enrollment over the past five years which includes this significant dip averages 30,36 students PSD enrollment last year was 3,15 this is a difference of 31 students one interpretation of this could be that students are here but they're not in the buildings the district would like them to be in these enrollment numbers are inclusive of the 2400 students attending Charter Schools this could be making a very significant impact on neighborhood schools we need more research we need more data we need more transparency where are these students going and why this is a unique opportunity for the district to use the momentum of this community engagement and shape it
130into a positive outcome let us help with the load we have valuable input to share we care for the children and the staff of our specific schools and the entire District thank you thank you our next speaker is Derek Everett welcome I hear that often good evening my name is Dr Derek Everett I'm a faculty member at Colorado State University and my daughter is a seventh grade student at Polaris which she's attended since kindergarten I've been impressed at the scale and speed with which members of multiple School communities have mobile ized in response to the bombshell news of radical changes released not as a conversation starter but as a fate comple something tells me that activism took you by even more surprise than it took me there is Broad recognition that PSD needs significant reforms
131to meet the challenges in the years ahead this is not a question of if but how the dramatic actions over the past week demonstrate a dedication to protect beloved disperate forms of Education that serve serve diverse populations these institutions cannot be reorganized like shuffling a deck of cards and expect them to maintain their Vitality indeed such profound restructuring would weaken not strengthen the schools affected and AFF and inflict lingering trauma on countless students faculty staff and families a message posted by the board and superintendent last Thursday said quote we will work as thoughtfully and quickly as possible to address our community's questions end quote any educator worth their salt and there's plenty in this room would tell you you can be thoughtful or you can be quick but you cannot be both speaking as one
132of the taxpayers whose dollars you Proclaim to want to use responsibly I would prefer you air on the side of caution and approach a transformation of this scale more openly words are great actions are better you have an organized well-informed populace ready willing and able to help PS navigate the challenges ahead I encourage you to embrace them and move forward to honest respectful strategic conversation with all relevant parties there is nothing to gain and everything to lose in acting in haste when faced with the option of being thoughtful or quick be thoughtful thank you our next speaker is kayn Mitchell welcome hi my name is kayin Mitchell and I've been a student at Polaris for four years I've watched this community Thrive and grow and this week I watched it fall apart teachers who had
133built this school from the ground up had tears in their eyes as did students as a teenager I understand the mental health struggles of students today and I feel that this school Comm this school's Community helps so many kids who rely on it I have faced struggles with anxiety and ADHD and my experiences at other larger schools did not help help I had such a big fear of fire alarms that I could hear my heartbeat in my ears and I didn't want to come to school on the days we had the drills when I asked for help at other schools they weren't able to offer much at Polaris they not only made sure I felt comfortable but they also helped me grow and overcome these fears this isn't just my experience but the experience of
134hundreds of others at my school who have faced significant challenges at school I think it's not only important to learn how to do things like math and science but how to grow as a person in a community and Polaris does this beautifully in part due to its small size all of the students understand how to respect each other how to be crew not passengers these Expeditionary Learning values in this community exist because students and teachers choose to be a part of it what makes Polaris an effective small school will be lost if the current Community is dismantled and if students are merged with other larger schools that did not choose to be a part of the Expeditionary Learning model in addition what makes my school special is that my teachers understand how to support the
135Expeditionary Learning approach and are invested in making this community Thrive finally the current plan does not include essential Expeditionary Learning features such as intensives and crew that bring people together and allow for such typ bonds to form these are people's jobs these are people's dreams and these are people's lives our school is more than a budget cut my teachers are more than a budget cut and I am more than a budget cut thank you thank you thank you our next speaker is Arwin grindle welcome okay hi I'm Arn hold on it's not okay can you hear me okay hi I'm Arn grindle a seventh grader at Polaris thank you for the vote delay it's it shows your desire to understand before you dictate change I get your reasons for change but a lot of work
136needs to happen to make sure what you want is what you get our teachers May craft the experiences that Define our culture but it is us the kids who make it happen through our choices each day we know we have something great and we know we can share it but you won't get results by doing it fast let the groups Define their priorities wait till 2025 to move the pieces I started in kindergarten as a crew of 18 in sixth grade we added 32 kids from schools across the district these kids chose to become Penguins so they followed our lead to become leaders themselves we participated in multi-age crew Discovery camping trips which were paid by parents and Polaris games building culture happen step by step that is how you expand when Mr Kingsley was
137asked how we could keep these experiences if we grow by 300% he suggested putting a pause on these experiences that does not make sense if you want to grow a program don't cut what makes us strong from his words I infer he wants the plis and BV kids to do all the work of culture building with their teachers hands tied behind their backs find us at K12 space to share our vision of Expeditionary Learning with more PSD kids set us up for Success don't cut us in half and expect propagation strong cultures mean safe inclusive spaces facilitate meaningful conversations between student leadership at all schools by fourth grade players's kids conduct honest and difficult conversations in our friendship circles we are ready there's better way to do this slow down hear all of our voices
138Polaris bevens oer Centennial and PCA thank you thank you thank you our next speaker is Ariana friedlander welcome thank you for having me here this evening my name is Ariana friedlander I'm the mother of a Polaris student and a leadership and change Management Consultant I'm speaking on behalf of myself and Dr cross a social science expert in change I empathize with your predicament you have a tough job you're managing a variety of priorities and are relying on Kingsley to provide direction for the future of Education here the three most common mistakes I see leaders make that result in ineffective change are not including key players early enough in the process which leads to irreversible loss of trust from stakeholders inadequate planning for the transition which leads to Hidden costs sometimes in the millions and too
139rapid of timeline with insufficient resources for a successful change management process this results in Failure to meet expected goals and worsens the initial circumstances I see all three of these at play right now the change of this magnitude requires engagement of stakeholders early in the process and while we appreciate your intentions for engagement listening sessions are not adequate we expect to be co-creators in solving these problems slowing down this process is only the first step to be being responsible stewards of PSD resources there are many fundamental questions that remain unanswered who will be charged with overseeing this process to transform our schools what resources are being allocated to support this change management process and what criteria is being used to evaluate the options and ensuring its success I'm not opposed to change it's necessary but
140what is with the lack of transparency in this process so far and how can we be sure there will be adequate transparency and engagement moving forward just because hard choices have to be made doesn't mean you should operate in a vacuum without Community input or well-informed planning practices I want to believe in your leadership and I need you to model learning for my trust to be restored delaying the vote is just the start the next step is more effective change management practices and holding Kingsley available for pushing an ill-conceived plan that does not include due process or or angering the community and betraying our trust thank you our next speaker is Christopher Le welcome hi my name is Chris and I'm a proud parent of one former and two current Polaris students I'm the director
141of specialty counseling services at CSU and long ago worked in alternative education over the past few days you have seen the passion the wisdom the energy and the Insight of this amazing Community can you imagine if you could collaborate with us what we could accomplish together but instead we've been cut out of the process condescended to and disempowered and yet I fully believe that your hearts are in the right place there are other places to serve your community so we know you're here because you care about education and every single person in this room wants the same thing we want our best days ahead of us we want the Golden Age of Polaris and Centennial PCA olander Bev's Cooper community and Community connections to be in in the future I believe that's possible what you
142don't seem to understand is how far you have moved us in the opposite direction I'm not mad because you want to make changes I'm angry because you haven't given us the chance to be successful to work towards what we all want you've gotten everything backwards and you've already harmed the very communities with whom you are hoping to partner hear me you don't understand what makes our programs great it's not just the curriculum it's not just the class size speaking from a firsthand experience what makes Polaris a fantastic School takes years to grow intention and collaboration it's not too late to fix this do the work that should have been done now slow this process down and give us time to do the hard work of blending and preserving communities please get humble be curious and
143let our values be our framework get the information build your understanding so that you can re represent our most valuable students there are road maps for this and it's not too late thank you thank you our next our next speaker is Celeste Warf [Applause] welcome hi thank you um I'm a Polaris parent uh but I am speaking sorry I a polarus parent but this plan is something that impacts and potentially destroys programs and communities at many schools tonight I have the privilege to share a statement from an olander parent we appreciate the time you have put into this plan and that you value keeping our schools open we understand changes are coming and need to happen to make this transition successful the following must occur for the greater good of the community and to preserve
144existing programs that olander excels at keep olander's integrating integrated learning services and English language development model intact at the campus these programs have made Benchmark made it a benchmark School in our community our students are compassionate collaborative and empathetic humans for our community because of these prr programs our expectation of the board is to provide us a comprehensive plan on this transition addressing key stakeholder concerns based on community input and feedback the plan created this is my comment by Mr Kingsley is hollow and rushed and threatens to destroy Benchmark programs at multiple School sites it is absolutely clear that no Community stakeholders students and even the board itself were not adequately informed or consulted in the formation of this very loose and poorly devised plan that will have an enormous impact on our entire School
145District as you said Mr Kingsley this is not our fault this is your fault thank you our next speaker is Cynthia rler welcome good evening my name is Cynthia rler I am a part of the Polaris Community but I am reading a statement on behalf of a bevens Middle School Parent it is his name is Eric Bowman and he is the PTO president of bevens middle school he states in the past three years Bev's middle middle school students have faced challenges through coid low Cass scores scores unprecedented faculty turnover and now a potential change into exped Expeditionary Learning principal Joe Zappa has excelled at bringing stability to the bevens community once again bringing High academic standards and pride back to bevens both in its staff and students to upend our phenomenal school and its faculty
146during these times feels targeted and disrespectful we request additional time specifically a 2-year process to prepare our teachers for the transition to Expeditionary Learning while our teachers are exceptional forcing them to continue educating our students while obtaining training to teach in the Expeditionary Learning Style by next year is unacceptable many of our teachers have families second jobs and are pursuing graduate degrees in education please provide our teachers basic occupational respect while continuing to serve our students at the highest level that we have come to expect additional we are concerned about the impact to students and staff in the serious emotional disability programs at blevens as you know blevens has one of three SED programs in the district and is the only SED program that feeds into the center uh based program at Rocky Mountain High
147School these programs are specialized to each students's unique needs and the staff that support them are specifically trained to support students with serious emotional disabilities many of the students in our programs cannot advocate for them for their needs and very often their parents are not able to either please consider the morale and safety of our staff and students when considering merging blevens and Polaris these students must continue to receive the uninterrupted care and attention they require thank you for your support thank [Applause] you our our next speaker is Aniston forkner welcome my name is andison forner and I'm a sophomore at Polaris I'm transgender and I deal with clinical depression I first transitioned in third grade when my parents were looking for a middle school they met with several principles the principles had widely varying
148attitudes towards having trans students when they met with Joe gonsky who was the principal at Polaris at the time it was clear that being Transit players was not an issue um I didn't have to worry about being the trans kid anymore which was the biggest relief in my life I could just be myself it's actually worked out this way Polaris has allowed me to be more self-accepting than I ever thought I could be trans kids who end up in communities that aren't as affirming as Polaris be less end up being less self-accepting which amplifies mental health issues that are caused by the lack of acceptance we face in larger culture being at Polaris makes being different easy when Society sees something is different it's often pushed down but we're embraced it Polaris the proposed change
149makes me feel blindsided and unsafe I don't even know whether I'll be able to comfortably use the boy's bathroom at another school it's also about mental safety I don't want to go back to being the trans kid it's the the the community that we have at Polaris does not exist anywhere else right now the world needs a safe place for Trans kids and Polaris is that for a lot of people I understand that the changes that are being made are necessary due to budget constraints but I am thanking you thank you yes for slowing down the vote but please keep your promise of roping in the communities the staff please help us make this change responsibly so we can keep the community alive that has saved lives that saved my life thank you thank you
150our next speaker is Gallen Cormier gayen I'm sorry welcome yeah welcome sorry I got it wrong okay um good evening my name is gayen and I've worked in our district for 17 years I've had the honor to hold positions as a truancy officer a counselor a coach and I'm currently a teacher and a Dean at Centennial High School I have a beautiful six-year-old daughter who's in first grade at Harris bilingual sorry it's nerve-racking up here um and so my daughters and first grade at Harris bilingual and her dad has been a teacher at and a coach at blevens for the last 17 years I support our district making sound financial decisions that ensure equity and great educational opportunity for all students before we begin to close schools merge schools and draw new boundaries we the
151public need transparency and budgeting clear and reliable data that supports our decision-making process community input and a clear breakdown of how funds are going to be used now and in the future while I am grateful you are willing to take a pause on this proposal I feel frustrated that our schools were publicly targeted first and continued to be tonight this could leave our PSD Community with the belief that this proposal is our only path forward it is not our only path forward we need to problem solve together we need trans transparency transparency is the Cornerstone of a healthy and thriving educational system when decisions are made behind closed doors it breeds mistrust and skepticism among those who rely on you for your guidance transparency and Community input will allow us to tap into a wealth
152of knowledge and ensure that our choices are well informed and representative of the diverse needs of our students let's problem solve together create more options and help to solve this problem as a community thank you thank you our next speaker is Ash Gaston [Applause] welcome presentation and for your transparency um but you were hired to be bold and we were all taught to be bold so I have something to say sorry I could not get a printer to work so howdy my name is Ash Gaston and I an alumni at Polaris Expeditionary Learning School attending since the third grade I'm here today to address you on what I see as deceit and Injustice towards our education on part decisions made by District leaders Polaris is a very special schools I'm sure you have all been
153learning I can personally say that the profound impact the schools had on me was lifechanging I know many students in alumni that feel the exact same way in May superintendent Kingsley viewed six of our PS mine included a PO is a presentation of learning that we must give culminating who we are in our biggest learning experiences in order to graduate sitting as a panel member Kingsley told me that he would not like to change a thing about the school after hearing our about our Hands-On culture and Adventures to the Alaskan Arctic Hawaii the florid and coral reefs just to name a few I told him that I wish every student had the opportunities I've had to explore and learn in the extraordinary way I have here Kingsley spoke joyously at our graduation about what a
154special Community he saw in Polaris I now find myself in the position of feeling betrayed by the People by by what I see as the Protectors of our education people that are supposed to have the students best interest in mind hearing leaders use my name in what I wished for students as reasoning to cut up and essentially destroy what so many of us love and learned from is not only hurtful to me but to every kid in school and every kid waiting in line for a chance and a new education mindset my words have been Twisted to use against me and my peers these decisions go against everything I tried to convey and against everything we were told about growing and preserving our culture Kingsley told plis on Monday in an assembly that he did
155not want to be disingenuous is this not entirely disingenuous I believe this to conclude your remarks I believe it is an injustice and so I urge the board to consider how we value education how we value our students opinions and how we value the ethicality of leaders decisions so I ask you sorry but we're trying to be Equitable here thank you our next speaker is Andy Cobb welcome hi I'm Andy cob and and I work over at Centennial High School um I'm not going to lie I don't think I can read my entire thing after new information coming out so I don't feel like that was a great I mean I'm very appreciative of the move I also have no idea what I'm doing right now um but because I need to write things down
156and I am an external processor I feel like maybe this would be a great opportunity to drag you all along with me so you just kind of are hearing what I am what I'm hearing um and if I'm wrong like by all means and of course the things that I wrote down are my concerns they're not necessarily the things that are to be celebrated and I think that there were things here today that are meant to be celebrated um the first thing that I'm hearing is alternative schools are growing um you use on it's on the up um and it feels really hard um it's hard to understand that these are the first schools to be chosen and um that's really difficult for me at least to process um we're still the ones that are
157getting moved um it's impacting specifically the alternative education Community um it's hard to not feel targeted um centennials location is absolutely important to our population and I appreciate you bringing that up however I also understand that there's a need with another one it just feels like we're removing one inequity and putting it on another group um I absolutely think that Cooper's home and the rest of the crew that's plan that in that plan to be in our scho in centennials building um they absolutely deserve the equities that are needed they are necessary um I'm also unsure about where we are and saving on our budget I don't know where that is um and then also that the Westend is struggling and I feel like we're being put into a corner just to be as transparent
158as possible um I only have 7even seconds left but all I really have to say here is that change can't be a top- down process I understand that there's a need to get created creative with the District budget but it cannot be at the expense of our children thank you our next speaker is Alex diaba Jaba okay I apologize welcome no worries hello yes I also had to switch up my whole speech but I'm Alex Jaba I work at Centennial High School um this past week the ACT of the superintendent have caused the stakeholders to lose a massive amount of trust in this hire Administration I do appreciate your ability to read the room and change course after seeing all the kids out front and seeing us walk out of schools for the last couple
159of days However the fact is that actions speak louder than words your action of declaring a directive towards the stakeholders of this District without any transparency of how this plan came to be where it came from um has caused many of us to wonder about your decision-making process the fact that you chose not to consider the options of the stakeholders before we rallied and wrote and chanted raises questions about your value in the voice of our community you may say that you value our opinions right now you may hold Community engagement sessions but what will show us that you truly do value our voice and board members this goes for you too um and elected board members that come in will be your implementation of our opinions and thoughts these proposed engagement sessions are the
160bare minimum requirement for the changes that lie before us if the ratio of our voices to yours matches that of this board meeting that is not Community engagement secondly the step after these sessions is to compensate those that have and will put hours of effort into creating a plan that has a chance at working another voice that I want to put into this uh session today is from PCA their building has not changed why are we waiting until now to consider changing it I hope that your plan does not wait until next school year to address that issue they deserve intention true engagement and consideration please do not discount their service and their needs one thing that I want to make clear is that we will not and must not forget about this we will
161not stop advocating for our students needs we are separate schools yes but we are one community and we will work together as one thank you thank you our next speaker is Kim donigan welcome [Applause] hi thank you for the opportunity to speak I'm Kim donigan she her I've been a teacher at Centennial High School for 20 years and a Polaris parent for 10 I stand here with gratitude at uh with the additional time and asking that we proceed with caution moving forward it makes sense that PSD wants to consolidate programs to secure their future and to grow successful programs where kids like my own are thriving it does not make sense to ignore fundamental principles of these programs like small class sizes and individual appreciation it makes sense that programs for our young adults at
162the Cooper home and communities connections programs need better facilities access to CSU and busing it does not make sense to house the programs in a 116 yearold building that is not ADA Compliant where a body students complain to me daily that the stairs are killing them onethird of this District's strategic plan is mental health and belonging which is critical to honor moving forward all students at all these schools have a high percentage of IEPs and 504s each has an incl inclusive programming for students with high cognitive Andor social emotional needs all of these programs serve students whose individual needs must be met for these students small class sizes and personal relationships are why they feels seen and heard at school in psd's norms for collaboration we agree to consider impact over intention especially when Equity
163centered please consider the impact of making these important changes without all details finally considered please Engage The Brilliance of the community Embrace this opportunity for Innovative and uh collaborative change please use a trauma informed approach that handles large changes in a way that those triggered can feel safe like many of the 504s and IEPs we honor in each of these learning environments every day we are just asking for extended time and that you meet our individual needs thank you thank you pardon me our next speaker is BJ Miller welcome you see the waiting list at Polaris as an opportunity to expand elel we agree we want to do it but let's talk about the wait list families sign up not because of elel but because of the community it is fostered and created we accomplish
164this by one small class sizes especially in elementary where the waiting list is the longest two prioritizing inclusivity for kids on the Spectrum and lgbtq kids there are families who have moved across state lines to come here because their kids were not safe proactive support for 504 is not EP sorry every year the counselor at Polaris calls me to review the 504s like not the other way around um four student L learning Polaris uses P's instead of finals teaching our kids to Advocate and be responsible families five who choose Polaris to opt in a program that foros other transitional activities like sports and band in favor of these custom curriculum and Expeditions six multi AG learning environments that span the school in kindergarten my oldest Sky had a buddy Ben from middle school who came
165to read in Julie's classroom and teach him they became friends and that boy came to at least a half a dozen of Sky's birthday parties in a cape before he moved away Polaris is a high performing school not because it's an El school but because it prioritizes deliberate community building the current plan by splitting the school will destroy the very fabric Polaris and will ultimately result in the dissolution of a top performing highly desired school and the act in the acceleration of the attrition in the other two who aren't necessarily opting in the solution is number one reconsider how to move these populations into buildings two prioritize protecting this vulnerable Community keep the K12 together three engage the teachers parents students and and District Fe and folks who work there in Creative problem solving for
166how to successfully grow El students in the district or schools lastly please learn about the strengths of Polaris and how to keep them thank you our next speaker is Tony dearo welcome hi my name is is Tony De Janeiro and tonight I'll be reading a statement on behalf of Maddie seber a graduate of several of the affected schools at my Polaris graduation in 2022 I spoke about Adventure how this school Fosters exploration in every student my one year at Polaris was the most impactful year of my schooling I spent 3 years at Rocky Mountain High School and learned that not every school works works for every student traditional learning models did not work for me and so I opted into Polaris I found a rich neurodiverse community and a safe space that is unique to
167Polaris Polaris Fosters Community from the youngest kindergartner to the oldest staff member Polaris is strongest together we are crew not passengers before polarus I utilized School of choice to attend bevens Middle School the students at bevens are high needs and their teachers are well equipped to handle the Specialized Care and treatment the students require as incredible as both Schools are they are not the same their students needs are entirely different Len students deserve a stable safe environment and I do not think that this change is fair for them I also attended olander for elementary school because it is psd's only project-based learning school the proposed merger risks losing not only the E model but the pbl model as well I loved olander because of the pbl model having the option to choose your education between
168models like e and pbl is something that makes PSD unique and something I thought PSD valued my question for you tonight is what is your plan to continue to provide a variet of school environments to meet the needs of all the various students thank you thank you our next our next speaker is Elizabeth ripma welcome good evening um I too have had to make some revisions on the spot see everyone revises writing um I want to thank the members of the school board members of cabinet and Mr Kingsley for the time and opportunity to speak to all of you my name is Beth Lewis RMA and I've been a teacher at Centennial High School for 17 years to begin I want to say that I understand and I appreciate the board's dilemma and I understand
169big picture thinking as well as the need for change I also know that for change to be effective it must be well planned and well timed so I thank you if you truly are delaying the vote because the proposed timeline for merging PCA in Centennial High School would not have allowed for the quality planning necessary to build effective programming for students as we look to the Future let us not forget the present and the current graduation promises made to our students last spring during registration all stakeholders at all of the schools affected would probably have made different decisions if we had known then that these changes were being discussed and planned so transparency moving forward will be essential both Tim and Welling communities were given upwards of 18 months advanced notice to plan for boundary
170changes in in addition seniors at Fossil Ridge and pter high schools were allowed to stay and graduate from the same High School in which they started the alternative seniors at my site and the students and families at all schools being impacted deserve the same respect treatment and timeline so I do implore that you give us that time I would like to end by saying that all all of psd's most vulnerable Learners were targeted first by these mergers and the cost will be the graduation and mental health of real human children if these changes are not handled with care and time there's been a lot of planning around facilities and finances now it's time to slow down change the timeline and consider our most valuable asset in PSD the students and their families thank you thank
171you our next speaker our next speaker is Cammy Moser [Applause] welcome hello my name is Cammy and I'm a junior at Centennial High School and this is my story I have attended in Centennial since my freshman year and a week before I was supposed to attend I was expelled from pter for the possession of marijuana I was ditching school doing drugs with my friends and feeling out of control I called Mike Roberts our formal principal and asked if I would still be able to attend Centennial High School he told me we would love to have you those words made me realize I have a second chance at a new home Centennial knew my story at pter but they did not let the knowledge of my actions in the past Define me I found a new
172place that cared for me as a human being I didn't think I could ever love attending school I was treated with kindness and care when I first walked through those doors through Discovery I started to make change getting my voice heard in getting to heal from my past Centennial listened comforted me and helped Centennial changed changed my life for the better when the student body of Centennial heard the changes you were making we were all crushed I realized that day I could lose my family this space I find peace and hope for my future there were times where Centennial was the only place I could turn for love and support they did it when nobody else wanted me my story is one of many I represent the voice of sentennial students who want to keep
173their home I am angry and I am hurt myself and others have worked so hard to get here and now we just get it ripped out from right under us a small student body is so important to Centennial it helps us to feel closer to one another it keeps our culture I think it's very important to have three different programs each student picked these schools to fit their needs and not every school works for our kids that's why combining is not beneficial for our students it will combine two separate homes together with no time to adjust I want you to hear from a student about what we are hoping for ideally this change would not happen at all if it must happen the least that we can ask for is more time to collaborate with
174the pter Community Academy to make a quality program that will help all of us like has helped me and so so many others thank you thank you our final speaker this evening is Alexander aosta welcome welcome my name is Alexander and I'm a student at Centennial High School today I stand before you to discuss the importance of preserving Centennial a school has made a significant impact on my life and countless others my educational Journey has not been without challenges I began high school at Colorado early colleges where I struggled with academic performance and po decision making the the potential of explosion loomed over me leaving me to withdraw from the school to prevent a permanent mark on my record my experiences at foo Hills High School in Henderson nadaa and Windsor high school did not
175bring the desired change the pattern of skipping class smoking and conflicts continued then I arrived at Centennial High School with preconceived notions that it was a place for troubled students however to my surprise I found a student body determined to make positive changes in their lives it was a Discovery program at Centennial that showed me hope to graduate I've been told that I was going to graduate a year late and I had thoughts of dropping out but post Discovery I started take earning A's and B's and adding taking additional classes outside of school now I'm on track to graduate early my perspective on education underwent a transformation um once I dreaded going to school but now I embrace it the incredible staff and students at Centennial have created a you unique and supportive culture that
176you won't find anywhere else I firmly believe that the proposed changes of Centennial Polaris and PCA is a detrimental idea each of these schools in play uh employes distinct learning curriculums that cater the needs to each students when the news of the merger broke up I was I was devastated but not only me the entire Centennial Community we are more than just a school we are a family I've spoken from with students from PCA and they share their same concerns but we all recognize that because we all recognize we learn in different ways today I implore you to consider the the generations of families who have attended Centennial and the desire to provide future generations with the option of experiencing this remarkable school let us preserve Centennial High School a place that has not only
177changed my life but has the potential to change countless others thank you for your time and consideration thank you all right with that uh we'll looks like folks are going to stay it's rare actually when we have Community comment and it's done everybody sort of leaves so I'm I'm glad that you're going to stay and and listen to the dialogue that happens now um I don't know Brian whether you wanted to say anything to start with okay fine good then we will uh open it up for board uh reports and commentary and reaction and wherever we're going to go with this so who would like to start you oh did you want to start DJ DJ go ahead yeah I raised my hand but I I also am changing a lot of stuff that I
178had thought about and wrote um I think first I really want to start with saying I apologize for my own actions um I know better and and uh I should have said some stuff before um I I want to thank you all for being so engaged though public education needs this it needs it badly it needs it not just for your school but for public education and it has been taking a beating um it was mentioned already that Colorado does not f fund education correctly I've I have been working volunteering time for over 10 years trying to make a change for that and uh there are a lot of great groups out there a lot of great people trying to make that change but it's going to take the community and the people to stand
179up and be active so I appreciate you being that way I really appreciate the comments too about the understanding that it is all connected in the fact of our schools your schools the district I have had the enjoyment of being around Polaris um and centennials graduations are both of those have been some of the favorite recharging events to get through a school year sometimes and um the last two speakers to uh speak I think gives you a taste of what the rose ceremony is like and I cannot recommend it enough for people to attend and and hear those stories uh I've really enjoyed well I a lot of emails a lot of conversations have happened uh there have been a lot of great ideas thoughts and concerns brought up and I and I think for
180us to move forward we got to keep that communication going and we've got to figure out a way to make to make it work and as was said earlier there there is not probably a way to make everybody happy but we need to make sure that we're giving our students the best opportunities they have and so I do ask that you think about that and and know that we all all of us whenever we talk that is our priority um I I have uh I really enjoy student voice uh I and so again last two speakers really jump out to me at all there's also a great some great emails that we've gotten from from students that I really appreciate um and and one of them uh she ended it by listing at from Centennial
181she was a graduate of Centennial listing different staff members and all the stuff that she has learned from each one of them and it was uh it was beautiful and I to me that is what Centennial is is it is those people and I hope that we can get past the idea of the buildings are are a building and it's the people that make the difference it really really is the teachers and the students that make that Community same with Polaris it is those and so we have to find a way to be able to use that to our advantage and I'm I'm inspired by a lot of the comments about doing that so I appreciate that because it really is the staff and and the students that are going to make that that kind
182of connection and that's what we really want I got to say I've um with Polaris uh I was um I was excited a little bit by the idea of of being able to take it bigger and take it into two different schools I think it is such an awesome program uh but you all have brought up a lot of great ideas and concerns that you know I didn't think of uh and I think that is that is great and we got to work through those um again there's going to be some hard decisions there's some really hard decisions coming up and uh personally I even though they are very hard decisions I I'm I'm hurt that I won't be here to help uh with those not that I'm completely going to go away because I've
183got a loud mouth um but I think it's important that we we realize this and people that have been looking at the budget of Colorado and how we fund education has been seeing this and we've been we've been raising the red flag for a long time and it it is something that is it is it is hard to comprehend and it really is easier when it starts to get to your school and it really is in your face and I'm sorry it had to get to that point and I hope that we can start to look for solutions to make sure that we're meeting our needs of our students we have lots of needs and it was brought up a few times that um our most disadvantaged students and that we were targeting them I'm
184going to share with you on my point of view on that is yes they we were targeting them because we wanted to fix that for them right away and and I know that I'm I'm hearing that it definitely didn't come across that way but I know personally that the reason why I was excited by those kind of talks is because those kids have been we haven't addressed those things for a long time and so I was very happy that we were targeting or going after that because these kids deserve it they deserve a better space they deserve to have more opportunities to be able to be a part of these great programs um I hope you guys stay involved um oh the one other thing I did want to say is there was a lot
185of um comments about Mr Kingsley and I want to you know I I have poked and prodded and pushed at times but he is doing what we have asked for when we hired someone and that's to take some big swings did it come out right no we've learned and and I'm very proud of of what he's had to say up here about acknowledging that and trying to make a difference and that's the kind of leadership that we need to be able to work with because there have been many times that things need to happen in this district and we end up just having these Community talks and talk and talk and nothing ever happens and so as a board as a board member I was looking for a superintendent end who's willing to take those
186those conversations and so I am very happy that we're having these conversations I'm happy that we're moving forward because we are a great Community we have a great school system and we have got to work together to tighten things up so that we have opportunities for all kids all kids and that is um that's what I would like you all to take away is that we really want to help help all kids and I'm sure I forgot something uh but thank you and please stay involved all right who would like to go next Jess do you want to go next that's fine I'll try to be brief sorry I only got a month left got to work it in Fair um I think I'm going to start where you ended we did charge Mr Kingsley
187with bold leaders ship and I think he's shown you his empath that he's empathetic enough to iterate he's empathetic enough to listen and to change course so that we can do this work together um I'll let you know that I was very excited about this plan in the first place because I think we are considering marginalized students first I 100% understand that is not how it felt but that is how I interpreted this plan initially and I was very excited about that um because we've known that we've have challenges for a long time and I like this plan because it it didn't just present a challenge it was saying where is the opportunity as we grapple with how we need to shift how we use our spaces um I think students tonight told us what
188they needed though that's important students are who we serve first and they told us what they needed and we need to listen to that I hope that I've I've heard you clear clearly that you are ready you're you will not stop advocating for your schools and your programs which is exactly what we need I heard that we have a Brilliance of community and I 100% believe that and we see it tonight we're going to need that so that we can move the mountains we have ahead of us but we can do that together I am so incredibly proud that in one week you guys have organized in a way I just I I'm impressed that's inspiring right um and we're going to need that we're going to need your help and I hope you'll be
189on this journey with us thanks thank you Jess looks like we're going down the row Carolyn go ahead I thought I I wouldn't break that up so um I think I'm going to reiterate what uh DJ and Jess said is that that I'm going to take ownership in my part in this um we did charged the superintendent with taking bold swings and and hitting our problems headon and this one landed like a lead balloon because we didn't do what we're good at and what we're good at is community engagement somebody pointed out all the time that we took and all of our other big decisions and we failed we failed this time we didn't um we we just didn't do what we should have done and I apologize for that that's on us we let
190you guys down and I'm sorry for that but one thing I did learn during this whole process is like how much people in this community do care about pter school district how much they care about their schools um I'm a product of PSD my children are I I grew up here I grew up actually out in Wellington where a high school was closed in 1962 and we all ended up at um as Impalas instead so out of those school closings came a really strong new school and so I'm encouraged by that and I'm encouraged that that as a community Community we're going to work together to get through this to get to the right answers that this community can support and I I I pledge to you that that we're going to listen to you
191and that this is going to be an active listening session where the community really gets to have a say in what's going to happen here and so I really appreciate you all coming tonight sharing your stories and um and kind of um I don't know aligning us back to to our our priorities thank you Nate are you going to follow the the uh order sure go right ahead I want to thank thank everyone for coming out and speaking up and for all all your thoughts and all the emails that we received in the last several days um it really helps and I thought uh Community engagement tonight was helpful and um it was nicely book ended by Alexander talking about what's special at his school and uh Miss Condit um asking for an authentic process
192of community engagement and I too thought that this was a proposal that uh merited consideration and I think that moving forward we're going to need to get a lot more input about uh the potential for changes but I think uh the reality as I see it is that we're going to uh end up with something that's fairly traumatic and fairly disruptive for whoever is involved and um I hope that it can be handled with Grace and I only have another month left on the board after 8 years but I'm going to still stay involved and I hope that you all stay involved because uh the community voice really matters and I appreciate it thanks I think that goes to you Jim if you're okay with that sounds good thanks for all the community comment tonight
193that was that was great I I feel like I really let the community down on this one uh this change needed your engagement and we just didn't do that effectively so I I'm sorry I apologize for my part of that and I'll work to do better on that that said we do have some hard problems to deal with in PSD that we've you know that's come up over and over again uh this pause enables us time to engage the community and we will do that with full Fidelity trust us on that uh we want and we need your input maybe a final thing that I would say is long ago now when my kids were uh attended PSD schools um I worried about two things I worried about my kids and my school all right
194my kids my school and then two years ago I got on the school board and I got this whole different view of the district and and all the different schools and we visit so many schools every we we each of us visits seven schools every year and I get these New Perspectives about the different schools as we enter into these hard discussions that we're going to have if we're all focused like I was sadly on my school my child uh we're just going to fail we're just going to fail so um what'll happen is we'll wind up fighting each other for scarce resources and it's we're just not going to make the progress that we need to make so my I guess what I'm begging each of you is to please broaden any my school
195my child thinking that's perfectly normal and important obviously but I I'm I'm begging each of you to broaden any my school my child thinking into our district our community kind of thinking because that's what we're going to need to make all this work our district our community thanks thanks Jim you want me to go okay um so I want to thank you all for coming and speaking to your truths and helping to educate us about um what needs to be done and how it needs to be done so there's no question about that thank you very much I want to also share some perspective about how we got here and why it's important our enrollment Decline and the lack of efficiency in how we use our buildings our facilities has been clear for several years
196I've been pushing Brian and his predecessor to try to do something about this to get a plan together to begin to address it for many years that I've been on the board um Brian consulted me on this on this proposal and for some of the reasons that were shared by some of my peers I was enthusiastic about it I because I do think it will be good we heard so much about the benefits of uh each of these schools and how they help uh students and we want to ensure the future of those schools and we want to ensure more kids have opportunities for those things clearly we've heard from you that there are nuances for lack of a better word factors specifics that need to be better considered by us in the planning that
197goes into that and your willingness to be engaged in those in those discussions is going to be key along with the kind of a a mindset discussion that that Jim talked about or mindset that Jim talked about I want to share that pardon me nothing that's been announced tonight by superintendent Kingsley or our action in delaying the resolution changes the pro the nature of the problem that is going to need to be solved and I so much appreciate that many of you have acknowledged that there is a challenge in front of us and that you are prepared to work with the district and the new board because I'm also term limited here and I'll be out in November uh so that's why I'm speaking about it in that way and I'm sort of sorry uh
198to not be here to at least in this part of the position to try to help get this right but I want to address a few misconceptions as we discuss this and then I'll Circle back on on where we go next right we we have had people say there isn't a problem right in some of the emails right mostly not tonight okay so I want to be clear that some of the things I'm addressing here are things we've seen and heard in other forums but I want to share with you in addition to the kindergarten statistics that superintendent Kingsley talked about where we're talking about 1,600 uh where uh in kindergarten this year roughly when we normally have 2,000 um we have about and it depends on what numbers you use for capacities on the
199schools so you know but about somewhere between 1.5 and 3,000 Elementary seats that don't have students in them across our schools if you think about that that's uh what that's three three to six elementary schools if we were to be at full capacity on all of our schools as we as we need them as we should be to to be faithful stewards of our resources in the Middle School Arena we have about, 1500 more seats than we have students that's about two middle schools give or take right these numbers aren't exact and there are things to be taken into account you may not want every school at full capacity or whatever but I but it it it is I'm trying to give you a sense of another way to look at this problem right or
200another way to look at the challenges that we're facing right uh superintendent Kingsley mentioned uh a 10% number in terms of decline demographers are suggesting that over the next 5 to seven years we're going to be at 10% less enrollment we have a budget of about 350 to 400 $ million something like that right you take 10% out of that budget which is I mean if you lose 10% of the students you're going to lose most of that money right you're talking $ 35 to $40 million that's a serious problem right so we need to figure out how we're going to address that and to address the concern that somebody raised about you know this data doesn't look like what it is on the CDE site we need to be clear about why there's that
201distinction between what you see on the CDE site and what the reality of our funding models and stuff is or the the our F our funded pupil count and that's on us and we need to be better about that and we're going to we're going to start doing that and I'm sure that'll be part of the Outreach and engagement process right we talk about we talk about birth rates and whatnot I was just reading an article earlier that in the United States there were 900,000 less babies born than five years ago right now United States is a big country whatever right but we we're not immune from that Trend and we're especially not immune from it because our housing prices are so high so you have you have um young families want to can't afford
202to move here can't afford to start a start a family and and and be in elementary school right we've had I had at least one uh person probably more say oh this is a and speaking about housing this is a city housing problem it's really the city's problem to solve right because they haven't gotten housing straight in the in the in the in the city uh and Pres ably in the region although I think that person was talking about Fort Collins yeah yeah maybe you know the city has been trying to deal with that problem and you may agree or disagree with how they're trying to deal with it I get that but first of all the problem isn't going to be solved in the near future even if they come up with a plan
203and secondly it's our our budget is not based on whether the the city is making a mistake or not right so again we've got a budgetary issue to deal with here right I've heard oh there's too much overhead in central office we're paying the superintendent too much you know I I I get that as a sort of a gut sort of knee-jerk reaction but the reality is if we're talking about a 35 to 45 $40 million problem there ain't that much overhead and we're not paying the superintendent $40 million so you know that we also have to be realistic about that kind of thing we have stop Choice it's it's we shouldn't be doing choice in the district if we only do that then our neighborhood schools would be in good shape well of course
204many of you are here representing schools that are choice schools right so what about that and oh by the way it's illegal we have to allow choice you know within the capacity of the schools so that's another thing that needs to be taken into account right we also have oh eliminate the charters the charters are somehow responsible for this superintendent Kingsley talked a little bit about the numbers on that but the reality also is it's not legal for us to refuse a charter just because we don't want competition we could we could try to do that I guess but what'll happen is it'll get overruled at the State Board of Education and we're we're just going to be back where we started you know so and and then I think something that's those are probably
205more isolated things although I I think there's going to be some thought that we could reboundary our way out of this thing that you know if we just move all the students around then all the schools would have enough things off enough space but if you think about what I said earlier about uh about 1500 Middle School seats being empty and and what was it uh you know maybe 2,000 plus elementary schools being uh seats being empty moving all the boundaries around is not going to solve the problem by itself because you're just going to make a bunch of smaller schools right that's the way the math works right so so that's something to think about as you all we all as I'm going to be a me continue to be a member of the
206community if I'm not on the board uh uh need to think about as we're engaging in this process right and I guess one thing I want to say is I've and I'm going to quote this thing this this directly from one of the emails that I got it is quote our school is not available as a solution to enrollment issues which school is every school in the District as superintendent kingsy alluded to and as you all spoke eloquently to with respect to your schools uh feels that they are doing great work that they serve important kids in important ways in some cases not like any other school and so how so we need so how do we how do we deal with that right in the end that gets to what I think Jim was
207alluding to and I think others on the board were alluding to and certainly superintendent Kingsley was alluding to that in the end we're not everybody's going to be happy with the result whatever the result turns out to be it's just it's just a reality of a smaller budget pie spread across 54 schools and this is a problem sorry I'm getting excited about this this is a problem that we should have been dealing with before right in in a more incremental way and superintendent Kingsley as we have charged him is trying to deal with this now so that we don't have a $40 million problem five years from now right where we got to start cutting staff and just lopping off schools willy-nilly and whatever right because uh we do owe our staff uh the respect
208they deserve and and the salaries and and living wages that we can provide them so less money reasonable salaries means less St right I mean again the 80% 80 85% I don't know something like that of our budget is salaries so anyway I having said all that I just throw that out in the room because I'm I'm not going to be up here in a month and a half and by God that's going to be hard because I care a lot about this District but but I wanted to a as you consider as you promise as we promise as superintendent Kingsley promises to engage in a constructive and meaningful dialogue about how we address the issues that that he has outlined and that I just alluded to in some pieces I ask you to consider
209those kind of factors and think about what real solutions look like uh and I so much again appreciate your willingness to come out and to share these things I think the new board and the superintendent are going to face some very hard decisions and they're going to need your help and your support to make them successful for our students and to help our community to accept that there are going to be some sacrifices here somewhere you know to be able to make this to pull this off so again um I'm just quickly looking at my notes here thank you very much I look forward to your continued enthusiasm to and engagement in this process and I can assure you that I will do the same just from a different position so thank you again I
210know Kristen you'd like to speak thank you um and I just want to I mean once again thank everybody who came out here who is in our um overflow room who's still outside um just thank you so much for showing how much you care about um the school district it is such a pleasure to see so many people who um care about what's happening um um so thank you for that I want to I just want to really have people understand that this board myself as vice president charged superintendent Kingsley to make bold decisions we asked him to swing for the fences we asked him to do this and he is the first superintendent that we've ever asked to actually do it he is the first leader that we have had that actually has made
211bold choices he is the first leader that we have had that has looked at every single student and said what can I do that is best for every student and with that when we talk about you know people I know people asked both in emails in phone calls in text messages in Facebook messages that I got um tonight um people asked why this Community First why did you go for our most vulnerable Community First and the answer is because he cares about the vulnerable Community he wants to make sure as do we as a board want to make sure that this community is safe this community is resilient this community has what they need and I speak from experience I have a parent of an lgbtqia Plus student that graduated in 2016 who did not
212have have those experiences I speak as a as a parent of a graduate from PCA who got to have the experience of an alternative high school and it saved her so when we are talking about the most vulnerable and putting those schools on solid footing we are doing it from a place of caring we are doing it from a place of understanding now I understand I I I want to reiterate that impact versus intent I I get I get that I get that the that was not the impact for y'all and I apologize for that and I apologize as well it is on me as the vice president I did not go ahead and reiterate the why why does this need to happen and why now sure we could wait a year or two years
213why not wait until I'm off the board and I don't have to do this because this is hard this is difficult but I think and I think my colleagues agree and I know superintendent Kingsley does that this is the time this is the right time we have the right people here we have the right people to work with we have the right people here to work with and we know our Focus we want to make sure that people have what they need when they need it I had students who did not have what they needed when they needed it and that is why I sit on this board and have for the last six years and how will be for two more um again I I apologize um my failure in this was not to
214explain the why there is a significant why as you heard from from um president Patterson and superintendent Kingsley there is a significant why um we need to do a better job of explaining that why we need to do a better job of explaining why that we need to not only be talking about these schools and saving what we have here but all are we need to be talking about it as a district we need to make sure that our district is strong we need to make sure that our kids are doing well in our district again to what Jim said not thinking about my school and my kids but thinking about our kids and our school and I'm sorry if this doesn't land well with you but you know it it's one of those this
215is what our our charges is to think about our kids these are our kids so I would like you know just I would again like to thank you all for being here I would like to thank you for um sharing what you have shared I want you to know that um I intend to do better um and I want you to again just understand this was what we had asked for um I will close with with um this as we as we go forward um we as a board are going to have to be um humble but strong listen to community um and we're going to have to make hard decisions we are not going to be able to push this down the road any further which is not um but we are PSD and
216we can do hard things so thank you is there any yes Carolyn go ahead on a different note I know we've been talking a lot tonight about the change in the board and so I'd like to take this opportunity right now to welcome one of our newest board members who's sitting at the back of the room Scott sh brener would you stand up and wave this Scott will be joining the board on um um nove in November and Scott we're looking forward to working with you and thank you for showing up tonight and listening and um for being here so um I hope everybody will give them a a big welcome are there any I know you want to say something but are there any other comments from the board at this time all right
217I believe superintendent Kingsley would like to make some additional remarks on this topic I know it's late so I promise to be super brief and I know we're all tired and you've been active and I I appreciate that you know not only am I a leader in this community but I I hope and aspire to be a lead learner I shared with you in my presentation that I Aspire and hopeful that I can model to be a student of this district and as you hold me accountable to my actions it doesn't fall short on me that every principal every assistant principal every teacher every bus driver every par professional kitchen staff worker department chair is paying attention to every decision that I make personally and professionally that's the job and I don't want to be
218just measured on being a bold leader I also want to be measured by being humble and not allowing my ego to get in the way of this community's voice and what I learned from you over the past two weeks is that what works in one Community doesn't necessarily work in another my intentions were great they could have and I wish that they landed better it was not about targeting it was about prioritizing but I feel like your feedback is valid your emotions are valid and there the feedback is fair I'll close with this that over the weekend as I was wrestling with my emotions kind of responding to your emotions and trying to make sense of what best to do next as a leader I happen to stumble upon uh a brief podcast that talked
219a little bit about at a high level a soccer team and a soccer coach in Thailand uh over the last couple of years who were on a field trip visiting these caves and unexpected the water Rose in and these children and their coach were trapped and they had limited oxygen and very little time to survive and as I was learning more about this experience what was fascinating is the government kind of just all hands on deck the Thai Navy the United States military got involved all these local bureaucratic leaders got involved one of the things that they were grappling with was they had local divers local fishermen people Who provided tours in the cave that were volunteering and clamoring at please let us go save those children and the government initially was conflicted of I
220don't know if I can trust you I don't know about your expertise I'm not really sure what you're capable of and the Optics of these changes of what the situation that was happening was Global at the time and what was great about this situation is that the Thai govern government humbled themselves and asked the local fishermen divers to do what they do best and trusted them to go and save those children they actually had to swim over a mile underwater to get them and then bring the children back not knowing how much oxygen they can carry with them all of those people to my knowledge survived as a result of trust as a result of taking a chance as that young person said earlier today like you I am human but I share with you
221and I will reveal it to you in my actions not just my words that my heart for you and what this thinks differently I appreciate the charge of this board to trust me I will be vulnerable and share that I get incredibly frustrated at problem admiration and that's a blind spot that I need to be reflective of to ensure as we're moving forward that we're thoughtful in our engagement processes this community deserves action it deserves leadership but I'm hopeful that you see in my actions that it also deserves humility a lack of ego and a desire to do better when they know better I appreciate all of you I'm grateful for learning the opportunity to learn from you tonight and throughout the course of the last couple weeks and I look forward to serving you
222in the future thank you anything else from the board on this topic all right um I suspect the rest of you're not going to want to sit around for the consent agenda and and and the like so you're certainly welcome to it's public meeting you can stay here for the rest of this there is actually an important discussion of of our uh of our uh bullying bullying prevention policy that's going to happen maybe in about 10 minutes or something it is late though so you can watch that on YouTube if if you want uh again we really appreciate you're taking the time to come and share your perspective and we look forward to working with you on these challenges going forward we will take what time is it we will take we we will now
223go into recess for and come back out at 5 minutes after 10 thank you e one minute Jim brokish yes roll it please sorry five yeah Phil go all right thank you all for two things uh one for coming back promptly I appreciate that I think it's important that we respect people's time as much as possible and also thank you for being willing to engage with the rest of this meeting I know the the the first part of this meeting was quite uh quite emotional and there was a lot of important stuff that went on there so not not uh um minimizing that at all but we also have other important business that needs to get done and we also believe it or not have agendas that are stacking up so that's why I didn't
224want to just postpone this topic so the first thing we need to do actually which is which is just ordinary business is the consent agenda would any board members like to pull anything from the consent agenda I heard a no and I see nobody saying yes I want to give a shout out to our sro's for sticking around and thank you for working thank you so much and for the security team and the whole security team thank you so much we really appreciate it we want to make sure that everybody's safe and had the opportunity to participate so thank you for bringing that out DJ now I don't think anybody has expressed an interest in taking anything from the from the consent agenda so may I get a motion with respect to the consent agenda
225Nate likes to do that so we'll let Nate do that I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items of on the consent agenda thank you so much do I have a oh Carolyn's already got her second fingers up there okay cool yeah okay so Jill would you please call a vote on the consent agenda DJ Anderson hi Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan hi Kristen Draper hi Rob Patterson hi Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion passes 70 all right and our last item for this evening our last item for this evening you don't know what's funny can we the last item for the evening last item for the evening we're all in sort of yeah anyway uh yes I understand uh we we do have an important topic here
226though and that is the bullying prevention and education uh policy revisions which I know uh staff has been working on we've certainly expressed concern uh that uh that bullying be addressed uh aggressively if you want to call it that maybe that's a bad word in this context but but uh with uh with uh with importance and urgently and we appreciate that it's part of the uh the Strategic plan some of the Strategic plan work and I think this is an element of that and I look forward to hearing from our staff about uh the revision so Brian I assume you wish to introduce this and we'll go from there yes thank you uh here this evening to provide the bullying prevention and Education First reading and update are our District's General councel Autumn Aspen one
227of our assistant superintendents Dr insun Olen and our senior executive director of student services Miss Liz Davis welcome to all of you thanks for being here thank you and thank you for staying this late really appreciate it okay there we go all right well our last topic tonight is to present a policy update on policy jic CDE which is was mentioned as our bullying prevention and education policy and tonight is coming to the board for a first reading uh typically District policies that go before the board for review and approval are done in two readings and that is so that the board can provide any sort of input or feedback between the readings and then we can incorporate any of that feedback and bring it back for a second reading before the board so normally
228uh when I present policy updates to the board generally we just go right into the policy um revisions proposed revisions but we've got a little more context and we'll try to go a little quickly just because I know it is late but I wanted to just give a quick overview for this presentation so first just provide a quick summary um regarding our history of our bullying policy and our practices in the district on bullying and how it's been in the past and how it is currently then just touch briefly on the distinction between bullying and harassment because we do have a separate policy for harassment of students so just to make sure we're on the same page for the differences there and then provide U summary of the changes there are quite a few changes
229in the proposed policy so we won't go through those line by line but welcome any sort of feedback from the board on anything specific within those proposed changes um then I'll just briefly touch on the stakeholder feedb feedback that we've received so far and then turn it over to Liz Davis and andson to talk through the implementation and training plan and the response protocol for [Music] bullying so um I think right now I'll turn it over to Liz to set some context for us thanks thank you thanks everyone so before Autumn begins we want to emphasize that we are concerned at PSD about our students who experience bullying we know that students who are harmed by bullying are at an increased risk of depression and anxiety we know this can make it difficult to keep
230up with academics and even attend school we know that some of our students are disproportionately impacted by bullying and data and data from the healthy kids Colorado survey demonstrate that bullying exists both Statewide and at PSD the data we will get from this Fall's healthy kids Colorado survey will support reviewing 2 years of data on bullying behaviors due to sexual orientation gender identities religion disability race and physical characteristics we will bring that data to our January update on bullying we take bullying seriously and addressing bullying is not new at PSD as response Protocols are embedded as part of our work in our currentl policies in place our kids are experiencing our world differently now we want to ensure our policies and practices align with current state policy and meet the current needs of our students
231we want to emphasize that it's crucial for all adults to intervene with bullying at school at home in and in our community we do want to thank the board of ed for elevating the need to look at this policy again and we are grateful that bullying prevention and education is elevated and embedded as part of our ongoing work through our strategic plan so Autumn's going to continue to walk us through the details thanks all right so as uh Liz mentioned we've had a protocol in place had a policy in place for a long time in the district in fact uh our first policy for bullying prevention and education was adopted back in 2001 per um Colorado statute 22- 32-19 it should say 0.1 2 a um and since that time we've continuously updated The Bullying
232prevention education policy the last update was in 2016 so it is I think right for review and revision now along with that um under state law the Colorado Department of Education has recently implemented and published a model policy and a guide for best practices for bullying prevention and education and we are required to take a look at that model policy and guidance and then adopt it and align with it with our policy so that is part of the reason why we're also bringing these proposed changes to the board today to ensure that we are aligned with the the new guidance that came out from the state recently so the purpose of the policy and the revisions is really to Define what bullying is and also what it is not to differentiate between conflict harassment and
233bullying and to incorporate recommendations from the Colorado Department of education's model policy but then also to make additional changes that are specific to PSD to ensure that it does fit and work for our district so I do just want to briefly discuss uh the difference between bullying and harassment uh so uh bullying is defined in the CDE model policy as um the use of coion or intimidation to obtain control over another person or to willfully cause physical mental or emotional harm to a student and this may occur um between student to student also between between adults to students for the purposes of this policy it does not address any sort of bullying between two adults that would be addressed in other policies that we have within our district and then also according to the model
234policy and guidance there are generally three types of bullying and those would be physical verbal and relational uh what our policy also does address is what bullying is not and I think that's important to distinguish um under the model policy CDE um states that bullying is not generally teasing or fights between students of equal power or conflict a conflict is considered usually a disagreement or argument between two or more people in which all sides Express their views and this occurs when individuals hold equal power in a relationship but hold different points of views now sometimes teasing could then become bullying so there are some distinct distinctions there and that's what goes into I think what Liz will talk about as far as more training and implementation of the actual policy and turning to harassment harassment
235is um conduct that's based on a protected class which includes disability race Creed color sexual orientation gender identity gender expression family composition marital status religion age national origin ancestry or the need for special education services uh and sometimes bullying may become harassment and that could be uh when those behaviors that are directed at a student are also based on that student's protected class and in those circumstances that behavior is subject to our District policy jbb which addresses um harassment of students and that is a separate policy that we have in our district so now we'll just go over a brief overview of the proposed changes to the policy and for everyone's awareness board and community members uh the entire policy with all the proposed changes is included in full in the board packet and there's
236two versions in there just for ease of um reviewing those the first version shows the changes in Redline so anything that Struck from the current policy has a strike through it and then anything that has been added is underlined and then the board packet also includes a clean version that has all the changes Incorporated in it without the red line so some of the changes that were made um were made to align with the most current updated model policy from CDE from 2022 the policy also updates the purpose and includes more uh inclusive language throughout and the policy has an updated definition of bullying and what we have added that is beyond the model policy is to more clearly Define what bullying is not and then the overlap between bullying and harassment to make sure
237that it is clear um what this policy is really intended for versus the other policies we have in our district we've also added uh some information on the comprehensive program for addressing bullying districtwide which is something that Liz and insun will discuss here in a few minutes and have made revisions to the investigating and responding sections as well as additions relating to the comprehensive supports for students so it looks like there's a lot of changes in the policy and there are but a lot of the intent and spirit of our policy hasn't changed dramatically it's just that we've updated language added full sections and just tried to align with what's in the model policy so it does look like a lot of changes when you're looking at it um since we've been working on the
238proposed revisions we have brought the policy to different stakeholder groups I wanted to just bring that to the board for awareness the main group of individuals in the district who have been working on these changes are staff from student services language culture and Equity Department integrated services and the legal department and then we've taken the changes that that group has um made together and taken them to different stakeholder groups and that includes the district Advisory Board the equity and diversity um advisory Council and cabinet and principles and tonight we are here for the first reading before the board and generally all the stakeholder feedback is done before we bring it to the board but we wanted to make sure that we did get some additional voices to to look at our policies and provide feedback
239so in between the first and second reading we will also bring the policy to the special education advisory committee and also the student advisory committee and then we'll be able to incorporate any of that feedback and bring it to the board before the second reading which believe is tentatively scheduled to come back before the board on November 14th and I will turn it back over to Liz okay thanks AUM okay so our implementation and training plan for this year will focus on the following items number one the update and implementation of the bull bullying prevention policy which we're working on uh and secondly the PSD bullying prevention and education framework SL comprehensive program development this will will include a guide book for Bully bullying prevention and education that reflects comprehensive prevention education and response around
240bullying behaviors Additionally the bpe I know it's an acronym but the bully prevention Education team will design a mandatory professional development training plan to include initial districtwide virtual training for the 2324 school year that will kick off at the start of January we've already started this working with HR on that training thank you Eric so other items include the team is working on developing tier one standards for social emotional programming and other key items we and the team I'm looking at over here and others who aren't represented on the team today will look forward to coming back in January and may to deliver some updates and we're looking forward to that and we're really looking forward to working on the training together alongside HR okay in soon so I get to hello again um I
241get to wrap us up tonight around so what does this what can this look like across our system in our schools um that work with that are front- facing with our students and so um we recogn ize that there's a series of steps that need to be addressed um but there are some flexibilities in the supportive measures um how deep they wrap around Services um and how to engage families in education depending on the actual incident itself so I'm going to run through a generic protocol but through the work that we're getting ready to do we will tighten this up and we will make it PSD friendly so that every staff member through through the training as well as problem solving opportunities in their school can really address the concern provide supports educate where necessary
242and help kids re-engage into their learning as quickly as possible in a safe and productive environment so we assume that a student will have an incident or observe an incident or someone else observes it there's all the iterations here but something has H happened for someone to know something and so we have a reporting Sy system um we have adults in our system we call them trusted adults we have counselors we have mental health supports we have lots of different adults train to address concerns we also have our see something say something website that also um contains our safe to tell and our incident reporting for our school district as well we also know friends are a great advocate for students who are part of or experience or observe um any type of bullying and
243of course our favorite social media which can be used in a very positive way if we um can start it at the very beginning of a trickle versus waiting till the event explodes and everybody gets involved or there's a lack of understanding of what really the original incident was so once um someone makes a report and again oh I'm sorry um parents can also make reports um through the school or through our see something say something or safe to tell as well um and as we know parents also use social media to connect and share concerns um so we are very hope uh we understand that that information can come from different adults that the student may be um involved with um but ultimately we need to get an administrator involved at least with a
244knowledge of what is happening so if um more serious decisions need to be made around safety they can enact those right away but it may be a design in the building depending on how that administrative team um functions together the expected protocol um and system expectations is once an adult within the system or the administrator gets information they must enact on it so they will do some fact finding the who what where when they may not know the why because sometimes bullying you don't dig deep enough right away to know what the Y is and we also have Anonymous reports that kind of create a whole another layer but again an administrator a design a team would um be able to hopefully move through those quicker once they go through the quality training once we
245have some information to know kind of where to go next um based upon the information is provided um supportive measures should be put in for both parties um and safety measures Andor success plans or behavior plans again all depending on um the whole child and what their current status is around supports within the school education and restorative measures are vital to move us forward from repeated bullying acts um what education and restorative measures may look like should be catered to each level meaning elementary middle and high and we will use um our action teams this year to really solidify what those moments can be and we are very um we are very sorry end of evening um we are excited to um ensure that we offer the training and education and restorative measures in lots
246of different ways so there are some students who and families who would rather view that education opportunity at home and talk it through together there are some who want to do it with their trusted adult at school so we need to allow for some flexibility and capacity for that education piece and restorative piece to be part of the students re-engagement and their re-engagement into their learning as quickly as possible as we know that a safe environment is what creates really positive learning movements forward um once we get to a point where supportive measures have been put in place and we recognize maybe some good next steps we really need to also make sure that we're wrapping in our code of conduct and that we're responding accordingly based upon um what we have set forth for
247our district um disciplinary processes um are usually a time apart not an intervention and so we really want to make sure that that re-entry process is as smooth as possible for the student and the family and that the adults who serve that student have a really good understanding of what may have caused the incident and therefore helping to support um the student and their family to use the resources to move forward from situations in the future um and then the last piece that we will need to continue to hone in on is how are we recording all this information um what levels of recording are we doing are we then coming back and reviewing the progress and checking in on the student to make sure that they are continuing to have success re-engaged back into
248their learning environment and then as always when you review your data you want to ensure that there are no gaps in our support services and that our wraparound services are really impactful and will actually help everyone who's involved gain a little bit more clarity maybe some empathy and some ways to work together through some conflict resolution opportunities so this is a way that we can take our policy and enact it within a system so that the adults around our students have the appropriate resources and tools to engage in a conversation with a student so that um maybe we can move further up the waterfall and um students have tools and resources to help maintain a healthy environment for and with each other thank you thank you yes I at the risk of somebody on the
249board throwing something at me I actually have a question uh yeah there you go um fortunately I have the gab over here no seriously I I yeah well then then whoever is next can anyway whatever uh you I know you touched on this Autumn and maybe it's because it's late at night or maybe just I wasn't listening carefully and I apologize could you clarify the difference again between teasing and bullying because it feels to me like as a recipient of bullying through much of my school years or certainly middle school and most of high school you know some of those kids probably thought it was teasing and I felt like I was being picked on like anything so I don't I I'm struggling with where that is I can give U the the definitional difference
250and then I don't know if either in or Liz wants to add more of a school perspective than just the legal um language but what leas is in the model policy is that generally bullying would not be teasing or fights between students of equal power or conflict so bullying I think um some of the the three factors that would really distinguish and make it a bullying incident would be if the behavior is intentional if it's repeated or likely to be repeated and if it's marked by an imbalance of physical social or socio economic power so if those factors are at play then it likely would fall into the bullying side and then um if not then it could potentially be conf which is still something that the school the district do does address it's not
251something that we would then just not um move forward with but it's not considered potentially bullying under the policy and it would be addressed differently and then I can turn it over see if lizer in wants to add to that sure um so I would agree with you that that line is not clear and that the who what where when conversation that we have when we're trying to figure out what happened is vital to distinguishing and making sure that the person who is being perceived bullied or harassed or teased that we walk through probably some of this definition to be honest to get us on the same page but ultimately it's going to be the supportive measure response that's going to be the most impactful and the educational piece I think where we will continue
252to work through and hone in on is is when do those code of conduct pieces have to come into play depending on where we land on how we find out that information I've been an administrator for a very long time in three different districts and I've yet to see an exact this is the moment when it and I don't mean to be factious at all it is just that it's been super hard to actually distinguish when it crosses over and many times as building administrators we're going to provide supports even if we hear it's teasing and then we make some better educational decisions on the information that we find once it crosses the line to bullying okay well I I appreciate that honesty and and transparency about the challenges involved in this um I I
253also want I big ears you know I was I was teased teased bullied what I felt it was bullying for for most of my middle school years about you know oh Rob the monkey and all this stuff you know and it was it was hurtful right so so I I uh I guess I appreciate that there are legal distinctions and therefore some procedural distinctions but I hope that what you said about the administrators uh in our buildings and the counselors and all the other staff that's there uh are willing to work through the issues regardless of what the label on it is you know and don't just say well it's not bullying therefore the policy doesn't apply and you know I I need to move on I have a thousand other problems and I know
254they have a thousand other problems I get that and yet as we heard in another context earlier this evening each kid counts and we need to make them feel like they belong and that they can succeed so enough uh for me I guess anybody else on the board have something oh looks like DJ has something so yeah so um I've got a couple things but the one that is uh gone over in my head quite a bit uh unfortunately um because I was got lucky enough to be a part of the district Advisory Board conversation and um student advisory also um and I and I've read this line where it's the definition of bowling and I've read it quite a few times I went and looked up a few different definitions that were out there
255too and I and I am not a good Wordsmith I am English is not my subject ever but I really I really dislike this first this definition and this line to be in it um um I really think it it's more powerful to have it to have it start off with the buling is to willfully cause physical mental and emotional harm to any student and then you if you want to put the ore and that other stuff in there that's fine but I think this to me that is the key that all of this needs to be based off of and I and I think there's power in it being at the start of the sentence and so um I would really strongly suggest that change that is I yeah so I I I'm going
256to throw that out let you experts figure that out but I I um I just I I really strongly believe that um the the other thing that I that came up that I thought was um it was on page two of the red line one and it talks about what bullying is not and it talks about um the teasing is hostile and um I thought it was very uh my first thing is like who decides if it's hostile because I think Rob gave a great example too of of and I was in the situation too where it felt really hostile to me uh where to other people oh it's you're just teasing you'll get over it it'll be fine um and so I really appreciate and I'm really excited by the guide book that you
257guys talked about and how to help educate I think that really is going to be the huge key to it I'm so excited by that aspect of it and I think that it is going to take time to uh educate and change people's minds about how they see it and look at it um but I think things like that are something that we need to make sure that it's clear about um that the adult needs to to have the Compassion or whatever to uh ask those questions about you know who what and why and stuff and understand if it's if it's hostile to that student and so I just I I want to throw that out there to make sure that that you know can be looked at and maybe there's some better wording how
258to do it or not um and then the the third thing was uh and the district Advisory Board brought this up too is how do we um how do we help the Buller I don't know if it's the right word but the person doing the buling um and so I I think that is another uh important part of this to how you know the education and how do we uh open their mind maybe on some things and so again I'll go back to that guide book I hope that helps that has uh good resources to help our teachers and administrators to help help kind of guide that process so that's the input I had I want to sure thanks so I want who Sorry God so I want to just make sure uh before anybody
259else comments on anything else if anybody had any reactions to what uh DJ said about the specifics changes that he was advocating for uh because you know we're not amending things we're not voting on things tonight there's not nothing formal about it but if we have different guidance or reinforcing guidance from other members of the board it's important that that get out there was there anybody wants to react to that okay I would so okay before I make so other comments or people want to say anything go ahead Carolyn just wanted to say Rob I don't think that your ears are big in my opinion thank you so much I appreciate that and and that was mean of them yeah DN straight it was mean of them but it was but you didn't see his
260ears in middle school so so my only comment is word smithing is tough at 2211 agree that and I that's fair and so what I was going to say after thanking Carolyn for for her for her for her support and sympathy is that um uh this is going to come back on November 14th I realize it's late as jimes pointed out I would ask you all and myself for that matter to rreview the material in the packet because we were somewhat overwhelmed by the other topic that we discussed this evening in terms of facility changes and give it the seriousness and respect that it deserves and do that pretty promptly because we need to let these good people uh know if there are changes that we really care to have made or to be considered
261so that they can think about them before they bring it back on November 14th or or what what's going to happen is we're all going to be like a amending things on the Fly and that's really not good deal generally speaking go ahead let me ask a processed question I heard you talk about the guide book is that digital and and paper right is it going to be both thanks carand uh guide book is to be determined so I think it's really the work of the team to determine the where it's going to live what it's going to look like and you know the goal always is to make things easily accessible for our teachers and our administrators so they'll be thinking about that and yeah do you want to say anything okay all right
262it's just so at some point I'd like to know how we how we end how we land yeah and the annual staff training is that in person or is that um digitally so we want to have something right away to address all the policy changes and get something in our system that's meaningful we've already met about this I'm looking at our team again and um so the reason I get concerned about whether it's going to be in person or digital I I I want to know like how we're going to track it how are we going to make sure that everybody's getting that training right and that everybody's getting the same training as well right so so I I just wonder how we'll track that and how we be entering that into people's uh you
263know uh records and stuff so that we know that that's happened and then the second thing to make sure that everybody's on the same page we're talking about food service workers SRO everybody getting this training right uh I think we're going to start with student facing staff right away okay and I'm looking at Eric and we've had an initi conversation about how to begin to roll it out in likely aligning with our current systems um and then I'm hoping that the committee considers a tiered approach because there might be some populations that need the imperson and some that need um additional information maybe individualized or maybe in a smaller group so I think can I interject that's okay so there there's long range efforts to build out systems that Liz and the team are talking
264about and there's intermediary efforts that we must take as an employer to ensure that there's a common Baseline of knowledge for our employees right and so what I have charged staff in conjunction with HR to do is an intermediary step is to leverage our Vector training system where we have some mandatory trainings that's a step in I don't think that's the end all Beall solution to PD so I want to be very clear about that but I do think we have an obligation as this polic polic potentially gets approved in mid November to educate all staff members on what it is what's their obligations what to think about it uh and how to respond and where to go for help and then we work on all these other things parallel to that work so that's
265that's the charge shortterm and long term Nate I believe you add your hand up yes I've reviewed it and I think it makes good sense I think the implementation is going to be difficult but good luck look thanks thanks any other thoughts from the board it looks like not so first of all I want to thank you all for the work you've done on this uh this policy revision and for your presentation at 10:15 at night 10:20 at night whatever now at 10 now almost 10:45 well I know they didn't start at 10:40 though but still thank you uh and I before I just bang the gabble here I want to thank everybody all the cabinet members all the staff all the security people and the board for staying for this uh meeting so thank
266you again we are adjourned at approximately 10:42 still on October 10th 2023 thank you