001thank you all right uh welcome to the Board of Education meeting of January 24th 2023 it's approximately 6 35 P.M sorry we started a few minutes late we had some other things we were finishing in the dinner session so we are now in order please and if you would uh mute your cell phones so that we don't have uh interruptions that would be really appreciated thank you uh one thing I'll just make an announcement about a reminder really more than an announcement is that for the months of February March and April the Board of Education meetings will be on the first and third uh Tuesdays of the month typically we have them on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month but if we had done that through the throughout the spring we would have
002had a meeting during spring break week and we did not want to do that both for uh our staff so that they can have some time off and also for the community so again February March and April we will be first and third Tuesdays getting back in may we will be back to second and fourth Tuesdays so just uh you can update your calendars to that effect if if you like so as we move on here would any board members like to make changes to the agenda seeing none we will move on to our superintendent's report superintendent Kingsley is up here we have to say thank you so much I appreciate the opportunity to address our community and our staff this evening I hope everybody's well and I'm glad that all of our seats are
003filled this is this is great it's going to be a productive evening uh some of the best memories that I've had over the last couple weeks since we've convened is again having a chance to visit our schools and over the last weekend week and a half I've had an opportunity to spend some really strong quality time in some of our district sponsor Charter Schools as well as some of our traditional public schools and saw real positive things across all of those particular settings you know our families in our community have the incredible luxury of choice uh it's almost like where I can Envision if you throw a dart at a PSD map wherever that Dart lands you can be certain you're going to be able to attend a really strong public school and that makes
004me really proud whether you are at a core knowledge school like Liberty Commons or at a school that's like Compass that's really focused on competency-based learning or Mountain Stage that's that Waldorf model that the Arts are integrated I had an opportunity to see it's really sound teaching in our district sponsored charter schools that I was really proud to have an opportunity to see firsthand one lesson in particular that I saw a compass was a middle school English language arts class where a teacher was asking their students to take a sense a deeper look at the mothers of Malcolm X of Martin Luther King Jr and James Baldwin and try to identify the similarities and differences of the influences that each of those incredible figures had as a result of their mothers and knowing the strong
005role my mom played in my life it made me kind of think deeply about that but it was really incredible to be able to witness the Deep connections deep knowledge that was being the conversation was just incredibly robust and there was a lot of Joy at the center and was one of the most mature inclusive conversations that I've had since I've been here I had an opportunity the very next day to go to Laurel elementary school and I was witnessing their compacted math class and for those of you in the community that might not know what that is it's teaching concentrated mathematics at an accelerated level to try to make sure students have exposure to middle school math before they leave Elementary School and I had an opportunity and this student had no idea that
006I was coming to his school but he was actually the son of the mother who was the teacher at Compass teaching the lesson the day before and he knew all about me because his mom went home and told him at dinner about the significance of my visit at their school and it was incredible for me to be able to tell him the significance of his mother as a teacher but also the significance witnessing that of him being an accelerated math student in his respective school and I just thought that was really beautiful of knowing the circumstances can play out like that I had an opportunity to visit one of our dual language schools later that same day actually twice at Harris Bilingual School and I have to tell you I know we talk a little
007bit we talk a lot about our Core Business of learning and teaching as a governance team I'd say we talk about it every meeting but one of the things that we continue to try to figure out how to make strides and improvements is how do we build a multi-tiered system of support where we have interventions and enrichment opportunities that are very data focused data Centric student-centric and we have the resources that are necessary to accelerate learning you know the majority of the staff members that I met at Paris have been there almost two decades their wisdom their experiences and commitment to that broader School Community I would say is a district Exemplar in those infrastructures that are necessary to use data and curriculum and engagement with the families in a very informed way and I
008had an opportunity last Friday night to attend and be a guest reader at their family literacy night which was nothing short of beautiful to see 50 to 60 students come out on a Friday night with their families to celebrate literacy all go home with books in both languages to celebrate by literacy but also the school was very laser focused on helping ensure parents walked away knowing how to specifically support their students with academic enrichment and so it was a teaching opportunity for families not just for their children so I just thought that was incredibly joyous as we continue to prioritize literacy across our district and I was really grateful for the article that was published in our local newspaper today is that we're continuing to move forward with the elementary curriculum adoption process and I
009really want to take a second thank all of our staff and family members and teachers and principals who have been involved in that very inclusive process your feedback matters we've had three Community engagement sessions I think the third one is tonight if I'm not mistaken at istone elementary school so I'm just really grateful for I think we had almost 50 people at the first one I had to go I went to at Fossil Ridge High School and I heard we had 40 people at Rocky last night and just getting really really solid feedback and parents really appreciating how they get a chance to look under the hood yeah this is not walking down the hall and take a look at it and tell me what you think or not this is really engaging inviting you
010that we really want your feedback and it matters and I just really am proud of the curriculum and instruction team for taking that approach with our families other things that we're continuing to focus on you'll hear a little bit later tonight you'll hear a resolution in support of another important partnership that our district has been working on to help create a youth homeless shelter in partnership with the Thompson school districts what I love about this particular resolution is it doesn't matter whether a student lives in the PSC School District or the Thompson School District or Estes Park children or children and how do we come together and braid our resources and our ideas and our human capital to make sure we're prioritizing and supporting the most vulnerable and so as a collective we're seeking grant
011funding to support this effort I just want to take a moment to thank all of our community members and our Community Partners and our staff who have been instrumental in making that forward and I want to thank Thompson School District for taking a primary lead on that role because the facility that if given that Grant opportunity would be located in their school district I really appreciate the partnership that we have growing across all of the school districts in Larimer County and I'll close by saying this yesterday was a very significant day not just in the school district but in our community because we provided as a school district we were a convener to bring many many partners over 120 people from our community non-profits philanthropies parents Educators School leaders to begin to talk about in
012very explicit terms the needs of our students through the lens of belonging in mental health as we've had an opportunity to engage our students me personally over the last 18 months our students are being explicit around what they need they want more spaces across this community where they feel affirmed and that they feel that they belong they want to feel that way in their classroom they want to feel that way in their homes but they want to have places to go and hang out where they have an opportunity to have voice and choice and ownership and authorship that they feel is safe and connected and so we need to prioritize how we have more of that across our community across all student and adult identities for that matter we also know that our students are
013asking for greater access to mental health professionals they're asking for greater access to professional development and training so they can equip themselves with the skills to know how to regulate their emotions in the event that they are dysregulated they also want to know how to cope with everyday life stressors traumas and be equipped to be able to help others in the event that nobody is surrounding them I find that to be incredibly Brave and courageous that our students are advocating for themselves not for just help from the outside but they want to be able to possess those skill sets for themselves so they see themselves in the mirror as whole and enough and I think that's really really quite beautiful they also want to make sure that we're getting incredibly clear around how to access
014help put them at the Forefront of that message and work with them to destigmatize accessing help in the first place now yesterday was the state of Our Youth Event I would probably if we reframe that and say that it was a kickoff of a partnership that we need to build across this community in very robust ways we have some adaptive challenges we have some healing we have some trust building but I really believe we have a collective group of the Willing who are enthusiastic about this work and all of the people who participated I couldn't be more optimistic about what is in the future in this community when we do things together I believe that we can do hard things so that concludes my update tonight thank you for the opportunity to address the community
015appreciate that thank you very much our next item on the agenda is a community comment and I'll just remind folks for our hopes and 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 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 personality or Personnel matters please keep your concerns and comments focused upon the district it is important to note that the board does not generally respond to remarks made during Community comment our lack of response should not be construed to mean that
016we agree or disagree with what is said or with a description or interpretation of events as presented by any speaker 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 with that I will say this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who have registered to speak by the designated deadline those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they have signed up each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board tonight we have six speakers signed up and
017our first speaker is Catherine Anderson mathern welcome I believe you can speak from that Podium over there hi my name is Catherine Anderson matherne I am a bus driver for PSD on December 16th I was driving on Mulberry going west I needed to get to Laurel so I needed to turn on Stover I need to take a left on Stover the closer I got to Stover the more the back end of my bus shook and it shook harder and harder and it started squealing and shaking and when I got in the turning lane at Stover the back Duallys on the driver's side fell off my bus and the axle hit the pavement I called dispatch they sent two mechanics when the mechanics got on site they informed me that those tires had not been off
018that bus for six months so you can imagine the debris and the dirt and the grime from the roads and everything they put on the roads for ice and snow that were built up on those tires and on those lug nuts those lug nuts are put on with 450 to 500 pound torque with a torque wrench us bus drivers check those lug nuts and those tires every day pre-trip and post-trip there was no mechanical error found on my bus mechanical error was ruled out the mystery is how to attend lug nuts become loose and all of them fall off of my bus at the same time how is that possible our buses are not in a secured area during the day we do not have to use this to get in and out of where
019our buses are also there was no cameras and there is no cameras in the bus area where the buses are stored so they cannot find any evidence as to what happened I would like you to know this is probably the one of the most traumatic things I lived in and the first thing I did was I sat down and I prayed to God and I thanked him that there was no children on my bus because there's many children who would have never got on that bus again the tires rolled off one one block north and the other one laid by the axle so I came to tell you my story today because I think we are looking at safety in a lot of different ways but it can we need to add some safety to
020do with these buses and where they're stored also we could use a Health coordinator at transportation we need gloves masks and disinfectant we need a disinfectant labeled we need MDS msds's on the bus in case we get it on our hands and our skin and this is not for bloodborne pathogens and this is not anything to do with covid this has to do with urine feces and vomit and we experience these type of things I must say regularly but often thank you our next speaker is Jim weinbrenner welcome Comcast is up and working thank you let me provide context for the quote you're about to hear this comes from the May 24th board meeting where a large number of parents passionately voiced concerns about the sexualization of our schools in fact so many parents spoke
021that each was limited to just 90 seconds here's board member Anderson responding to the parents oh please please on what I feel and what I think I guess a little bit and as a parent I have gotten involved in this district for many years and one of my driving forces was the partnership because the partnership between teachers and parents I think is vital and I and I'm hurt that there is a chunk of our community that feels like that has been broken it is a huge challenge to try to get together and be with parents and and to be able to formulate the foundation for these kids for their life and I think it is very important and and what really upsets me is uh miscommunication I think is really what it comes down to
022I um I think there were there were mistakes done uh about not communicating sooner uh but for people to continue to say things that are not true and to drive that wedge between parents and teachers and the education Community we've got to get back better we've got to get better at communicating and telling what really is the truth we have opportunities to move forward but to do that we've got to sit down and have good communication and we got to do the best we can with what we've got and but we got to do it together as partners I truly believe that so I hope those people that have spoken earlier uh are honest and want to have those conversations because that's the only way we're going to move forward Mr Anderson the book parents
023who spoke on May 24th are honest and do want to have those conversations the conversations were assured by President board president Peterson immediately after your statement he promised back and forth dialogue about difficult issues and how we're approaching them the sexualization of our children continues November 29th we learned that 8 000 of our students identify as queer or non-binary and 5 000 of those students are thinking about hurting themselves or considering suicide don't you think it is time to have the promised back and forth dialogue about difficult issues and how we're approaching them Mr Anderson you say you are troubled by miscommunication and people saying things that are not true how can parents know what it's true the back and forth dialogue about difficult issues and how we're going to approaching them would be a
024good place to start Mr Anderson we have the opportunity to sit down have good communication and move forward will you make that happen thank you our next speaker is Cheryl peckerek I apologize if I got that wrong well picaric okay I I I know the feeling uh welcome well I live in Loveland and thank you guys for being open to what I want to talk about which is the gender identity I just appreciate your time and thank you so first I wanna I just want to say that you guys are Gatekeepers of this school district and you have the authority to allow or deny anything coming in or out of this District and me personally I don't believe that the things that are going through this school I don't believe that you really think that
025they're right but you're not standing up and speaking out you're being uh what's the word complicit um the standard of academic Excellence has been pulled out and every evil perverse thing is allowed to flow through the schools the characteristics of a child have become prey a girl who has tomboy Tendencies or a boy who might be soft-spoken or shy or soft targets they say for this agenda these children are singled out and lied to by people in positions of trust through books and papers come confusion even to the point that a child denies is a child is denying who he or she even is these people of trust affirm the child's deception and make their peers do the same all in the name of inclusion these children are enticed to secret meetings where pru puberty
026blockers surgeries and other methods to change the appearance of their bodies are promoted never mentioning that irreversible Damage Done to their brain and their body sometimes leading to near death by attempted suicide from depression and then instructed not to speak to their parents about any of this this is only a small portion of the e-ball allowed in these schools and tonight we together are being held accountable by God and all of Heaven and as a gatekeeper I'm calling Hearts to turn back to God repentance and to stop this agenda don't be complicit in all this stand up and speak out for the sake of hundreds of families including your own because the effect that it's had on other families it'll affect your family eventually too and thank you thank you for hearing me thank you
027our next speaker is Stacy Jones good evening board members and other constituents can you hear me I am Stacy Jones from Fort Collins in the last couple of years I've been made aware of a purposeful indoctrination of our children in PSD and across the country I'm increasingly alarmed and dismayed I think you've been hearing ongoing criticisms of CRT d-e-i-s-e-l sexual grooming gender transitioning and more my question is why is no one listening why are children being harmed and why are they being told to keep secrets from their parents why are we not affirming children for how God created them to be as a citizen taxpayer parent and grandparent I and countless others want our children to be taught the basics math reading vocabulary real science true American history Etc the teachers of PSD are not
028trained psychologists and it is not their job to determine the perceived psychological orientation or well-being of our children parents must be consulted if there's any notion of a potential emotional problem with their children a well-known parent in Wellington was threatened and disparaged her pleas ignored children are being maimed and are enduring irreparable harm with puberty blockers and gender surgeries that result in sterility would you want your 12 year old making a life-altering decision like that without your knowledge or consent if the answer is yes I'd question why you are a parent I really feel like we are living in the Twilight Zone our students are vulnerable insecure and impressionable they just want to fit in my grandson who was a freshman stated that girls in large numbers are choosing to transition into the being boys
029because they think it's easier to be a boy they are thinking irrationally and are being encouraged to go down this path of delusion and destruction and now because of our woke culture these kids think changing genders is cool puberty blockers are called normal with absolutely no scientific evidence to back this up again more delusion and deception none of this is gender affirming care it's demonic indoctrination designed to destroy the family gender dysphoria is real but coercing children to think that another gender is abhorrent we all need to be part of a solution not part of the problem I pray that PSD will be part of returning education back to the basics supporting parents and their children not the teachers think they're the parents and discontinuing all of these policies that are destroying the lives of
030our children thank you for your time thank you and I neglected to welcome you so welcome in in arrears um our next speaker is Pam Annis is that correct I hope I pronounced that prayer okay welcome call this good evening I'm a school bus driver and I love my job the highlight of my day is greeting each and every child by their names every morning and afternoon and hearing about their day and the events in their young lives I'm not alone in this passion many other drivers share this joy and work with their student working with their students too unfortunately transportation is in disarray due to the lack of support and Leadership from upper management specifically at the director and CEO level I was fortunate to work under a functional healthy and supportive management team
031for 32 years Mr brokish I believe that you we both share that history we both work for Hewlett-Packard so hopefully you can appreciate and understand where I'm coming from this evening HP was world renowned for the HP way in and nuts to all the HP Ray recognized that employees are an organization and Company's greatest asset and as such employees were treated with dignity respect kindness and fairness a functional management team provides employees with the tools and resources they need to do their jobs efficiently and safely they recognize that employees are experts in their jobs that they do every day and they respect them to put it another way an individual and a company's success is directly proportional to how functional and competent the leadership of that organization is does leadership have the people skills required
032to lead do they care about their employees and show compassion and empathy our current director and CEO are not able to tick off any of the above boxes their leadership style is authoritarian they serve the people above them and but treat those that are not part of their inner circle with disdain and callousness they retaliate against those that speak up they are bullies under their leadership racism misogyny and homophobia run rapid through the organization the recent installation of the direct director was the recent installed director was spontaneously booed and in-service because he is universally disliked because of his treatment of employees I know what a functional management team looks like and this is not it dysfunctional and unhealthy management teams contribute to high turnover in an unsafe work environment per leadership has ship has dramatically
033impacted the safety of our Aging bus fleets putting students and drivers at risk with buses breaking down every single day one you heard of this evening during covet I had the privilege of working as an office manager for rickenberg under high functioning leadership that created a safe and healthier work environment in that role I worked with many other departments and teams across PSD and all of those interactions were professional kind and courteous transportation is the most dysfunctional Department in the district because of the in-app management these current concerns have been brought up to the attention of HR and Ace many times by several individuals over recently years to no avail there are four asks that I have tonight of the board please investigate the hiring practices of cronyism in our upper management number two hire
034function National management team that has people skills and can demonstrate compassion and empathy for others the success of Transportation depends on a competent management team number three we desperately need environmentally friendly buses it's critical for the health and safety of our students and staff number four we need you to wrap up number four employees especially our supervisor Empower employees especially our supervisors to help improve culture implementing of these requests would dramatically change Transportation into class A organization where we attract attract people rather than having people drop jump shift shift um train them thank you our next uh and final speaker this evening is Danny Lawrence welcome this year we've struggled with our son's teacher of the visually impaired a new employee to the district and despite several meetings to support and help in December everything
035came to the breaking point when the teacher falsely accused my son of threatening her slandering his reputation and discriminating against him for advocating for himself which is a federally protected activity my son a 14 year old 4.0 student in debater for Rocky Mountain High School has never had a single behavioral referral or issue in his entire educational career after constant battles with his teacher he said quote we'll see how this works out for the IEP team end quote the teacher made allegations that he was threatening her she went to District administration immediately and she spoke with several IEP team members telling them they too were being threatened as a parent I was completely and totally unaware that this had happened for five days no teacher case manager or is District administrator that I'm obligated to
036by the terms of your communication restrictions on me cared enough about my son to contact his parents the following week when the teacher met with them again their session became so contentious that my son declared that he no longer felt safe with his individual currently the district is denying us access to these reports and emails and they have they that have been created about our son claiming first attorney-client privilege and now today personnel file protection my son has had 17 teachers the visually impaired since kindergarten and has never once indicated that he didn't feel safe with any adult he worked with no one has contacted us to ask if he is okay despite using the see something say something application from your website to report the incident you should know that teachers of the visually
037impaired in this District get to pick and choose which disabled students they work with it's happened to us twice in seven months and both of the teachers that have picked have been in this boardroom and your observation of visual impairment month you certainly don't allow this selection process for Paras or general education staff for good reason it's discriminatory inflicting communication restrictions on parents that you aren't willing to follow yourself as a power play and the true definition of retaliation please quit conveying that the sentiment that children need trusted adults when you don't listen to them when they tell you they don't feel safe quit promoting the idea that any of you supports self-advocacy for children when you won't even give them the respect of responding to their incident reports please teach your staff what protected
038activities are and that punishing people for participating them isn't legal the punitive culture for disabled students and their families deserves the immediate attention of this board and superintendent having our board president State publicly this fall that retaliation won't be tolerated in this District while we were currently and are still under investigation for retaliation by the office of civil rights from another family of a Disabled Student is just insulting how many families do you need to hear it from before you consider a task force or an investigation into integrated Services Miles Davis has a great quote that you might Ponder you can tell a bully from a leader by how they treat people who disagree with them the families of children with disabilities and PSD are in desperate need of some leadership thank you and that
039concludes our community comment for this evening the next item on the agenda is board committee reports um do we have folks who want to speak I'll I'll just first quickly uh brief folks on the uh on the legislative subcommittee if I can we have an active legislative subcommittee uh sometimes as many as five members of the board actually participate on that and we review as many as we can of the bills that are introduced into our state legislature uh and work uh with our lobbyists in Denver to try to influence that legislation uh either in favor or oppose or in some cases just uh keeping an eye on it for the benefit of our students and our staff and our district as a whole those meetings happen twice a month they're public meetings you can
040they're posted on the district website and you're certainly welcome to observe those meetings as well it's an important it's an important activity and we we spent a lot of time during the during the semester the during the yeah it's our semester it's that it's it's the uh legislature's session which is when those bills come out and we appreciate the support of the staff of the district in helping us to understand and determine which are the best bills to support and which we should oppose so I just wanted to let everybody know that and and welcome you all to as I say observe attend those meetings if you'd like Kristen you had something you wanted to say um so just a couple of things um Jess and I got to meet with the staff the student
041advisory Council this past oh it was Tuesday yeah it was just this week wow um a week ago and um those uh students there they were able to come to Cosby with us over in November and just they were able to present their ideas that they had gotten from casby about how to make our PSD more equitably sustainable more inclusive and they're going to be sharing that with us not next time but the next uh okay dinner session so um yeah so be prepared for that because they're going to blow your socks off they're fantastic yeah yeah it is really great um and you know the other thing I just wanted to to say was specifically to um our Communications team and to our Equity team and to the cabinet as a whole I just
042wanted to say thank you for all the work that you did over the course of the winter break there was so much going on um and I was not able to say my thank yous um last last meeting because I had missed that meeting um but I just wanted to say thank you for all that you had done in the course of putting out various fires literally and figurative there were there were some things that were going on that um were very helpful to for a PSD to become an affirming school district and I just wanted to say thank you for that um I know that there are families out there that say thank you for that I just want to let everybody know who worked on that um that it's amazing if my family
043had had that five ten years ago it it would have been a game changer and so what you're doing and what you have done and the fact that you are supporting what you're doing and that you are willingly out there and saying we are an affirming School District we are um supporting our youth in all the differences that they have in all of the inclusiveness that we can bring to that and all the diversity that they are um is just amazing um and I want to say thank you and sometimes it can be difficult sometimes it can be um painful what you hear sometimes they can be painful what you see um but it is worth it our kids are worth it and um this I I'll tell you that there are students out there
044right now who may be watching this who um are no no now that they are welcomes they are affirmed they are um they're feeling included and they're feeling that they belong and that is huge and something that I can proudly say as a board member we have collectively done something for our students so thank you sorry other comments or reports DJ that one's hard to follow um Nate and I were part of a casby this last weekend and one of the things uh that got brought up was there there is a group forming um to look at the State accountability and a case which um is taking kind of the lead on getting this team together an integration team I in one of the people from Cosby that would be represented on this group which
045will be looking at the state accountability and what changes might be needed in trying to set it up if a bill passes they're looking to get a bill to get a task force and during that task force we want to try to give them ample stuff to look at right away and so that that time is not wasted that they'll have but I just want to make sure Nate mentioning earlier I almost forgot it during the dinner session but so anyone has thoughts concerns ideas please share them so that we can bubble those up it is going to be it is a monthly get together with them it looks like uh from now until the end of school year but if you have ideas or thoughts please share them thanks thank you DJ other comments
046Nate looks like you want to say something I just wanted to I forgot to mention in the dinner session that DJ has been appointed by the casby board president as co-chair of the casby legislative resolutions committee so he's both working at our level at the board level and then at the state level on legislation and uh State Board of Education policy yep that's outstanding congratulations DJ other comments or reports Jim Jess nope okay Carolyn okay oh sorry all right then uh next on our agenda is the consent agenda can I get a motion with respect to the oh first of all does anybody want to pull anything from the consent agenda it looks like not in which in which case can I get a uh Motion in support of the consent agenda go ahead Nate
047I knew that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda do I have a second looks like we'll do it we'll do Carolyn sorry I was looking this way um so Jill Jill there you are good you could you please call a vote on the consent agenda DJ Anderson aye Jim brokish aye Nate Donovan hi Kristen Draper aye Rob Pederson aye Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 thank you so much Joe uh our next uh item on the agenda is a resolution in support of the proposed youth homeless shelter that superintendent Kingsley alluded to earlier can I get a motion in support of the resolution go ahead Nate I move that the board approve and adopt the resolution and support of the proposed youth homeless
048shelter in Larimer County excellent can I get a second on that uh it looks like DJ DJ really wants to second that so we'll give it to him um I would like to uh have the resolution red if we can and then I believe we have some comments from the staff go ahead you want to read it Kristen if nobody else does I'm happy to go ahead all right resolution of the Pooter School Board of Education in support of the proposed Youth Shelter in Larimer County whereas there is a regional collaboration focused on providing Youth and Young adults experiencing homelessness with a drop-in center to access resources and support along with an overnight shelter to support safety and well-being for this vulnerable population and whereas the Pooter School District Board of Education recognizes that the
049Youth Shelter and drop-in centers will serve some of the most vulnerable Youth and Young adults in our region and provide essential wraparound supportive services and resources and whereas in Northern Colorado in 2021 2022 school districts identified over 300 students who were unaccompanied in our region and whereas the Board of Education intends this resolution to be a show of support for the Youth Shelter and drop-in center to be located at the building currently serving as Monroe Early Child Care at 814 East 16th Street in Loveland Colorado there a and now therefore it be resolved by the PSD Board of Education as follows that the PSD Board of Education hereby supports the Grant application and efforts to sustain the operations of a Youth Shelter in Northern Colorado such a shelter provides a transformational opportunity for students to
050continue their education and decrease the future possibility of adult homelessness excellent superintendent thank you tonight we're honored to present a resolution in support of the proposed youth homeless shelter and I would like to emphasize how incredibly grateful we are for the Partnerships that are making this project possible here to speak to our resolution this evening is our school district's assistant superintendent of secondary school Scott Nielsen Scott thank you foreign thank you superintendent Kingsley and and board members um this is a exciting project for me I think as we look back prior to the pandemic many of our Community Partners began talking about the increased number of uh homeless students that we that we were seeing across the region this was not just uh Fort Collins uh situation but across the region and we began looking
051at what the possibilities were for having a a homeless shelter for students under the age of 18 but also a drop-in center and we recognized all the the challenges that came with um that kind of uh shelter in Larimer County we tend to focus on students that are not in our school districts they tend to to serve the older populations and so we kept running into challenges as we came out of the pandemic recognizing the numbers continue to increase the talks intensified and with the lead of Matthew's house and some other non-profits the the conversation really um uh accelerated I would say and so as we speak today we've got a group of partners that are working very closely as an executive team they meet weekly to talk about and push this project forward they
052include the Matthews House the Thompson School District pooter School District the Homewood Alliance Northern Colorado Continuum of Care prevention research out of Colorado State Larimer County Department of Human Services and the Thompson Education Foundation and I think what's important about that is each of those groups play an important role from from trying to evaluate and understand the data of homeless youth in the the region to what are the best strategies to work and to build this kind of opportunity for students how do we do the work itself Thompson has been instrumental with the with the facility that was one of the big hurdles for this project for the last five or six years was trying to find space for this but then also calling out the Matthews House who is willing to be the executive
053as we run this project you you need to have someone that will take ownership of the project and Matthew's house has stepped into that role and continues to lead that as we look forward as a district we have continued to to partner along the way recognizing there isn't a difference between a student that's in Estes or Thompson or pooter School District in terms of the need also recognizing that we appreciate the the leadership right now of of the first space in Thompson but but taking a look at how do we build this partnership and and can it scale as we move forward the the project in uh in Thompson Will land somewhere between 12 to 24 beds they will be open overnight the model would would structure it so that the individuals that are staying
054overnight would be there during the overnight hours out of the facility during the day which allows you then to have a drop in Center for some of the resources that an individuals need to get themselves prepared for a job actually go through the preparation work with individuals around what they might need to do to to continue to put themselves on a trajectory to not need that type of support and then again it would roll back to students being able to stay there over the night so it's a nice model it's a model that group has had a chance to see in other places Boulder Valley has a wonderful shelter that's been in place for a number of years and continues to look at scaling that model so I just want to say for for the
055executive group that's working on this I know know they're appreciative we're appreciative of this board's resolution this evening but also the support that this board has for some of our most at risk youth and uh it's been a challenge to continue to think about how we serve provide them the resources they need so they can ultimately come to us and be prepared to do the learning we're going to ask them to do during the day so again I think from from this group I would say a big thank you to our board for the resolution this evening great does anybody from the board have comments or questions go ahead Jess years ago you attended a conference and I just happened to be meeting with you right after you'd went and it was about student homelessness
056and it really impacted you at that moment so knowing that you've had the chance to kind of see something through fruition and continue moving with that I hope that I hope it I hope it makes you feel a sense of Pride that it's happening but also keeps you motivated to keep it going thank you thank you oh DJ I just want to share how excited I am by the partnership and the focus for these kids at a legislative uh Cosby meeting Don from Thompson School District was so excited about it she was volunteering it for uh we're thinking about doing a bus tour in the fall for legislators and she was like oh this would be a great one you've got two different districts come on so the excitement is out there for it and
057I appreciate everyone's hard work and making this a reality this is something that I know um it is a shame that we we can't find a better way to to serve these families and the the craziness that we've had already in our community of trying to break up the family to be able to have a place to sleep is has been unfortunate I know the church I go to they've uh done services or done um uh having they've opened up their doors for a couple times and it is it is a true challenge to try to be able to find that in this community so I applaud everyone to get for getting together and making it happen thank you go ahead Nate do you know well said okay other comments or questions oh sorry go
058ahead no I was thank you um no I just I also want to say thank you um and I just also want to um remind the community that you never know who's experiencing homelessness and homelessness it looks different on everybody um it can be um you know the people that you think of in your head when you hear that word immediately it can be any anybody who may not have a consistent roof over their head maybe it may be somebody who's Couchsurfing it may be somebody who is staying with a friend for an extended period of time um it may be um unfortunately LGBT students who have been turned out of their own home because they simply are who they are um and it may be that the person you're sitting next to um at
059the library who is extremely well dressed and has a suitcase with them is not actually going to the airport they may actually be living out of their suitcase so I just want to express to people that um we cannot determine what homelessness looks like we cannot determine by that which students we are going to be helping and that is a wonderful thing because we will be helping all of our students we're helping all of our students to be able to know that they have a safe place to go to that they can then come to school and actually focus on the learning process and not have to worry about where am I going to eat where am I going to sleep am I going to be safe because when those things are not met there's
060absolutely no way you can learn your ABCs and one two threes so thank you so much for your willingness to work with Laramie County as a whole with the TSD with Estes because what we're doing is we're doing what's best for children so much thanks go ahead I just want to just a couple last thoughts at least from me one I want to say thank you to all of the comments um DJ I think your statement is profound around trying to look and I do believe as I'm watching this project go forward that we're figuring out how to remove some roadblocks which will make it easier to replicate and so that is super exciting for me because we've bumped up against roadblocks several times that you feel like they're removable and so to start to
061see us breaking some of those down is exciting and last I would just like to thank Liz Davis who's put in a tremendous amount of time from our team here she's a tremendous resource for the district in lots and lots of ways but she's been a connector to lots of the resources on this project so I just want to call her out specifically because she's done a fantastic job in this project excellent appreciate it if there are no other comments Jill I'll ask for a vote on this resolution DJ Anderson aye Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan aye Christian Draper aye Rob Peterson aye Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 thank you again Jill the next item on our agenda is an action item around executive limitation policy 2.0 that is the executive
062limitation policy which states that the superintendent shall neither cause nor allow any organizational circumstance or action that is illegal unethical or imprudent I'll ask for a motion with respect to this go ahead Kristen you okay I move that the board determined that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted Board of Education policy El 2.0 in his internal monitoring report dated January 24 2023 and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusion stated in the internal monitoring report thank you very much so I have a second Nate's going to second that do we have comments from the board or for that matter superintendent if you want to say anything Nate did you want nope nope looks like not in which case uh jail if you would call a vote on this executive limitation report DJ Anderson aye Jim
063brokish hi Nate Donovan hi Kristen Draper aye Rob Peterson aye Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 excellent thank you again Jill um so that concludes our action items for this evening now we're moving on to informational reports and discussion items and we have one item in that section tonight and that's recruiting and retaining a diverse and talented Workforce which I know the board is very interested in so superintendent Kingsley if you'd like to introduce that that would be great sure thank you um just want to Center myself because it's a very important conversation and it's a pleasure to introduce Deborah Meyer our director of talent acquisition and retention and Eric Von Savage our Chief Human Resources officer and tonight we're going to talk about how our district is taking very intentional and
064purposeful efforts to recruit a talented and more diverse Workforce and I want to just pause there for a second because what's really important to set context for this presentation is I want us to acknowledge that diversity is counting people inclusion is making people feel counted and we have to acknowledge and recognize the difference as we think about what our goals our aspirations are to not just recruit but to retain a talented and diverse Workforce we know as a system that this work is incredibly important for our students and for our staff who hold various identities who are seeking places of belonging affirmation on both sides of that Spectrum students and staff we know that we want this District as an aspiration and a goal to be a place where children teens and every staff member
065see themselves as enough and exactly who just allow them to be who they are to show up being their most authentic selves and whether you're a staff member in this room today or listening or hearing and participating in this governance process we can recognize even in just the last hour that we spent together that is no easy feat and I want to acknowledge that you know I am a white cisgender male and my life experiences and my leadership story growing up has allowed me to look at the world in three different views one is you can look at the world with a view of a grit View that people want to achieve these particular positions or places of status and power you simply just have to work harder a derogatory phrase that is used in
066many communities across this country is you just got to pull yourself up by the bootstraps there's also a deficit lens that exists across this world across this community across this country where we look at classes of people subsets of people as inferior and not as enough it shows up through processes and practices and mindsets and values and beliefs that are experienced as racism as sexism classism homophobia transphobia anti-semitism amongst other phobias and isms but as I've had an opportunity to be immersed in many diverse communities and do a lot of really deep work myself as a leader and as a white male I've learned to equip myself and I bring and show up in this space with the systems View to recognize this work isn't about just sending a directive to hire more diverse people
067is taking a look at the policies the processes the mindsets values beliefs and infrastructures that are inhibiting us from achieving these goals and I challenge us collectively to not skip over that that systems view is really important a transformative experience that I had when I was a young adult learning that I wanted to be an educator was reading Jonathan kozal's Savage inequalities when you think about that ladder of success for people who are on the margins that ladder of success for people who may have my identity because I represent the dominant culture that ladder is on the ground laying flat doesn't mean I didn't need to work hard doesn't need I didn't mean to learn study but I didn't experience those systems of Oppression that other people in our community and across this world and
068Country do on an everyday basis so we need to make sure that we think about this work both through a technical and adaptive lens I invite all the questions and the Curiosities from the community and this governance team and I also want to make sure that we don't assume because it's not apparent that we know what other people's identities are and so regardless of how people show up I think we need to think about inclusion we need to think about diversity and think about what do we need to do as policy makers and people who hold power to make sure that we have processes that truly are Equitable of not just providing greater access but greater outcomes and I'm really excited to turn this over to our team here tonight that's going to begin talking
069about this work and how we're staging it out and moving forward but this is not a strategy that is going to be accomplished in a day a year this is going to be an intentional effort for as long as this community and system exists and I just want to reaffirm that commitment as the superintendent of schools to work in partnership with this community to support this work so thank you for being here today in Kingsley we are sharing a microphone so please let me know if you cannot hear me at any time also it's kind of weird hearing your voice being oh look at that wonderful well thank you so much [Music] this topic you have to turn on the microphone step one as super in Kingsley superintendent Kingsley mentioned my name is Deborah Meyer
070I use she her pronouns I have the privilege of serving as the Director of talent acquisition and retention in pooter school district and so thank you so much for having this discussion with us today we know it's an exciting topic I want to start this presentation by sharing just a little bit more about my story and my background I identify as a cisgender Asian-American woman I'm a daughter of immigrants my father immigrated from Hong Kong my mother immigrated from South Korea and both of them unfortunately did not have the privilege of graduating from high school I did have the privilege of graduating both from high school and as the first generation college graduate of my family I also want to mention that I am a sister of an addict a mother of three biracial children
071all of which who are in PSD and also an individual with a hidden identity so I really appreciate um sorry the hidden disability I appreciated how superintendent Kingsley mentioned that you can't always see diversity on the surface and we're going to talk about all of the intersectional identities of our students today and how we are working to build an inclusive culture of belonging here in PSD I started in the district in 2018 which has been a fun and exciting ride um a lot of things happened since then like uh covid the great resignation all these wonderful fun things um prior to that I worked at Colorado State University for about seven years working closely with our student diversity programs and services in order to recruit college students to utilize career services so thank you so
072much for allowing me to be here today I have the privilege of sharing a lot of strategies that our talent team is currently working on and what we also hope to Aspire to um as superintendent Kingsley mentioned we can't fix this overnight right this is something that we are on a journey on and I thank you for allowing me to be a part of this journey our talent team is new we were fully launched this November yes November 11th three months ago I can't four I don't know November and have the privilege of having a manager on our team Matt Leland Jana Crouch is our specialist and Saida Mendoza is our recruiter that is actively working to bring top talent here in PSD I'm gonna turn it over turn my mic off now yes yeah
073all right there we go all right so we're going to uh present to you today a little bit of a case study as to why why diversify our Workforce so we're going to work on that as we go through this presentation we'll talk a little bit about our um our current uh where we are currently so we'll look a little bit at our data what what does that look like today and then we will look at goals and some challenges that we have and then again we will also look at what we're currently doing what we're currently engaged in as well as future strategies there we go all right so just to set up some norms for this conversation you're going to hear various different terms today that I'm hopeful just to mention and share
074so the first one is admin Pro you've also heard it as administrative or administrators or professional it's an employment classification within PSD for staff that are typically in a leadership role so you know them as our principals our directors managers coordinators Etc by POC you're going to hear that as well that stands for black indigenous people of color CDE is a Colorado Department of Education classified this is another employment classification within PSD often times for individuals who do not have a CDE license or their position doesn't require that to complicate it there are some classified that have this but we won't get into that just imagine not classify not any licensure so positions like Child Nutrition custodial Finance instructional support and Paras I.T HR operations maintenance Transportation clerical Etc license this is an employment classification
075for staff that require a CDE license so oftentimes referring to our teachers our special service providers like our speech language Pathologists School psychologists things like that lgbtqia plus stands for lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer questioning or queer questioning intersex and asexual and then msis or minority serving institutions or institutions of higher ed that serve minority populations through their missions and also through their day-to-day operations so you will hear about a lot of that today and if you need any clarification on terms as we go throughout we're happy to clarify those as well I'm going to turn it back over to Aaron all right so why is this important so this is important because the learning Institute research found that students of color who are taught by teachers of color have improved outcomes fewer unexcused absences
076higher graduation rates and are more likely to attend college that same body of research also found that white students had positive perceptions of their teachers of color and they those relationships help break down negative stereotypes it also help the students understand and confront racism and prepared these students for living and working in a Multicultural Society so challenges so in a nutshell well one of our challenges is demographics right so every generation that comes behind the previous generation is more diverse than the generation before it so in simple terms you have the boomer generation and that was a diverse generation and you have the X generation and they were more diverse than the boomer generation then you have the Millennials and they were even more diverse than the X generation and now we have a couple
077of generations that we're working with we have the alpha generation that was born between 2010 or thereafter and the Z generation that was born between 1996 and 2009 and the alpha generation really is the generation that we are currently teaching these are our students here at PSD and this generation compared to all other Generations is the most diverse generation in race and ethnicity and the Z generation is a bridge generation so part of the generation we're still teaching and they're and part of the generation is actually just now graduating and becoming Workforce ready and entering the workforce so this generation can be said to be the most General the most diverse generation in the workforce itself so challenges with this right our challenges is that our student population is going to be from the most
078diverse generation that we currently have seen demographically and our Workforce has this leg of being diverse because we're waiting we're always waiting for this generation that is more diverse to catch up to us and yet we know that if we have teachers of color in the classroom that we will have much more positive outcomes for our students okay so let's talk a little bit about where our data is as an organization so we took last year's data so last school Year's data and if you look at this chart with the two arrows the blue striped bar represents our bipoc students and right next to it the gray bar represents are licensed teachers so as you're looking at this graph what you're seeing is basically our student population is three times as diverse as their teachers
079okay how do we compare to the state so Colorado on average has about has a teacher population that is bypoc of approximately 14 here at PSD it's approximately 7.7 so about half of our state average so with this slide what we are looking at with the with the two arrows is the small bar in the middle represents our bipoc teachers and the bar immediately next to it with the arrow pointing at it the larger Gray Bar is our in classroom paraprofessionals so what you can see is that our paraprofessional demographics are twice that of our teacher demographics right so we have twice as many bipoc professionals as we do licensed teachers so here is an opportunity for us right and Deborah will talk a little bit about some of the things that we are working
080toward with our paraprofessionals and how we might be able to create a career path for them to be able to Bridge and move into the teaching career okay all right so on this slide what we're looking at is current data right so we just started working with this as a topic and so what you're looking at here is data that is year to date through January 9th of 2023 so not a lot of data but what is what's helpful is we've Incorporated also Fort Collins demographics in this in this piece of data as well so that we can kind of see what what do we look like and how do we compare to our community so um one of the key things that that we'll see with our community is that our demographic makeup here
081at Fort Collins is about is about 15 bypoc we know that in our current data we've inched up just a little bit since we've started working on this this topic and on our recruitment efforts and So currently our licensed teacher staff is at 8.6 percent so a small little increase and we know that our paraprofessionals are at about 17 percent by Pock so if you combine our in classroom Workforce compared to our demographics here at Fort Collins it's we have a Workforce in the classroom that that is bypoc at about 25 percent compared to our demographics here so we're doing okay but it's good to look at what do we have already in the classroom right because it's important from a sense of belonging and inclusion that students be able to see a reflection of
082themselves in the classroom okay so continuing on with data you're seeing two different pie charts here the pie chart on the left is breaking down racial demographics of our applicants compared to hires so this is from last August August of 2021 to August 2022 you can see about 7.92 of our applicants were bipoc in comparison about 7.0 percent of hires were bypoc if we were to look at historical data which is not on that slide right there we have ranged anywhere from about seven to eight percent and so this is exciting because one we're having an applicant flow and there's opportunity here right so if we're increasing the amount of bypoc applicants that are coming in the trend would be that our hires would also be higher as well representing by populations of course we
083could see and see that percentage comparison go up higher so what would it look like for example if we hired 15 percent of hires that were by POC and so we can continue to look at this data too um sorry Eric okay so goals so ultimately our goal is to diversify our Workforce more than what we currently have so we have a benchmark established really today right so we kind of know exactly where we're at and as we start to work on this we will continue to revisit that data our overarching goals are really to attract grow and retain a diverse and inclusive talented Workforce to support a workplace culture that cultivates belonging so that we can maintain retention of those staff that we attract here and then to build collaborative Partnerships with underrepresented communities
084based on culturally responsive practices so what are we currently doing what are strategies that our wonderful Talent team are working on right now I will mention that recruiting is not just a talent team effort right it requires all of us in order for this initiative to be successful and so I want to go over some strategies I apologize that that's a little bit smaller font but there are four main buckets that I want to talk briefly about I could talk days about this so let me know if I go too long the first one that we're going to talk about is Partnerships and pipeline development so collaborating with key stakeholders both internally and externally to attract applicants from diverse backgrounds employer brand how do candidates see us how do our employees see us our brand
085is not what we say it is it's what other people say it is so we want to build credibility and convert viewers of content into applicants through our website promotional materials materials digital campaigns and social media fourth we're going to talk a little bit about advertising and sourcing so through various different channels we want to cultivate relationships with individuals and groups of talent who not only meet but exceed our job qualifications and lastly we're going to touch on events so what are we um what events are we currently going to where what events do we want to go to etc etc so first we're going to talk about Partnerships um included in the board agenda is a list of many different Partnerships including multiple different msis again minority serving institutions we partner with over 160
086universities and colleges currently Nationwide to advertise our Jobs attend those events and also build a pipeline so where do our student teachers our interns our apprentices Etc come from we actively seek and build Partnerships with existing and emerging msis I would say this is an area that folks have a lot of um great advice on and I would say you're probably going to recognize an institution that you're like why don't you go there and I would say I would invite you to share that feedback with us because we're always looking to build those additional Partnerships next we're going to go into some of our top internships so this year this school year we have currently 148 student teachers and interns that have served either last fall or this spring we just hired by more last
087week so that's actually wrong but 18 of those are bypoc we also partner with organizations like the department of labor and employment Workforce Center the division of vocational rehab to provide what's called paid work experiences or apprenticeships and internships these have specifically been very great in building a pipeline specifically with individual individuals with disabilities in our district as well this year we've also expanded our off-campus work study program with Front Range Community College we have historically worked with Colorado State University with work study students what this is is an opportunity for students to gain meaningful employment outside of their University using their work study funds so who is qualified for need-based work study typically you have to be Pell eligible Pell eligible means that you have an exceptional Financial need first generation and typically represent
088historically marginalized identities actually 58 of undergraduate black students receive Pell Grants and so this is a great opportunity for us to build a pipeline they um fill a lot of positions in our districts such as being a tutor Perez we're expanding it and looking at Child Nutrition um custodial what are other opportunities that we can energize the excitement about education and it doesn't always look like being a teacher it could look like a lot of different things and that might lead to that but we also want to share that we have a lot of different positions here in pooter School District that students can engage in and make an impact on their students and community one exciting program that came in fast and fury this year is our J-1 teacher cultural Exchange program so we
089are working with a non-profit organization called MinGa house they are based in Colombia it's an opportunity for us to not only fill our hard to fill positions so we have um four four right now we're gonna be I think it might be more now I'm behind um we have four coming licensed teachers that are representing special education math bilingual Elementary from Columbia Jamaica and Philippines We are continuing to interview our goal is to get to 10 that is currently what our budget allots for that and so this is a another way for us to build the pipeline here in pooter School District with primarily teachers in this one but there's a lot of other opportunities as well so moving into employer brand engagement if you were to look at the number one way that our
090applicants are hearing about how they hear about jobs it's through our PSD website and this is great news for us because that means people are wanting to work here right they're actively seeking and coming to our website to find jobs I will say as a preface that we are going to be going through a large website revamp this summer and we want folks to be able to see themselves in our website in our social media in our images and our communication before they ever decide to apply they we want them to know that they belong here before they even decide and know how to pronounce pooter for example that is a common conversation I have in recruiting um the statement that you see I could say a lot of things I'm going to pause the
091statement that you're going to see on the screen right now is a brief description on every single one of our job descriptions or job postings I would say and the big thing that I would like to point out on that is towards the end and that is PSD is committed to finding the best candidate for the job and that candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background additionally they may not have everything that we're asking for in those jobs descriptions right there's a lot of research out there that tells us for example women will not apply to a position unless they feel 100 of the job qualifications there's even more research that says if you have additional marginalized identities that you're even least likely right let's talk about imposter syndrome let's talk
092about not belonging let's talk about not feeling like we're enough and we want folks to know hey you may not be there yet but we'll help you get there and we have a growth mindset mentality and we're talking with applicants that we don't want folks to feel like we are boxing them in just based on their resume or application but to have those conversations and to dive deeper as to who they are and how they belong here in PSD advertising and sourcing is often the number one thing we get asked about right where are you posting your jobs where are you finding your candidates where are you going to make sure that individuals that represent traditionally marginalized populations are seeing are opportunities one exciting thing that we launched this year you'll see that badge on
093the screen is this December we are partnering with Circa who owns diversityjobs.com which is the largest platform for posting to um diversity related job boards essentially so all of our jobs currently scrapes it's called scraping it's a weird recruitment term but it basically mirrors all of our jobs on our job posting site our applicant tracking system onto over 600 diversity job boards every time this used to be a manual process right we would have a job and we would say hey I would like to post our HR job on this network specifically for apia individuals that was an individual process now it's automated which is so great for every single one of our positions so we're not having to pick and choose which positions um that we have to do that for you'll also see
094in your packet a few different places that we automatically post to so I mentioned that word scraping or mirroring we also all of our jobs are posted on indeed which is the second most common place that people hear about our jobs social media so Facebook Twitter LinkedIn we partner with our Communications team and making sure that we're getting out those top opportunities we also post to Glassdoor so indeed now owns Glassdoor they're combined together what's the number one thing when you're wanting to try something new you want to ask other people you're looking on your phone and you're getting reviews right look at Glassdoor like that they're looking at our reviews what is the employer experience again branding is not what we say it is it's what other people say it is and so um
095continuing to partner on that is great too School spring so if you were to look at CDE or the Colorado Department of education's website there's three main educator job posting platforms that you can post to school spring is one of those all of our jobs are automatically posted on there specifically for licensed positions we don't for example post our bus operator positions on there because that's not who's going to that place Ed week or topschooljobs.com is another one that all of our jobs are posted to handshake which is a top university platform and diversity in it there's a lot more so the next step to that is specialized job boards right so we continue depending on the position we will do a search and for example post to the gay truckers Association to the National
096forum for black for black public administrators excuse me Alice case it depends on the position but we will basically create a customized advertising plan to make sure that those positions are getting out there those are a little bit more manual but all of the other ones that I mentioned are an automated process that all of our jobs are getting posted to one thing that I will just mention before moving on is beyond job boards and social media we also regular partner with The Coloradoan to post our jobs um we have it mentioned for example uh age diversity and we want to make sure that we are getting our information out to many different types of backgrounds and that might mean changing the medium as to which we are getting that information out we also are
097partnering actively with I Heart Radio you may have heard some of our ads come out I'm really excited for the one that's coming out in February March which is talking really about um and amplifying our student voices that represent diverse backgrounds here in PSD listen for that one and tell me how it is last but not least we're going to events I know it's a little sticky um so there's a lot of events that we are going to we average about 20 to 30 events Nationwide both virtually and in person that we attend to we also host our own intern our own internal hiring events about 12 per year and so you will see all of those the ones that are bolded on the screen have a specific diversity Focus the one that are the
098ones that are in your packet also highlights whether or not they are an MSI or not again this is an area where folks are like have you thought about this event maybe maybe not and I would invite you uh to to join us in the conversation and to give us your recommendations if you are a staff member that's here today or that you're watching online one thing that I will say is that this is a process and we're always Gathering feedback we're really honored to be joining the staff Equity Coalition for example this year and we have a working group in HR and so I would encourage you if you are a staff member and you're passionate about this work to join us for that working group as we talk about these various different places
099we're going to talk about our hiring processes and our recruiting processes as well can I mention one thing on the previous Slide the one thing that I would mention um is a value of peer-to-peer Outreach and you can leave it on this side that's fine um what I will say is when we're going to recruiting events we have a wonderful team that has a mixture of both privileged and marginalized identities and we also want folks to see themselves in our recruiters when we go we're often Limited in the amount of recruiters that can go thank you something that big happened recently um but I would say we are sometimes limited by the fair and event it is really important right I when I was at CSU I ran our student ambassador program that liaison to
100the student diversity programs and Services offices it was really important for us that our students saw our ambassadors in themselves and so we try to replicate that as well as we're thinking of recruiters that we're sending and representing at these fairs and events we talked about four main buckets in recruiting we're going to move and transition into retention but before I do that I wanted to give a quick pause here keep in mind we will have more time at the end to just see do you think we're on the right track with recruiting is there anything you are hoping to hear and you didn't hear that we can address again this might be a quick pause because we're going to transition into retention and we'll have more time at the end but anyone have quick
101burning thoughts that you would like to mention oh we always know that go ahead shooting March you're going to the Pennsylvania education and Resort shoe yes and I wonder don't we have enough people from Pennsylvania Working do I hear a little bit of a bias coming out okay PJ I believe you have something to ask um yeah I just it an opportunity that I think we also have is um they are kind of our principles uh that we have but the in the PTO that uh that I was a part of I know of there were three uh people part of that that have now are either parents or teachers and um it's an opportunity to sometimes you know reach some other families downside of it is is for them to be available for the
102PTO and to be volunteering they they might not necessarily be some of the people the diversity that we're looking for but they're but I would say I know two of them that were and so I just want to make sure that we have a a reach out there to you know those young families and and they maybe are out of the workforce for a little while and coming back in is is a great area I think that we can also reach so um and then quickly and this I have my kids you talked about the update to the website to see yourself um please use our people and don't use stock photos thank you thank you sorry so I would just uh ask there's a there's a piece of this of the process where a
103lot of people are involved in making a decision to hire somebody here right I mean uh folks in the HR department folks in the schools teachers peers whoever the director if it's a maybe it's a non-uh school thing the principal otherwise whatever do we have uh plans in place or already have practices in place that ensure that that process is is free from bias as possible so that the uh candidates of color who do choose to apply to our system have a fair shake to uh to get to get hired that is a really great question and you'll see that in just a few slides okay yes just to piggyback on What DJ just said my kids and they're only in elementary school have now had two teachers who were part of ptos and ptas
104and loved it and stuck around and are have been phenomenal teachers so I think that's not a good but not a bad place to start I was trying to decide whether to save this for the end or go now but I'll go ahead and go now one of the slides that really sticks with me is the one that shows 28 of our students our bipoc and 14 of the Colorado licensed are by Pac and seven percent of PSD is bypoc so it starts at 28th and goes in half and then goes in half right so my question is why is it in PSD that we're half as good as the rest of Colorado if you will and this is a complicated thing right I mean it's not part of its recruiting part of its retention
105part of it's people looking at Fort Collins maybe and saying ah I can't afford to live there or it's it's a very complicated kind of thing how you you know there may be many different facets of this problem that's what I'm trying to say and and so I guess part of my question is when we do the recruiting and we have a rejected offer do we do a detailed interview with that person to say you know really why was it that you chose Loveland or wherever versus PSD and um and and if and if we put those a list of those together we might start to see some trends that say you know oh most of it's housing costs so probably not I'm guessing most of it is I didn't see myself and other people
106or I didn't you know I I don't know what it will be but my question is do we carefully track rejects of our offers perfect there's a couple things in there so I want to mention a few things one is when we're considering Community demographics in comparison to staff demographics so one thing that you did see is for example our classified staff is actually more diverse than our Fort Collins Community right right about the same now when you also look at teacher preparation programs Across the Nation we need to also take that into consideration and I don't mean to set to make this sound like an excuse because it's not the other thing that we also need to take in consideration is the demographics in comparison to the rest of Colorado and those cities in
107comparison to our district so there are multi-layers there that I think has contributed to why we're seeing some of the things we're seeing in our numbers and data I will also say that we have a dedicated team and a dedicated Workforce overall beyond our talent team actively working towards this that hasn't necessarily existed in the past the other thing that I would mention about rejected not the rejects um the rejected the the people that decline our job offers specifically maybe that represents a marginalized population we don't currently track that however what we do see in our new employee we do a new employee onboarding and recruitment survey and we ask them why did you choose PSD what is the number one reason surprisingly or not surprisingly it's not salary it's PSD resources it's the staff
108here it's the students it's the community location is number two right so a lot of folks are coming this way because of the beauty of Fort Collins and Northern Colorado so to answer your latter question no we do not and I think that's a great suggestion for us to consider all right well I don't know why I muted myself we're gonna talk about plugging the Leaky bucket so here's what we don't want we don't want to invest time Resources Staffing to recruiting and not to retention because what are we producing them we're producing a leaky bucket right and so we're going to con continue to see these increases um but what is that how does that actually impact our overall teacher Workforce here in PSD this next slide is going to show a trend oh
109we're gonna go whoop biak to some retention Statistics over the past five years you will notice here that we are not breaking it down racially or ethnically like you have seen in previous slides that is a limitation currently in our Reporting System but we're happy to share that with you at a future time you will see in general PSD has done well in retaining the staff and that's what I want you to see here you will see similar to other organizations that we have received a dip so if you look at that far right dots those are that's our most current year which is 2122 from last year you will see that we have trended to retaining our staff but we also weren't immune to the great resignation similar to a lot of other organizations
110especially among our leadership and also among our classified staff teacher turnover so just to provide perspective Nationwide is about 16 percent ours is about 12 right now in PSD if you're looking at our licensed staff but depending on where you look can range anywhere from 25 to 54 percent Across the Nation overall the Bureau of Labor and statistics state that the overall turnover rate across all employee groups is closer to 25 percent and so I see this and I'm like oh that hurts and I also want to provide the perspective of what other Industries and school districts are also experiencing across the country oh we talked a lot about retention recruitment today and we want to talk about a few strategies in terms of what we are currently doing to retain our staff that represent
111some of those marginalized populations one is mentoring and induction there's a lot of research out there that says the first 90 days or the first year really determines the overall retention and experience of that employee longer term one of the great things about our district is that we do have a fantastic mentoring program that mentoring program doesn't fall under Talent team you will hear about it at a future board session but I did want to mention that this is a fantastic asset to our district we provide a one-to-one mentor to any new licensed teacher that comes in with what is called an initial license so think of those of new college graduates anyone who has not completed an induction program that's how you transition from an initial to a professional license and we also have
112some mentoring programs across all of our classified staff it isn't across every position but it does exist in some of our positions such as office managers and things like that also part of our mentoring program is a group coaching program this allows folks in some of our harder to retain areas such as special education to have group coaching opportunities so that they are able to hear from other special education Educators and also hear from experts in the field in a group coaching model the other thing that we are excited about that's going to happen just next week is we're reintroducing in-person and virtual orientation starting this February so we took a pause of this over covid and again we know the importance of those first 90 days and so coming back this February our wonderful
113specialist is bringing back orientations to PSD the next category that I want to talk about are our eags or employee Affinity groups and our staff Equity Coalition that I mentioned earlier these are employee-led groups and facilitated groups formed around interests backgrounds identities and common bonds we have two current eags one is the bipoc group the other one is our pride or lgbtqia plus group again I would encourage and anyone anyone from the the board to join us in a future staff Equity Coalition as we're talking through a lot of the things that we're talking about today um in my experience I have the I have had the wonderful experience to be a part of both of these groups and for me the eags are a place where I feel like I belong and I can
114see other folks who I may not see those common identities in my immediate work group but I know they exist within this larger system for the the staff Equity Coalition that activates the action in me and allows me to say hey I don't have a problem necessarily but I have a suggestion and how can we mobilize this into action and that's what that group has provided for me the third thing that we talk about is job exploration and application support so we want to make sure that staff seize their path here no matter what job they're currently in a lot of these conversations have trended to for example hey I'm getting ready to apply I'm a teacher to apply to a principal position I haven't done a resume in over 20 years what does that
115look like um and so we will sit one-on-one with candidates such like that it will also look like hey I think I might be interested in becoming a teacher I have no idea what licensing looks like I don't want to go back to school what are my options there's a lot of them and so we want to remove the barriers so that folks can see their clear pathway here in PSD because ultimately we want them here in PSD last but not least I kind of mentioned this a little bit is our new hire and employee engagement survey so in October time frame right now it's an annual process and not an ongoing process but we are looking at changing this We Gather feedback from our new hires to improve our Recruitment and hiring processes so
116we're asking them why did you choose to be here how was your experience did your identities have an impact in the hiring experience for example what are ways that we can make it better and we also hear from current employees to improve working conditions and job satisfaction so I know you all had a recent report for example in the tlcc survey we recently sent out a staff engagement survey through energe and so there's various different ways that we want to continue to talk with our current employees of how can we make it better here our associations also send out various different surveys and so there's a lot of surveys hopefully not too many surveys but we want to hear from all of our employees and to know that we're not making decisions in a vacuum
117okay there we go so one this might answer one of the questions that that came up just a moment ago we're going to talk a little bit about uh things that we're looking to uh work on and strategies for the future all right so one of the big things that we will be looking toward is to review our selection process and reduce implicit biases in that process so that takes a review of the process in order to reduce your biases right one of the things that that um that involves is basically collecting all of the questions interview questions that we ask from all of our various areas in the organization and then reviewing those questions specifically for implicit biases and then modifying those questions right that's to help make the interview process more inclusive as
118well one thing that we have worked with the staff Equity Coalition group on is creating a databank of Deni questions so we have agency y dni questions developed we are working towards Rolling that out to hiring panels and hiring managers we have a rubric that that group helped us develop so that that the panels will know what to look for when they ask those specific questions another way to reduce bias in your selection process is to have a structured interview and so we want to make sure that we have a formal structured interview that is applied across the organization as well as utilizing a peer panel review process that includes members of our organization that come from diverse backgrounds who then can provide feedback to the hiring supervisor through those lenses another piece of that
119would be that we're working towards developing a universal scorecard and part of this is actually just teaching and rolling out the training of this process for our selection our selection process so training our panelists and our and our hiring managers to First allow those panelists to complete their scorecards before they provide feedback to the hiring supervisor and to then have the hiring supervisor wait to provide feedback about the candidate until last they are a last in that process and that allows for the largest amount of insights that you can get from the from the most diverse perspectives possible and so we will be working through this the all of these items in our review process that will help us reduce biases in our hiring process again I probably could have had 10 of these slides
120but I could only have one so the first one that I want to talk about in terms of future strategies that we're exploring there's a lot of research that tells us that alternative teaching Pathways is a way to break down barriers in um in teaching especially among tradition individuals who represent the traditionally marginalized populations so we are currently looking at ways to ex not only expand this but support it right what we also know of atls is they have an exceptionally higher turnover rate in comparison to individuals who do go through a traditional pathway and so we want to make sure that as we're increasing our efforts here that we're also increasing our efforts to make sure that they feel supported and that they stay here in PSD as well the second thing um that
121I'll mention that we kind of mentioned is improving our applicant and hiring manager experience by reviewing our website in application for accessibility so we want to make sure that everyone that is looking at our website again not only sees that they belong but that they can navigate it right we don't want a 15 minute application we want it quick we want it so that applying to a job is easy and not a barrier we're also actively working on building grow your own programs specifically from a paraprofessional to a teacher we have a program right now through Colorado State University that are Early Childhood department is working on in terms of Early Childhood Paris becoming Early Childhood teachers it allows them to work Monday through Thursday and take classes on Fridays for example we are also
122working with the University of Northern Colorado with our Center for Urban Development to look at building a cohort starting this August for special education Paris to become special education teachers as well there's a lot more here we also have Pathways in terms of grow your own in our own Futures lab where we have an early childhood education pathway so as more opportunities that we can for our staff that may not be in a licensed position or students that are in that position yet to see themselves in this role we talked about having those one-on-one conversations with staff and or applicants that's if they feel brave enough right to reach out to us and and that's not everybody and we recognize that so we want to have a website that is truly a career One Stop
123So if I want to navigate and have a flowchart of I would like to become licensed for example what are the steps that I need to take what is how do I how do we make this as clear as possible of I'm a teacher and I aspire to be a principal here in this District what does that look like how do I do that we want to normalize having these career growth conversations with individuals because that's how we get people to stay we want to provide resources such as resumes and cover letter templates and interview guidelines and be as transparent as possible through our hiring processes the other thing that we um are actively doing and you're probably curious on that last slide of that's great to have a process but how do we implement
124it right and so along with building that process we're also partnering with our internal stakeholders for hiring teams training including implicit bias and microaggressions how to identify that through the pre-screen process through the interview process and through the eye hiring process we're also looking at expanding Partnerships with more msis and other organizations that really support that pipeline through historically marginalized populations and then also to improve both our exit interview and state interview process so we have an exit interview process currently in PSD every employee that um leaves our organization receives essentially a survey that asks them about why are you leaving and they have the opportunity to schedule a meeting with our HR department as well they would like to continue those conversations we don't want to wait until they're leaving before we ask them
125why are you leaving why are you thinking of leaving so we're looking to implement something called a stay interview process this would Empower our hiring managers to have these conversations earlier to normalize again what what makes you happy what's keeping you here what what don't you like and how can we make it better for you here in PSD this is our last slide and we're going to move to q a and I just want to thank everybody here I think the beauty of diversity is you can't always see it and it's the intersections of a lot of different identities I really want to thank you for allowing me to share part of my story to allow this to be a brave space for myself for someone who has felt like they haven't belonged I really
126appreciate that you have made this an environment for me to feel like I belong here in PSD thank oh thank you so much for your presentation I really appreciate it yeah are there questions from the board Kristen oh thank you so much that was amazing um and I'm so excited about where the direction we're going in um on the side that says review selection process to reduce implicit bias the very first one is review interview questions for implicit bias and provide a bank of Dei questions are we also providing a bank of questions like a bank of if you're interviewing for a teacher position if you're interviewing a principal position a bank of those type of questions you yes so the interview questions that we would be collecting are those that we do currently ask
127in those processes and so those would be the interview questions that we would review for implicit bias and then we would um basically create a new template right for teacher for transportation for whatever the position is so no matter what school you're interviewing for you can expect the same Bank of questions wouldn't be the same question each time but this same bank you can choose from a bank of questions right and there may be some specific questions depending on on a circumstance right like we may have some different questions for a sped teacher than we would for a different category absolutely okay that thank you that that makes sense um and um as far as the scorecards being completed before the discussion is that something that then gets handed into these hiring supervisor or is
128that something that they keep to themselves well typically you would have something called an applicant tracking system which we do not have we would and we would have this thing that you would be able to they would be able to just type it into it to our system so that it would be stored in there and it would be available then not just to the panel but to the hiring manager through that method So currently this will be a paper process for us okay all right thanks DJ and then Carolyn um thank you and I I was one of the things there's a lot of good things one of the things that I was excited about and kind of I liked the outside of the box thinking a little bit was the the J-1 teacher
129uh program it's mentioned the the budget restraint can you give me an idea of what is there extra cost in trying to do it what what is the pulled back on something like that yeah that's a really great question so for us we always want to minimize the barriers as much as possible in our hiring and recruiting processes there are a lot of J1 programs that exist out there the the model typically that you see is that they're charging candidates a lot of money to get that Visa the organization that we ended up selecting they're a non-profit so they really minimize that cost but that means there's a cost to the employer in terms of three thousand per candidate which is why we can fund 10 because that is what that pool of money that
130we currently have available and that's to help get the visa and that is correct yes it helps with the VISA there's a lot of things you know when we we're talking about the J-1 process some of the things that we are doing as a team is talking about housing options in Fort Collins what does it look like relocating your family what does it look like relocating and having children and then putting them into a American school what does that look like and so we're talking about all those pieces the three thousand dollars doesn't go towards the J1 Visa J1 Visa itself does not necessarily cost anything but it helps to support those costs in some of those transitional phases in the organization that we're working with helps to minimize that through that cost sounds like
131a great program now a great opportunity so thanks Carolyn so when we're looking for a diverse Workforce I wonder how do you ask people about their ethnicity I mean even like there are certain things you can't ask people right the EEOC says there are certain things you can't ask applicants so but when we're looking for a diverse Workforce I mean how do we figure how do we how do we do that without violating the law yeah that's a really great question I think a couple things that I would say there's some things that we have to report as an employer through EEOC one of those does include race and ethnicity and gender I think ultimately our goal in recruiting and retaining a diverse Workforce is to create a Workforce that Fosters a culture of belonging
132and so by having those questions for example and asking what does diversity Equity inclusion look like to you what does Equity look like to you you're right we're not going out and being like hey do you fit these boxes we're not what we are looking for is how are you going to be able to support the diverse needs of our students and one of the ways that we do that of course there is an application and does track some of those but for example it doesn't ask about [Music] um we ask about preferred pronouns so that we can honor them throughout that process but we don't necessarily ask about like their sexual orientation right um and so I think you get to that by creating Brave spaces in interviews by allowing folks to share their
133story and to dive deeper so that we understand who they are as a person Beyond what's on that piece of paper Kristen you got some yeah I'm not seeing any other hand so go ahead Kristen all right um one other thought that I had when you had mentioned Deborah the um the age um work Workforce and the differences there is have we thought about pursuing the older generation for their Encore careers so that they could come back you know somebody who's been a business person their entire life maybe they can then come back and you know help out on the you know forgetting what the name of the Deca that's it thank you you know that kind of thing like I think I think if we can pursue people in their Encore careers that would
134be um kind of helpful there as well um and I just wanted to throw out their um you had mentioned it before but that sentence in there that PSD is committed to finding the best candidate for the job and that candidate maybe one who comes from a less traditional background I think that is so helpful it's not only talking about maybe various identities but I think about that and I look at I can see myself in that because I currently am in a position that typically industrial Engineers don't hold librarianships so it's a very strange thing for for me to be where I am but I'm very grateful for that and I think there are a lot of people out there in their current positions that say I may actually be a better fit somewhere
135else and so I have all of this education or I have all of this knowledge and I have a skill set and they're asking for the right person not necessarily a specific piece of paper that says you can do this so I think that's a fantastic sentence in there and might even think about moving it up I have one quick question and that is do you know what percentage of our student teachers actually wind up working at PSC I don't want to say a number off of my top of my head but we can find that out for you what I would say is it's very high and especially with things that have changed mid-year they are a great pipeline for us for emergency positions for example in the middle of the Year there are
136various different ways in order to employ that student and what you will hear from educator prep programs especially is that's really our golden ticket because student teachers aren't necessarily always attending those fairs anymore they don't have to the the ball is in their court and so the earlier that we can capture them in PSD the better for us because that whole time right is not only an interview process for us to observe them but also an interview process for them to observe us is this a place that I could see myself in the future and so we really encourage our student teachers as they're going through their placement to a explore other schools talk to other teachers observe other teachers ask your administrators to come I'm I that's a really great stat and I'd love
137to pull that for you but I can tell you it's really high okay I'll look forward to that any other comments or questions Nate yeah thank you for everything and I especially like the last slide I think those are some very creative ways of trying to expand our Supply so thank you all right again thank you very much on behalf of the entire board for the work you're doing in this area as I said at the beginning we're all we're very interested in it and we're looking forward to our success so thank you very much um the last item on our agenda is an executive session can I get a motion to go into executive session all right I hope so yes good go ahead to raise his hand so go ahead Kristin I move
138that the board enter executive session for the purpose of developing the strategy of the school district for negotiations relating to the 2023-2024 collective bargaining agreement or employment contracts as authorized by CRS 24-6-402 subsection 4e3 individuals invited to join the board in executive session are superintendent Brian Kingsley Chief of Staff Lauren Hooten Chief finance officer Dave Montoya Chief Human Resources officer Eric Van Savage Chief Information officer Madeline noblett and general counsel Autumn Aspen the second looks like a second out there from DJ can I have a vote on this motion please DJ Anderson aye Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan aye Christian Draper aye Rob Peterson aye Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 again thank you Jill and for the benefit of those watching uh we will now go into closed session for the
139executive session topic that we just voted on this is the last agenda item for the evening the only thing that's going to happen in this meeting after the executive session is that I will come out here to a probably empty room and pound this gavel to take us out of uh to it to adjourn the meeting so again thank you for joining us remember our first meeting in February is the first week of First Tuesday of February and we'll uh convene for our executive session the superintendent's office at quarter to nine oh right yeah we're not adjourning though we're just