001all right we're gonna start the meeting now if we could have order in the room please so that we can start the meeting I'd appreciate it thanks very much thanks for joining the Board of Education this evening please mute your cell phone as we begin the meeting today is October 11 2022 and this meeting is now called the order at 6 32 P.M first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance if you'd stand to join me with that I'd appreciate it one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks very much our next order of business is asking whether any of the board members would like to make changes to the agenda any changes to the agenda it looks like not in which case we are on to our first set
002of action items which in this case is a resolution in support of blindness Awareness Month um would somebody like well first of all I need a motion with regard to this go ahead uh Nate I move that the board approved the resolution in support of blindness awareness month do I have a second looks like Jess got us a second um I think we want to read the resolution would somebody like to go ahead and read that apparently Kristen would like to read it oh you want to Jess I can thank you there you go Jess is going to read it from the printout there you go thank you in support of blind blindness Awareness Month whereas there is an estimated 2.2 billion people who have a near or distance visual impairment according to the World
003Health Organization whereas there are approximately 55 249 U.S children youth and adult students in the educational setting who are legally blind whereas visual impairment is a spectrum that ranges from low vision to total blindness and can affect people of all ages whereas young children with early onset severe Vision impairment can experience delayed motor language emotional social and cognitive development with lifelong consequences school-aged children with a vision impairment can also experience lower levels of educational achievement whereas of those reported to have a visual disability in the United States in 2016 31.6 percent graduated with a high school diploma 30.3 percent had some college education or associate's degree and 15.7 percent earned a bachelor's degree or higher whereas individuals who are blind are highly capable people who have jobs families travel independently and have strong Community communication
004skills whereas blindness awareness month as important as it gives the Blind and Visually Impaired Community a voice and an opportunity for telling their own stories as well as increase in Awareness in the community about visual impairments through blindness Awareness Month society as a whole can become more informed inclusive and supportive of for those with blindness and visual impairment now therefore be it resolved we the Pooter School District board of education do hereby support October 2022 as blindness Awareness Month approved and adopted this 11th day of October 2022. thanks Jess appreciate it uh Brian I believe we have some folks here to talk with us about this sorry about that yes joining us this evening to speak to blindness awareness month is Jenna Martin our integrated Services orientation and Mobility specialist and teacher of the visually
005impaired in Cali Parks who is one of our 10th grade students at Peter High School welcome to both of you good evening and thank you Mr Kingsley and board members for having me here tonight this is something that is near and dear to my heart and it is an honor to stand up here with Cali who's going to tell us a little bit about herself hi um I have been visually impaired for my entire life when I was five months old my parents were told that I had a brain tumor that was located on my optic chiasm I really try to do as much as I can despite my visually my vision problems and do my do my best to advocate for myself I have me I was able to participate participate in volleyball and
006golf over the last few years and I love to shoot my bow and go hunting and fishing with my family I also really want to be a chef or a baker when I grow up this resolution would help me feel more confident in myself knowing that others will be aware of not just my impairments but others as well and what we can accomplish thank you so much foreign thank you so much we really appreciate that um are there questions or comments from the board go ahead Kristen Cali thanks so much for coming in today and sharing your story with us and I hope that you're maybe taking some classes to become a baker or a chef here at pooter and that that dream comes true for you thank you yeah yeah sure go ahead Brian
007Cali as your superintendent I just want to thank you for sharing your story with us while the center of the resolution May deal with an impairment uh what came through in your speech loud and clear are the various strengths that you have your dreams your aspirations the things that you're interested in that make you a part of not just the school district but this community we could not be more proud of you and to be a part of the school district with you so congratulations on all of your hard work and thank you for representing just our school district Community with such great strength and courage you make us all very proud thank you all right not seeing any other comments Jill if you would call a vote on this I'd appreciate it DJ Anderson
008aye Jim brokish aye Nate Donovan aye Christian Draper aye Rob Patterson aye Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 thank you very much Jill and thank you again for sharing for sharing your thoughts with us and your experience thank you thank you [Applause] all right next on our agenda is the superintendent's report and we'll look forward to hearing from superintendent Kingsley as he makes remarks to the board and the community thank you uh I'm a little distracted for a second just I don't know if you notice how many people were with Cali and I I wish I acknowledged them before they had left and I will make a point to Circle back with them but students like Cali don't get their strength and resilience by being alone and the fact that we have
009so many not just staff members but I'm sure Cali's family can continuously working together is really significant and special and I just wanted to mention that and not skip over it I also want to start my address this afternoon or this evening by discussing and acknowledging that Monday was indigenous people's day and I think it's important to name that the intent for that day was to honor all indigenous people and their contributions to our country by recognizing this day our district values our staff and students who identify as members of our indigenous community and want to thank them I want to thank everybody who was involved to help to elevate and appreciate the work that's been done to help ensure that the city of Fort Collins passed a resolution to ensure that the second Monday
010of October moving forward is efficiently and formally recognized as indigenous people's day and we have work to do as our Core Business is providing a strong public education when we teach our students well and we do that in an inclusive manner not only do all people thrive but we create community and since we've last convened I've had an opportunity to engage with so many different members of our community in meaningful ways and I just want to spend a few moments tonight talking about that every single Tuesday night that we walk in here we're surrounded by these beautiful pieces of artwork this is a long-standing tradition that I had a chance to participate in as the superintendent there's an Art Exhibit every single year where they present these incredible pieces of Art and I met a
011student I met all of these students who did these things last year but I met one in particular and her name was tips that's her last name and she had told her story that she was disengaged from school and really struggling but she was an incredible artist and as I had an opportunity to meet her and her family that night I said tips I'm new here to the community and I really like your help in helping me decorate my office and I asked her would it be okay if I personally commissioned her first piece of artwork and so earlier this week or late last week excuse me she came and presented her piece of art that I personally commissioned as the superintendent and against one of I personally commissioned this we did not put taxpayer
012dollars uh towards this but I just think helping our students benefit from their Artistry and their talents is important and I couldn't be more proud to have this hanging in my office and I couldn't be more proud of tips and the teachers and her family for ensuring she stays engaged she'll be graduating this year she's plugged in doing really well up the road at PCA and I couldn't be more proud of her and the other students that are represented on this wall and who are doing and sharing their talents with us each and every day in our schools and in our homes our students don't just have they're not the only people in town that have these incredible talents and abilities I went last week and I saw a few board members there as well
013to bolts Middle School's 50th anniversary celebration I could tell you that school knows how to throw a party live music food trucks but the most incredible experience to me that night selfishly is I walked into their Media Center where there was about 40 alumni faculty members who still live in the community who are still wanting to be a part of the Bulls Community Family many of them substitute teachers to this day and listening to their stories about the origin of the school the tragic fire that delayed the opening of the school which is why their mascot is the Phoenix it was just really touching to recognize the educator commitment that allows students to share their Artistry and how that's vibrant even when our Educators leave the profession so that really touched my heart I had
014an opportunity earlier this week to visit several other schools I won't be able to mention all of them by name a few that stand out as Werner Elementary School I think there's some kind of new challenge for first grade students who are six years old for those of you out there who can high-five the superintendent the hardest way possible my hand was red for about an hour and a half but meeting those little six-year-olds was a joy and a pleasure but I really enjoyed also going into one of the high impact teams at the school where I met with three third grade teachers who were working diligently to identify where students were in their strengths with mathematics and where they were struggling and what they were going to do about it the way that they
015were interpreting data the way that there was like they were like physician-like in terms of the Precision of ensuring the time that they have with their students was maximized by what they were doing with each and every one of their children and I couldn't be more proud of what they're doing as well as all of their peers not just at Warner but other schools then I had an opportunity to close my day at Fossil Ridge High School yesterday and I saw one of the most incredible academic debates among two 10th grade students who had read an article and were debating upon the author's intent of what their key and core message was whether their argument was strong and compelling and who was the targeted audience and why and the level of complexity in a professional
016and academic interrogation of the work and the analysis that was so complex made me so proud and hopeful about our future as we think about the role of civil discourse and how to professionally and academically challenge each other while maintaining dignity honor and respect at the center of the community in our relationship they modeled that for not just their classmates but for me and I couldn't be more proud to be a part of it there's lots of great things happening not just in that classroom but at that school and other schools had a chance to attend and their theater production which was she kills monsters I wasn't scary I promise you the music was great but watching those students be able to express themselves like this are like these artists through a very different modality
017uh just there's so many great things happening here every day and it's just a pleasure to have a job where I get to talk about them and to see them also celebrate the teachers who made that happen in the way that they looked at them and choked up like I can get choked up right now it's just incredible ladies and gentlemen public education benefits everyone it's the foundation of a strong community and if we're going to be successful in our work we have to ensure that all of our students not just some have these opportunities to grow and to thrive and hopefully stay in this community to continue to live and prosper and work here after our graduation that's what this district is about you know we've been prioritizing the work of our strategic plan
018for several months that work continues when we think about all of these systems that we're building to support the safety and the security the mental health and the academic growth of our students we also have to witness and celebrate the Brilliance that's happening in real time every day it's a both and not an either or and I'm just uh I couldn't be more proud to talk about some of those things tonight I want to close by thanking all of the staff who make these things possible uh it is absolutely incredibly important that we work together as a team as a district as a community to support all of our children I had a chance last week to attend a safety conference where not only our employers and school-based leaders but our Charter Schools Partners our
019emergency Partners came together for a day of learning around calibrating around how we're approaching Safety and Security in our schools and what was so cool is that we all had shared agreements that safety isn't achieved through policy it's a way of thinking it's a way of doing it's the reason why when any of us visit our schools we have secured entrances at all 55 of our schools it is the reason why our principals and staff are working tirelessly and annually and regularly to practice both safety and fire drills it is the reason why the relationship that this district has with its school resource officers is special and significant and continuing to grow and be healthier than ever and it's the reason why we train together we are doing great work together in community not just
020around safety but around literacy and mental health and we just had a robust conversation as a governance team around how we can ensure more students graduate and graduate with options so I couldn't be more proud to be the superintendent I I am optimistic and hopeful around the great work that is happening because I believe in the people not just in this District but in our community and I'm really grateful for the time to share my story tonight thank you as always for your remarks and particularly thank you for sharing your experiences in the schools uh the work of the students and the work of the staff I think it's important that we hear about that we don't always get to see it as much as you do and thank you for sharing it we really
021appreciate it um so uh with that we'll move on to community comment I want to remind us all of our hopes for this section of the agenda the board desires to hear all the viewpoints of all stakeholders including students employees parents 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 this is a public comment is designed to address issues not personalities or Personnel matters please keep your concerns and comments focused upon the district we ask that you not directly call out an individual whether a student parent Guardian staff member or Community member problems or concerns about an individual
022employee should be addressed to the supervising administrator if you are unclear about whom to contact please send an email to info psdschools.org or me and we will make sure that you are in contact with the right people 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 we 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 the 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
023generally how to show up each day We should strive to be respectful of one another and with our individual views please don't degrade others for what they share in this space we ask also that attendees not interject or interrupt Community commenters or any presenters or board discussions if you have questions you may follow up with staff or the board individually either after the board meeting or via phone or email the board and staff strive to respond to questions in a timely manner with that I will remind everyone that this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they signed up and will be allowed three minutes each to address the board at
024the end of your time if you have not finished I will respectfully ask you to conclude your remarks immediately thank you with that we'll hear from our first Community comment and that is Jeff afterheide welcome thank you my name is Jeff hofterhutty from Arlington Colorado I'm concerned about the proposed amendments to the conflict of interest policy 3.5 in the last board meeting I provided an explicit example about how one board member coordinated with their former colleague and director of the non-profit called The bypoc Alliance which attempted to end the SRO program at Purdue School District let me provide another example of why affiliations matter Christian Draper volunteers for an organization called Splash but according to State Statute or the law she did not have to report her affiliation in May 2021 several days after the
025Aaron Lee incident Kim Chambers the owner of this organization wrote an email to the Wellington art teacher and several parties including someone outside the district named Charlie Chambers wrote that board member Draper was briefed on Aaron Lee's situation and that Draper quote has fielded all of the other middle schools as they began gsas and pushed through these barriers unquote I interpret this statement to mean Miss Draper as a board member helped Kimberly Chambers set up GSA clubs at PSD later that same day Chambers wrote another email to the art teacher to suggest she start a well-child check on the Lee family which is essentially calling Child Protective Services Its Behavior is dangerous this past May PSD alleged they cut ties with the splash organization and no explicit date for severing that relationship is documented why
026will you not provide the date I'll give you my reason on August 11 2021 Kim Chambers emailed John McKay remember I mentioned this name last week as Johanna Jerome's friend the founder of the bypoc alliance Chambers directly asked McKay quote can we do a memorandum of understanding or something to ensure the district Splash and I am protected moving forward unquote after what happened to the Lee family and others who or what gave Kimberly Chambers the confidence to specifically ask for a memorandum of understanding between Splash and the district it's my personal belief the reason Kimberly Chambers felt comfortable in her actions is because of her relationship and backing of board member Draper and other unnamed individuals I believe the real reason you will not provide evidence of when this relationship was severed is because the
027district continued to provide training classes by the individual and splash volunteer named Charlie this emerging pattern of implementing your personal ideology and political agenda is a disturbing and I would like to ask the board how do you plan on mitigating such scenarios with your current policy changes and finally even more concerning is the fact that Ms Draper participates in modifying this policy peel back my time thank you our next speaker is Candace Moser welcome hi uh I come here tonight wearing two hats as a parent and a teacher and I'd like to refer to the policy of student dress per the 22-23 code of conduct I'm here to ask the board to re-evaluate the language in the dress code and establish a trackable system for infractions to provide data about who is most affected currently
028there is no place to my knowledge to look for this information therefore what we do here comes from parent to parent conversations or from our children from my personal experience as a parent dress coding has been most prevalent in Middle School to females and done so in a very public manner for example students are dress coded for their bellies showing if they lift their arms it has been the topic of many conversations in our home and in my opinion distracts from learning far more than the width of a tank top strap additionally there is language in the current dress code that contradicts the district's strategic goal of mental health and belonging for example prohibiting a student from wearing clothing that indicates a gender preference or disability is exclusionary moreover determining if students are wearing gang
029attire lends to bias and even racist assumptions of a student based on outward appearances it is my opinion that policies need to be Revisited to align with District initiatives and then enforce equitably in all schools and we need to re-examine if current policies are prohibiting certain excuse me if current policy is prohibiting certain apparel increases student learning and track dress coding to see who is actually committing these offenses thank you thank you our next speaker is Kane young welcome all right my name is Kane I am the founder of task force freedom we are fighting against the teaching of critical race theories social emotional learning and the sexual grooming of our children which is what PSD is involved in our amazing team put together a list of pornographic books that are npsd you uh you
030folks on the board were emailed that information I believe yesterday mm-hmm if anyone's interested in getting any of the documents that we talk about you can email us at taskforcefreedom AOL.com or go to connecting larimer.com I want to talk a little bit about the mass mandate your tyrannical and unlawful and unconstitutional Mass mandate has harmed children of PSD the the children of PSD were harmed by you socially emotionally and physically the parents provided evidence that mass did not work some parents begged and pleaded with you not to mask their children yet you tyrants sitting on your throne did it anyway why why for the money for the covet cash that's sick so the people expect an apology from you immediately we demand that you provide the pure the pure evidence that mass work that will
031never happen because you know they don't according to the CDC and The Who and that clown fauci masks do not work so the only thing left for you to do is to resign resign and shame for harming for purposely harming children you tyrants hurt babies and you belong in jail so parents I say to you and I will continue to say to you take your children out of these government schools oh they look like an act like and sound like they really care for you they do not don't read their lips don't watch their mouth watch their feet and they will prove to you over and over again that they have no care and concern for you or your children the next thing you do is you vote you vote like you've never voted before
032you vote this year you vote next year you vote the year after that until these tyrants are removed from office I know but Kane they look so simple and innocent I spent several years a police officer and I'm gonna tell you you cannot identify a criminal you cannot identify evil they come in many shapes and sizes thank you our next speaker is Penny Sue welcome excuse me evening our children are in grave and present danger the agenda is to sexualize indoctrinate and medicalize or mutilate young people all over the country people are beginning to speak out against this practice gaze against grooming and trans against grooming groups have recently been de-platformed for speaking out against agendas that will sexually groom minors the Chloe Cole's story which you have been sent is the story of a
033young woman who transitioned and detransitioned it's her story is the beauty of motherhood stolen from me Friday Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville Tennessee announced it will suspend transgender surgeries on minors after Hospital received backlash for this controversial practice according to Dr Shane siebelt Taylor at vumc's clinic for Jan's transgender Health it costs roughly forty thousand dollars to have chest transitioned from female appearance to male appearance you cannot get a tattoo until you're 18 years of age by alcohol until you're 21. rent a car until you're 25. you can't even have breast enhancement surgery until you're 22. yet a child can choose to sterilize and mutilate themselves as early as 12 years old without parental consent and this is being allowed in this District the sexual grooming of the actor after school activities continues in
034this District this gentleman spoke of this issue to you we continue to see you sitting here I want to see empty seats I had a vision of this 30 years ago and I know how this ends and I'm going to give you a spoiler alert you don't win may God have mercy on your souls thank you our next speaker is Fred Kirsch looks like Fred didn't make it today so we will move on to our next speaker who is Aaron green welcome good evening members of the school board tonight I'm here to ask you a question what would you do if a member of Staff in this most public setting did and said something profoundly racist and clearly violated the civil rights of a student and broke the law in doing so what would your
035response be what action would you want to see done by leadership and how would you personally follow up I posed this question to you tonight how does the culture of leadership in this district and in this room change when the action is not racism but ableism the Ada requires something called reasonable accommodations to ensure people with disabilities have equal access who determines what reasonable accommodations are leadership does until there is a disagreement and then a judge or an investigator does this is a different standard and threshold than the commitment that you have all made publicly related to equity diversity inclusion on your website reasonable accommodation does not require the district to consider human dignity of the student and it does not require PSD to default to the most inclusive Behavior but it does require you
036to do something at the last board meeting two of the three presentations had large printed copies of PowerPoint presentation materials similar to what's up here today this is is this what reasonable accommodation is for a request for picture descriptions for a blind and visually impaired student by itself it's kind of like yelling and speaking slowly to a person who is deaf someone in leadership thought that let's print it on big paper and that will be reasonable for the Blind and Visually Impaired School Board does that meet your reasonability standard human dignity did you see the font size on Cali's speech tonight please compare that font size to the font size the material on this printed information and ask yourself the question if that's a reasonable accommodation even worse at the start of the Capital Improvements
037presentation which by the way did not include any printed material one staff member at the three hour and 29 minute Mark set accessibility twice enough to get some laughs by the presentators before keying up a video shown to the board in the public the video had no narration but contained valuable visible visual information about the progress and accomplishments of two major Capital Improvement projects throughout the entire presentation no attempt at reasonable accommodations was made by staff no large printed material was provided and the video in particular was clearly where staff broke the law district employment policy and violated the human dignity of students with visual impairment while under a specific written request for accommodation your leadership in this room sets example for the rest of the district and is the reason why the Colorado Department
038of Education found nine violations of the law by District employees violating my son's accommodations it's also the reason why there have been two office of civil rights violation findings against the district in the past couple of years ask somebody outside the district if that is normal and how high of a bar it is to get a ruling against the school district out of either CDE or the office of civil rights thank you thank you our final speaker tonight is Danny Lawrence welcome foreign good evening in your resolution pass tonight there are some statistics missing that I think are vital when considering the outcome of Blind and Visually Impaired school children eight percent of visually impaired kids are living in residential schools with poor educational outcomes and rampant sexual abuse that is why we left Arizona
039and moved here because our previous District wanted our son to live 250 miles from home learning modalities for blind children in public education are Bleak only seven percent of visually impaired kids will learn Braille 32 percent will have to magnify print they can't see 10 get to be auditory readers and 33 percent are just not taught to read at all and remain illiterate there are over 8 million adults in the United States living with visual impairment and 70 of them are unemployed so initially the resolution was infuriating to me two weeks ago my visually impaired son was denied ADA accommodations to your meeting so the resolution feels hypocritical and when I started to think about all the ironic resolutions I've seen in this room I realized that my frustration should be it should have been
040present for all those other populations we read resolutions for and do nothing to help for example last month was Hispanic Heritage Month but the monitoring report indicated their graduation rate is about 65 percent just barely better than those kids with disabilities on my end these resolutions feel apathetic out of touch and frankly degrading I feel like it's a five alarm fire and the board is standing around with squirt guns wondering why it's not getting better truly the district is not doing enough and I don't believe you all personally are pushing for change fast enough every day I wake up is a day closer to graduation for my child and that 70 unemployment rate staff laughed at us last meeting declaring that the district is accessible on all of his platforms while littering literally queuing up
041an inaccessible video for the meeting it's a bold stance to take when CDE determined that you didn't Implement my son's IEP and today at his high school two months into the school year teachers are still unable to upload screenshots and classroom work in real time because the internet connection at Rocky Mountain isn't strong enough to fulfill the accommodations of my son's IEP which inhibits his ability to participate in class and violates the same law you violated last year PSD shouldn't be little people with legitimate legal concerns and in fact and the fact that I'm speaking about that publicly shows what kind of culture we have here how about a conversation where you might be able to to convey something other than this aggressive insensitivity and some respectful dignity you know maybe a listening ear that
042would be nice I'm tired of the integrated Services Department if they could get it done they would have done it and they can't because of your site-based policy structure I'm tired of being on a Communications restriction while you remain obstinent break federal law and then laugh at us without consequence we either change because it's the right thing to do or we change because we get shamed into it my child deserves more than meaningless resolutions he requires more than words he deserves actions and plans he deserves people who are committed to actualizing his potential educate every child every day right so when does my kid fit into that sentiment thank you all right that concludes Community comment now we are on to board topics and committee reports this agenda item is an opportunity for board members
043to provide an update on committee work who would like to begin go ahead DJ um first before I talk about some legislation stuff I also want to uh just do a little plug also for a couple of awareness months that uh are near and dear to me uh with dyslexia awareness month is October it is is uh something that I I think everyone needs to learn more about because unfortunately people are just thinking it's some letters getting twisted around in the brain and there's a lot more to it and we need more understanding and better resources also to address that one uh another one is ADHD awareness month which is another challenge that schools have to face with trying to reach all of our students and so I just want to bring both of those
044up to our attention uh then I wanted to talk a little bit about legislation um we have the ballots are going to be here in about a week and we will not be and we don't have another meeting for two weeks so I just want to get out there in case we have some really go-getters that fill out their ballot and get it sent in right away uh we as a legislative committee haven't had a chance to uh work on this and bring it up to the board uh but I believe that most of us are on on the same wavelength on some of these but I will share my personal thoughts on a couple of them that relate to schools and that we need to make sure that we're aware of and uh so
045the first one is Proposition FF which is healthy School meals for all this is an opportunity to make sure that we are feeding all of our students all of the time this is a program that would be a rate it would raise a 100 million per year with new with uh for people making over a hundred we it would raise this money by uh taking uh people that are making over three hundred thousand dollars uh this is a program that it is an opportunity uh that if all of our students are fed it gives us a better opportunity to actually educate them and we've saw the benefits of this uh through covid and being able to have that program fully funded through the federal government for a while we would like to continue it so
046it's up to our voters to step up and vote for that one again that is Proposition FF another one is Proposition 121 it is a state income tax reduction and that might sound good right off the bat but uh what it affects afterwards can be very detrimental to the the services that we count on as a state and of biggest one for us of course would be uh schools we do the state backfills the the extra money that schools need to run and so this is a very important one that I would encourage you all to look at closely and I would say that it's important that we defeat that one and do not lower the income tax rate uh the third one is Proposition 123 and it's a dedicated revenue for affordable housing programs
047and on this one the the part that would help us is our teachers our teachers are having a hard time affording where to live and we need affordable housing and this gives us an opportunity to have communities like Fort Collins Windsor uh Timnath and anyone to apply for these grants from the state to be able to get this money so proposition 123 is an opportunity for us to have some State funding to help with affordable housing and again I remind you that the ballots come out here in about a week and they are due on that first Tuesday of November so please take the time to go through the ballot and then keeps these in mind thank you thanks very much DJ I I uh personally again uh support all of the positions that you
048described there one other thing that I would just mention on proposition 123 yes we need affordable housing for our teachers but we also need affordable housing for our classified staff even more so in some ways because they're uh their pay isn't as high as the teachers pay so I would just include all of our staff in in uh in our strong desire to have our staff be able to live in the communities in which they teach and serve our students so um we uh hope hopefully we'll get that kind of support are there other are there other uh comments or reports that people on the board would like to make Nate yes I just wanted to remind us that the Colorado Association of school boards fall conference is Friday October 21st down in Denver and
049delegate assembly is Saturday October 22nd so we are forwarding on those legislative views to try to get them uh considered by the delegates at casby to help form the legislative agenda for the Colorado Association of school boards and so DJ will be our person at the microphone thanks for reminding us of that Nate other thoughts or comments question I just wanted to say um so I had the the pleasure of going to um the bolts 50th which was just amazing um the dunk tank by the way I don't I'm sorry for all you staff who were in the dunk tank because those kids had some great aim everybody was wet um so it was that was a lot of fun and I also got to go to Wellington Middle High School this past week and
050and um during homecoming week actually so that was really fun I just wanted to give a shout out to all the amazing teachers that I got to meet there the artwork that was out and about truly beautiful artwork and then also I have never seen so many Eagles um wear you know jackets and t-shirts and like they just came out with this stuff how did you even have it they asked for one and they're like oh yeah you have to special order it so kudos to you I mean every student had was wearing their Eagle shirt it was fantastic so um I just you know wanted to send my thanks to Kelly benedict for having me there and it was a great experience and we got to do some great walkabouts and also just as
051a thing go mock trial for Wellington so other reports or comments it looks like not in which case we'll move on to our next item on the agenda which is the consent agenda would any board members like to pull any item from the consent agenda I do not see any so can I get a motion Nate yes I moved at the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda excellent can I have a second Kristen Jill would you please call a vote on the consent agenda DJ Anderson aye Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan aye Kristen Draper aye Rob Peterson aye Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 excellent thank you so much Jill our next section of the agenda is the remaining action items for this evening
052which consists in this case of uh our Vote or consideration on the revisions to policy GP 3.5 second reading you'll recall that we discussed this at the last board meeting this is our revision to our ethics and transparency policy um can I get a motion Nate yes I move that the board of proven adopt policy GP 3.5 is presented excellent thank you can I have a second from Jim I have a second is there any discussion on this agenda item I will say that uh that uh I think as I noted last time one of the things that this new policy does is requires us as board members to disclose our affiliations uh um our leadership affiliations and our business affiliations uh in a form annually so that will uh that goes above and beyond
053what the law requires and um helps to provide transparency for our community anything else DJ yes just for clarification we will then after we approve this we'll do it next week or something like that I I have a little thing right here that I was going to read yes the answer is the short answer is yes absolutely absolutely we're not waiting till August of next year any uh Autumn you wanted to say something uh did you want to include the disclosure form as part of the motion as well or do you want that not to be approved by the way yes I want to I would like the disclosure form to be a part of the of the motion okay I think maybe amend the emotion to include the disclosure form as well as the
054policy oh thank you yes would anybody like to uh oh sorry would uh Nate would you like to amend your well I just wondered if that is going to be part of the policy or could be subject to revision without having to have the policy uh reviewed again it seems to me that it could it could be referenced in the policy but not be an actual part of the policy and and so it could be revised as necessary I just think that maybe yes that's that's a possibility and I and I'll just speak for myself I thought about that and I think it's important uh for our as we present this to the public that we all say that we're in favor of the form as it currently exists also you know I mean that
055we're committed to filling that out um and I think we can say that but it doesn't necessarily have to be part of the policy but you think that it being part of the policy I think it's better that way and I don't think it's going to get changed that often anyway but I mean so does anybody want to do an amendment I guess if we're not going to do Amendment then it won't be part of the policy but go I move that we amend to include the disclosure the disclosure form do I have a second on that from Jim any discussion on that Amendment other than Nate go ahead yeah I'll just repeat what I said that I don't think it's necessary but um middle pass so we'll go forward okay I guess I'll just
056I'll just say that I think it's desirable as a as a reinforcement for our own commitment to the transparency uh uh okay any if there are no other comments let's vote on the amend we have to vote on the amendment vote on the amendment to the motion jail DJ Anderson aye Jim brokish aye Nate Donovan no Kristen Draper aye Rob Patterson aye Carolyn Reed no Jessica Zamora no motion passes four three okay um uh any discussion on the motion as amended all right in which case Jill would you please call a vote on the the amended motion DJ Anderson aye Jim brokish aye Nate Donovan aye Kristen Draper aye Rob Patterson aye Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 excellent thank you Jill now I'll read the thing that I said I was
057going to read uh this form was approved for this policy and the associated form were approved for annual use and has an annual deadline of August 31st because the board is just approving this form now for the 2022-2023 school year board board board members will fill out the form and submit it to the board secretary by November 10th if that's okay can we do that great yeah go ahead Kristen just a quick question will we be receiving that by email um Jill you're receiving a hard copy before you leave this evening excellent to facilitate this filling out fantastic thank you thank you Jill all right now we're on to our informational reports and discussion items uh and we only have one this evening and that is our uh entitlement funds overview and Brian and the
058staff will help explain what that means and uh we'll learn more about it so thank you president Patterson thank you for that introduction presenting the entitlement funds overview this evening are our chief equity and academic officer Miss Marlena gross Taylor our interim director of language culture and Equity Mr David ottenreith in language culture and Equity Department technician 2 Miss Marissa Velez welcome thank you for being here thank you for having us I am excited to have these two amazing Educators next to me to help explain and share information about how we use our entitlement funds also I do want to note that we we will be taking a deeper dive into more of the details around our entitlement funds at your next board retreat which I think might be penciled in for February just as
059a point of clarification for the board we have one in December but this is this is going to be in February okay thank you okay thanks so the purpose for tonight is really to review our title funding in a little bit more detail how we use these funds from the federal government to support our students our staff and our district priorities so four areas that we will cover tonight are the exact title funds that we receive the intent of that funding how we measure the impact and our next steps so just to level set everyone about title funding our title funds are federal monies that are meant to supplement not supplant not replace existing funding for education so this is funding that we've received that is in addition to what we would normally be allocated
060and with that I am going to also remind the board that each summer around May or June time frame we actually do a Consolidated application for all of our title funding that you the board approved this past application was on 6 14 22 and that we do this every year where we have to notate not only in extreme detail about how we're using the money but how we're measuring the impact and what changes we need to make and and so you all should be familiar with that I am excited to announce that we did receive our official Award of our Consolidated application title funding that you see here um we've received that just a few weeks ago so David and Marissa are excited to share with all of our schools that receive this funding as
061well as our different District departments so we can use these Monies to get started with the work so with that I'm actually going to turn it over to David and timurisa so they can go into a little bit more detail about each of our title funding areas and the intent for those so David and Marissa thank you and good evening board um thank you for having us tonight and we are going to dive in straight into Title 1 part A so the purpose of this funding is to support students living in low-income situations and our funding that we were allocated was to a million 840 643 which was used for we have five Title One school-wide support programs and one targeted assistance site this primarily funds Staffing reading math interventionists ELD teachers counselors family Liaisons
062and McKinney Advocates supplementary instructional materials for targeted differentiation family engagement activities Extended Learning opportunities mckinney-vento homeless which is our mckinney-vento Specialists and Advocates and we do an AC conference and that's our national McKinney conference awesome and ELD stands for English language development as we go through we'll do all the acronyms for you Title One Part C this is to support at the education of migratory children so students that are in um and have families that are supported through that are in the um words are failing me and they're they're in the far they're in the farming industry and so there there's some kind of Agriculture component to what their families are doing so we actually are in cooperation with BOCES that gets about twenty thousand dollars with these funds we received from BOCES we support
063the migrant families with student conferences needed School items again this is everything above and beyond we also help with basic needs like groceries bedding lots of different things that come up with situations in the family home and graduation celebrations who doesn't love that so Title II part A this one increases academic achievement through professional development and that goes for teachers and principals in our leadership and this funding came in at around 597 455 dollars and with these professional development funds we offer a school-based instructional coaches for ELD English language development math and literacy Etc and we have a district Dei coordinator that's diversity equity and inclusion and District ELD programs specialists summer Institute courses and other professional development opportunities across the district and supplementing literacy professional development courses for teachers foreign that brings us to
064title three part A this one is a big one supporting English language Learners and uh there's also a component that supports immigrant Youth and so it's a two-sided component of where both uh working towards acquiring English and we're working towards acquiring the state standards and so that funding came in at 183 959 dollars and this funding usage is for professional development in English language development for pre-k through 12th grade teachers and principals parents academies um all families are invited district-wide in adult English classes workshops and computer literacy classes for immigrant parents all are invited and it also supports our family Liaisons and on this slide CLD stands for culturally and linguistically diverse families so just clarifying again some acronyms and title IV part A our purpose here is to increase student achievement through this part
065has three components so we're really looking for access to a well-rounded education we're looking for improving conditions for Learning and we're using technology and digital literacy for all students this funding came in at 206 443 dollars and these funds are used for trauma-informed practice trainings for teachers AP and IB reimbursement for students living in poverty integrated Services summer academic support Early Childhood assessments for early integrated Services identification Dropout prevention resources fscp Advocates families School Community Partnership advocates Futures lab programming and support and Technology integration professional development we are now to title for Part B the purpose of this one is explicitly around academic enrichment opportunities for students living in poverty and this is explicitly for after school hours this is designed and and can only be applied for by schools that are hit two criteria
066which is high poverty and low performance this year only Irish Elementary Escuela bilingue qualified for these funds and it was awarded at 150 000. These funds are used to support building maintaining and implementing after school and summer programs you may have heard of Camp Seoul PSD after three programs for PSD have after three have included things like yoga running books crafts nature tell me if I'm going too fast Camp photography Mariachis purposeful play chorus Camp Soul Etc it also offers parent education transportation and Alpha best scholarships foreign so the question then comes how do we measure the impact of all these funds the answer to that first of all you don't know me particularly well yet but something that you'll learn about me is that filling out paperwork and things is is is super fun
067and passionate but what actually is super awesome is seeing those funds in action so uh What uh I will say is in the upper left hand corner what you'll see is at Irish Elementary in our with our title for 21st century grant that is being funded for that after school program you're seeing their students dancing to florantigua which is a folkloric Mexican dance that's open to all students boys and girls everybody is invited to dance and that a very recognized group in the bottom left-hand Corner you'll notice students at one of our Title One schools in their after school programs playing soccer they get coached very effectively and it's a super powerful and meaningful opportunity for them in the bottom Central you'll notice two girls that are in their Mariachi Club that's learning how to
068read some sheet music through a game and in the right kind of central vertical picture you'll notice a family engagement event at one of our Title One schools through our Title One Part A funds and this is a celebration of kindergarteners when they have learned their last letter of the alphabet they do a red carpet for their alphabet celebration with all their families in the top right corner you'll see parents that are working on technology through our title III immigrant set-aside funds and they're getting computer classes and the bottom right corner we have families hanging out together at a parent Academy and that is funded through our title III supports awesome we just had to bring some life to the numbers here that we can't just look at numbers all night long so the the
069numbers in action so another way other than the human interaction that comes with these funds is uh there's a multi-faceted measure measurement system that the CDE and the federal government puts in place for us and the primary measurement systems through that are through our school performance Frameworks and within that there is every student succeeds act Essa act which will flag certain schools for targeted or comprehensive support if they if any sub uh demographic within that school does not meet a certain threshold then they could get flagged so that's one of our measurement and success criterias of avoiding getting those targeted supports and comprehensive supports access scores access is our mandated if you're learning English as a second language you are mandated to take an assessment to determine how well you are acquiring English that is
070how we primarily analyze our the impact of our title three dollars and we use surveys that all of our professional developments for that come from title 2 and title four then within this also we have so any any good cycle has the measurement and assessment then then wraps around the support once we have that information so the support that we engage in through that is through a lot of how this information gets to the state and through us it's funneled through our uip so unified Improvement plan writing and approval process that is supported with olive cabinet and our principles then we work within the evaluation Cycles coaching cycles and programmatic support for all of our school leadership along the school performance Frameworks so then the next steps that we're looking at taking for and our
071timelines within the title fundings is uh basically uh we're proposing that discussing data and strategy during the February board retreat We are continuing to work around assurances and evaluations for our monitoring support we have a monthly Title 1 principal strategy sessions that we started this month and if you're interested in Marissa's in my timeline on how we're getting the Consolidated applications getting done we're starting early very early January all of this has been actually just moved forward so the district is really wanting to become competitive more and more competitive within the hiring market and so we have to get jobs posted earlier and earlier so we just moved actually several months Marissa has been a rock star on this I she I'm like Marissa can we do it yes okay we can do it so
072we're gonna move this up a couple months so in early January we're really starting our our information gathering sessions and making sure that we have input from our stakeholders and our parents around what they want in the Consolidated application in December January all that time frame we are getting engaged with all of our staff members and our leadership to make sure that we know how how everybody is visualizing and wanting their input in towards what the strategies and impact that we want to have from our federal funds by end of January we are saying so this is a couple months in advance of what we were the Department's used to we're going to have our staffing projected and ready to go for in front of principals so that we can start getting those postings placed
073and people can know what to count on and so we will begin that writing process which will give us February to May to finalize the writing process and in June that again comes back to you guys for you guys too to approve it for us so that's kind of the timeline on that which brings us to what questions do you have questions or comments from the board looks like Nate has one and then DJ yeah I just wondered what the documentation and um compliance process is like is it mostly front loaded with the application and designation of positions that would be funded through this and then as their compliance uh processes on the back end to show that we've actually done what we said we were going to do in the application so um when
074we meet in February and we go through our data and strategy session we'll also show you the school performance Frameworks for all of our title schools each title funding source has a specific compliance piece on the front end on the back end and so we have to include all of that in the application running process to show how did we meet those goals and is there a shift or a change and we include that in the application process for the Consolidated app so in February we'll be able to share even more data with you around what those specifics are thanks Nate DJ um I just first I want to make it clear that uh I'm not questioning how you're spending These funds I think these are some great ways to use these funds I was
075wondering if you could share with us in the public how it is decided that these are the different routes I know some of them are uh if it's in that title it's got to be spent that way but if you could share the process of that a little bit yeah you can mention that we have Community parent advisory Council and so we open that up to all of our Title One schools and we invite all the parents in any from anyone from the community can come in and we say hey these are the funds we have how do you think we should best use these and we also have surveys that we send out after each of our activities we take that into evaluation and we definitely use that as we move forward thank you
076for asking thank you for bringing up that parent input and that's that's what I was looking for uh I have a second thing that I would like to learn um because ELD was a little new one for me so between ell ELD and Ela which which is though where do you use which ones let me put that way that's a great question so Ela what used to stand for English language acquisition and then when cmass began it also was named Ela for English language arts and so that became very confusing so we moved away from Ela to ELD English language development and so ELD is the name of our program and what we talk about when we think about English language development learning English as a second language when you're thinking about so now Ela
077means we're trying to leave that as strictly English language arts and which other acronym were you curious about ell is English language learner and so those are the Learners within the ELD Department Department if that makes sense so anyone learning English can be referred to as an ell or a student who is learning English or an English language learner so ell would be the individuals more and then ELD would be thank you again absolutely thank you for your question Kristen so I was just wondering if you could um refresh my memory here as as to how much money Title One or titles Services got this year as compared to last year and I know this sounds like a funny question but whether that's a good thing or a bad thing as far as if we
078got more or less so we don't have the numbers for this presentation from last year but we'll be sure to send that to you because of course again the board approves on the Consolidated application each and every year with that breakdown so we'll be sure to send you the prior Year's application so you can see that comparison and when we talk about an increase of it it's not necessarily a bad thing because it just depends on when you're especially like with our English language development program if we have more kids coming in say for instance that need more supports then we're going to be asking for more in our application to be able to support those families as well and sometimes just like our students shift some of our title funding might need to shift
079as the focus of that so we might need more one particular year compared to an to another year thank you that's just what I was looking for Nate looks like you have another question is the funding level both quantitative and qualitative I mean is it is it primarily focused on the number of students who are in a particular category or are there qualitative aspects to it as well so what I would share is that it depends on the level of title funding it depends on which title funding because they each have very specific requirements so when we meet in February we'll be sure to go in more detail as to how we've divided how we how we've allocated those fundings is it more qualitative or quantitative but each program has their own specific requirements Carolyn
080so um when we were looking at title four part A I was trying to understand our our children with physical disabilities included in that so I'm thinking of kids like that might be site impaired hearing impaired or maybe have some other kind of sensory processing issue like dyslexia or is that where the money comes for that technology and digital literacy for all students I mean I guess I'm I'm just trying to understand how many different children are included in this it supports students across the entire district and so when we're looking at our funds that we receive we take an opportunity to say hey integrated Services we want you in the room on this and we we try to see what are all the needs and how can we best meet those with the funds
081that we're getting so we have summer programs we have technology programs so it can affect any kid from across the district depend on depending on how we wrote it at that time again we take a lot of different lenses into the same group in order to determine that and I'll just point out that again for title funding it's not meant to supplant it's an addition above and beyond and so we know that our integrated Services team works very hard to use the funding that they have that they've allocated as well to make sure that we're meeting the needs because this cannot be used to replace that funding but to go above and beyond so in this particular case you see integrated Services summer academic support because that is above and beyond what we provide and
082that's above and beyond even our our services that we provide for integrated students in the summer as well with the extended school year and I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to discuss this in more detail as you've heard some of the interests and concerns of the board and and be prepared for the February discussion Nate yeah when you mentioned that uh we'd get the numbers from last year I'd like to see a few years of Trends both in terms of funding and in terms of schools and student numbers as well so that'd be great thanks there you go um other comments or questions it looks like not thank you so much for sharing this with us it's very helpful and we look forward to a further discussion in February thank you very much all right
083so the last item on our agenda tonight is an executive session which is uh on cyber security if I can get a motion uh with regard to that I'd appreciate it Kristen go ahead I move that the board enter executive session for the purpose of discussing specialized details of the district cyber security arrangements or investigations as authorized by CRS 24-6-402 subsection 4D individuals invited invited to join the board in executive session or superintendent Brian Kingsley Chief of Staff Lauren Hooten Chief technology officer bunt Bud hunt and general counsel Adam Aspen looks like Nate's got a second there that's great Jill will you please call a vote aye sorry that was DJ Anderson hi Jim brokish hi Kristin Draper aye Nate Donovan hi Rob Patterson hi Carolyn Reed aye Jessica Zamora aye motion passes 7-0 excellent
084thank you so much we'll not we will now convene in closed session this is the last agenda item before adjournment at the conclusion of the executive session we will come back into this room only to publicly adjourn the meeting so thank you uh thank you very much and we will convene in the superintendent's office at five minutes to eight thank you