001e e e good evening welcome to tonight's hoter School District Board of Education business meeting today is December 8th 2020 and I will call this meeting to order at 4:33 p.m. this meeting is being conducted virtually only due to covid-19 restrictions and uh Community comment will take place by phone for those who registered to make remarks I would like to start with item 2.0 which is approval of the agenda uh board members anybody like to change the agenda this evening Rob go right ahead yes I would like to propose that we add an agenda item uh just before adjournment uh an executive session to discuss the hiring of a search firm for our next superintendent thank you rob do I have a second I have a second from Kristen Draper and uh Jo I'll go
002ahead and ask you to just do a roll call vote for that please DJ Anderson DJ Anderson votes I Nate Donovan Nate Donovan votes I Kristen Draper Kristen Draper votes I Kristoff fev Kristoff fev votes I your microphone has been turned on Naomi Johnson votes I my apologies I'm not sure if that was my computer but Naomi Johnson Naomi Johnson votes I Rob P Rob peton votes I Carolyn Reed Carolyn Reed out sign okay I'm gonna I'm gonna repeat that the motion Pat 70 and I not sure I made it clear but that'll be item that executive session will be item 8.0 on the agenda and I also have a feeling we all heard uh loud and clear something about the microphone being unmuted I think everybody is hearing that so I'm not sure what
003that was okay um so with that uh that's going to bring us to um item 3.0 which is board items and committee reports and this evening I'm going to start um by reading a statement that I prepared so um as we uh launch this evening's meeting I do want to take a few moments to discuss important changes taking place in the district last night as most of you know by now the pter School District Board of Education voted to approve a mutual agreement with Dr Sandra smiser to retire from her position as district superintendent before saying anything else I want to extend a heartfelt thank you on behalf of this PSD Board of Education to Dr smiser Dr smer your service to the district has been meaningful and impactful these past seven plus years in
004carrying our district forward and preparing it for this next chapter your commitment to our communities and to our students staff and families uh that make up our district is deeply appreciated our personal tenures yours and mine have very nearly overlapped and I am truly grateful for the time I have shared with you guiding the district reading through a comprehensive list of Dr smiser efforts and accomplishments is simply not reasonable for a timely meeting however I would like to mention just a few noteworthy accomplishments to give a sense of Dr smer contributions to our district it almost goes without saying that PSD students consistantly outperform their peers in state in the state as measured both by achievement and growth year after year PSD schools and staff are presented with prestigious State and national awards recognizing these
005and numerous other accomplishments this trend is very much alive today Dr smiser has always understood the importance of educating all our students and therefore to close the opportunity Gap this is a challenge that most districts face in the state and indeed nationally the district is focused on data and results which combined with strong teaming among teachers and other key practices has begun to result in closing in some uh closing some of the gaps this work is vital and ongoing and the results will be felt for years to come starting very early in her tenure here at PSD Dr smiser worked with the board and led a complete reimagining of the district ends that will be enduring these new ends have become a model for other districts around the state and have guided and driven profound
006Chang changes in PSD an important example of this is the student connection survey the results of which are leading to new ways of reaching students understanding their perspectives and addressing their needs more directly than ever before I believe this work will be deeply meaningful and longstanding Dr smiser led the creation of a long range plan with extensive community outreach and Analysis and worked with District teams our professional association and our communities to pass a $375 million Bond and an $8 million Mill Levy to help make it all a reality this work resulted in a plan for building two new Comprehensive High Schools one new Elementary School a new Transportation facility a new athletic complex and much needed repairs for most buildings in the district L we forget based on Keen interest from Bo the from
007board members and community members Dr smiser led the momentous change of moving start times to better align with teenage sleep rhythms her team undertook an extensive out extensive Outreach effort to verify and validate the research behind the proposed change and to implement the momentous change in the district and Community Dr smiser and her staff managed the change with exemplary results and of course this list goes on but I view these as just a few important highlights that exemplify Dr smiser leadership of PSD thank you Dr smiser for these efforts and so many others throughout the more than seven years you led our district so now before proceeding with the meeting I do want to address how the district will move forward I want to acknowledge that this is a significant change for everyone involved however
008the board feels confident and excited that our staff and District administration will continue psd's history of Excellence where we are today even amid the historic pandemic is only possible because the professional and tireless work by our amazing staff who go above and beyond to serve our students every day perhaps one of our most important accomplishments is that Dr smiser has left in place an excellent leadership team we're fully on top of the district's management Board of Education will appoint an interim superintendent to lead the district in the coming days until then PSD assistant superintendent of elementary schools Dr Todd Lambert and assistant superintendent of secondary school Scott neelsen will assume the district's uh superintendent duties we're in very capable hands the school board will also immediately launch a nationwide search for the next permanent PSD
009St uh superintendent ours is a very desirable district and we are confident it will attract excellent candidates this board feels very confident with the support and engagement of our community we will be hiring an outstanding superintendent to lead our district for next fall and Beyond garnering input from our community will be an important part of this process we will be sharing information as the process moving starts moving forward and this will begin now so thanks for listening to that I I feel it's very important that we uh make a few comments but I'm going to open it up uh to the rest of the board if anybody else wants to comment on this or any other subjects go ahead Nate and then Kristen yes Kristoff with all due respect I Echo your comments uh both
010with respect to uh our appreciation and my appreciation for the work that DR Sanders smiser has done for our district and community and uh I look forward to working with the community going forward to uh while working with the board to select an inter interim superintendent and then the community going forward to select a new superintendent so thank you Dr smiser thank you Nate go ahead Kristen thank you I just wanted to Echo that as well and just say a heartfelt thank you um I just wanted to wish Dr smiser a happy and healthy retirement um and just to say that Dr smer can feel very proud of her many accomplishments over the years at PR School District um and I know that everyone was done while focusing on Student Success so so I just
011want to again say thank you for that um be proud of all of your accomplishments um and I look forward to as well um assigning an interim and then working with the community to find the best fit for uh pter School District moving forward so thank you great any other board comments or board reports at this time ahead Rob and then Naomi yeah I just uh Echo the eloquent comments that uh Kristoff made uh in thanking Dr smer and uh I would I and in also expressing our confidence in the leadership of the district uh and our excitement uh at moving forward in finding uh a new superintendent uh who will uh our Target is so that person will be in place for the beginning of the next school year so we're we're looking forward
012to that thank you great Naomi um yes I Echo the sentiments shared by the board and I have a board report to share um DJ and I had an opportunity to conduct another student Think Tank meeting um and one of the first things that we want to share is that it has come to our attention that there is a different organization that is operating under that name that conducts um other important work within the district and so at the next time we report out on our um student group we will also be sharing the new name that they have chosen um so we can all look forward to that um this month we focused on looking forward past Co since we know that um things are hopefully going to be get uh together soon with
013the vaccines that have been coming out and so we are looking into the fall and what um high school is going to be looking like for our students in the fall one of the things that several students has asked for is perhaps a class the students are asking for a new class um where they would work on college applications how to put together the Common App SAT prep financial aid um and other very important information um they really enjoy the college night and have said it's kind of like drinking from a water hose there's just too much information and too many of the sessions that they're interested in attending so that they were hoping that we would be able to stretch that out them and offer either an elective class at their schools or potentially
014um a class that would be on Saturday they suggested um maybe a few hours on successive Saturdays this might be something offered during first quarter of senior year or third quarter of junior year they still like the college prep night they love the opportunity to meet with the different colleges they recognize that bringing all of those teams in is a Herculean effort um and a part of that is just that it's too big and they can't see everything that they want to on that night um the students have also o suggested that they wanted more career driven clubs for example one of the students suggested that she enjoyed zoology and hoped that there would be an opportunity for a zoolog club and perhaps this is one of the positive things that we can take out
015of Co more opportunities for comprehensive schools to join together to form these clubs maybe in an online environment even after they're able to return to their buildings but that way we've got lots of students together um to share those those Club ideas um also pointed out that our methods DJ and I's methods of gaining student interaction was not at their level that our students do not want to have a survey emailed to them they want an advertisement on Instagram so we are going to be talking hopefully with the Instagram um people the people who are in charge of running the Instagrams at the different high schools to see if we could put something on their Instagrams to help get more students involved so it's awesome that they were able to share with us that that's
016how they want their information um and finally the students had several concerns that they were hoping could be addressed over the next few months one is that the student Rocky said that they are really missing out on their home room time they said that they used to have an extra 10 minutes attached to their second block vulture building um and for uh announcement getting together and that has kind of disappeared and they really missed that and they're hoping that something like that could come back they also had their lunch period shorted which they say makes sense it just wasn't communicated very effectively so that was a theme that we heard was that the students were hoping to get some specific communication both from the district and from their buildings when changes happen so that they
017understand why those changes are happening and can get board with them the students were also concerned about student count and long-term funding issues um they're very involved and um and with the psdd being added into the district they're concerned about how that is going to impact the programs that are ultimately offered at their home high schools because we had to divert funding towards this um virtual program several of the students are really concerned about going back into a classroom this these are just the students that we spoke with um and one of their concerns is that PSV does not offer them the same level of classes that they receive in their home schools particularly students who are taking I courses or EP courses students who have set their schedule up for the next two years
018and they find themselves in this environment maybe they've got um an elderly uh person living in their home with them or they have someone who is immunized so they're not comfortable going back into the building and PSV is not an option for them as well so they were hoping that we could continue to be creative and figure out some workarounds for that the next time we will be meeting is January 11th at 4:30 and so I look forward to reporting out to the board at the subsequent board meeting with our new name and our plan moving forward thank you great thanks for that report that's great go ahead DJ all right I'mma cover three different things I guess right yeah uh one thank you Dr smiser um I hope you're able to enjoy your retirement
019uh two uh I went to the casby uh uh convention uh this past weekend and I I want to share a couple things I've I shared out a few things uh emailing you guys but one of the the big topics was equity and uh there were some great uh speeches uh speakers involved with that um I'm I will uh recommend a few of them and through email to you guys to maybe check out the the thing that I think is very important is to realize um you know we yeah that was weird we as a state uh and I think as a nation are all grappling with uh how to bring this into our schools and how to uh adjust some of our teaching and um there are uh great resources out there and I
020and I fully believe with the staff that we have that we can um plan for this correctly and really bring It Forward in our district um one of the the state ments that I really liked was the uh C cultural competence and um I think to me that really uh struck home because sometimes I don't think we look at it uh wide enough and well enough about you know the different cultures that different people live in and how we adapt and making sure that we are open to all of them so I feel like uh that was something that I took away and and thought really hard about uh a couple one of the closing things that they had was a student uh conversation and it was great to hear um other districts well it
021was great to hear these students wanting to have their voice uh part of the school board and the different ways that that uh they do go about that from a very small rural School uh where they have their uh FFA leaders come and speak uh and and share stuff to uh 27j down in Brighton they have a student Advisory Board uh and had uh a wonderful speaker who uh was able to share a lot of their thoughts and concerns and so it was great to see how other districts are working on this or have also works with getting communication from students um but this again is something that you know we're not the only ones out there trying to do this so uh I did want to share that uh also um okay those were
022the big things from that um and then I just wanted to say with uh acknowledging all the emails that we have gotten uh before our change and after uh about covid uh this is not something that uh we as school board or as a district I think you know definitely saw coming or how to handle it and I I I want to acknowledge that you know that there have been a lot of great things done in our school district and uh changes made on the Fly and a lot of things done uh extremely well in that same vein though there have been mistakes made of course and you know I I will admit that I when I looked back at uh September uh my concern with bringing students in was a lot higher than if
023I look at it now you know now that we have 900 per a thousand yes okay that that's a hell of a lot more and I definitely I think that's uh having kids in school is is an issue possibly but to say that what I'm saying is though we are learning and and we need to work together as a community to get these kids back in our schools and so I ask you all to realize that we really are doing our best and to help us uh be a safe Community for these kids outside of school and with their families uh we are going to air a little on caution because there are people's lives you know out there we've the medical field has done a great job and there are a lot less deaths
024than there have been acknowledge uh there are still people that get really sick there are still people that have long-term health effects and we are going by what health experts are telling us and we are feeling we want our students in the buildings we want to teach that's the reason I have volunteered so many hours with the school board and before is because I believe in education and and helping kids but I hope that we can do well as a community to come together help these kids that aren't in school right now help the fact of our health in our community and I know that we will get through this and we will address any need that these students need so I I really just implore implore the the people out there to take a
025deep breath uh and realize that we are trying to do the best we can I I will be completely honest you know getting emails telling me about uh a a fiveyear five-year-old crying that they can't go to school and see their friends yes that is heartbreaking and uh it really it sucks um but I also know that trying to do the right thing for a community is tough and those choices are hard and so uh you know a as a thing that we need to work forward move forward on I hope we take this time to address some of our our needs out there well and I hope that we can come back in second semester if we can get our numbers a lot better uh I think we need to start bringing kids in
026school but we need a community support with this so thank you thanks DJ and thanks for uh attending and Reporting on casby and for your comments about the covid situation all really good I think I'll go Nate and then Kristen if I'm not mistaken so go ahead Nate yes I want to uh emphasize what and DJ almost said I deplore so that was funny um uh I wanted to emphasize What DJ said I also attended casby and uh I'm going to continue to push on having us uh have a CommunityWide conversation on diversity equity and inclusion uh which we have started and we're we're making progress but I think we need a little bit more visibility to those efforts but um the other thing was the student uh panel at the end of the conference
027reminded me that at least for me I'd like to see us uh return to sending students down to casby when it is in person I think that student strand is valuable and uh it's really good for our students that do attend so thank you right great thank you Chris go ahead and I just wanted to go ahead and report on the CAC um so on the 19th which was a Friday um they closed on the RFP for the facilitator on the 23rd which was that following Monday they um there was a group of uh five people that met and um narrowed it down to two and then they conducted interviews from there um on the 30th they determined a finalist um and I have now announced that the Civic canopy will facilitate um our next
028meetings it was a unanimous vote by the five people um they apparently the Civic canopy has met with John McCay as of yesterday and they will be reaching out to all of the members um very very shortly and hoping to have the first meeting done before winter break okay great that sounds like really important progress thanks for letting us know other board comments okay seeing none um we'll move on to uh item 4.0 which is community comments so let me read this as usual uh Community comments is an opportunity for public comments uh for members of the community who registered to speak and confirm their registration by the designated deadline when I say your name you can begin making your remarks each speaker will be given two minutes tonight because board members we do have
02918 people signed up to speak um so Jill make sure to set that for two minutes please pay attention to the timer running on uh YouTube to track your time please know that there may be a few seconds lag time uh depending on your internet signal strength so reasonable reasonable leniency will be given anyone who exceeds the time limit or makes personal attacks uses profanity or identifies any student by name may be muted in case a speaker should experience technical issues and is unable to give their remarks uh we'll just ask you to send your e your uh remarks by email and those should go to Bo psdschools.org okay so with that um we and we have 18 people signed up first on list is Miss Katherine Kino Miss Kino if you'd like to unmute
030your microphone and join us we'll welcome you Christa she's not called in at this time okay I'll Circle back at the end those that aren't there okay next up is Miss Jenny uh and I'm gonna do damage to this one I think it's markart Miss markart if you want to join us hi can you we can hear you welcome okay on December 2nd Dr Robert Redfield of the CDC stated that schools should conduct inperson learning on November 17th Governor polus urged schools to remain open at least for preschool and Elementary and has promised resources to make it happen the Colorado Department of Education states that the risk of transmission between children and from children to adults is low the CDE also states that it is not necessary to maintain six feet distance between children in
031grades K to five in normal class sees may occur how can you continue to ignore the scientific evidence and guidance of the government and the Department of Education and justify keeping schools closed um I applaud you for the decision to remove Dr smiser and I implore you to put our children first in open schools to inperson learning in January thank you thank you for your comments and next I have Miss Jennifer Kennedy if you'd like to unmute your microphone hello can you hear me we can hear you welcome hello hello um my name is Jennifer Kennedy and I have a fourth grader and sixth grader in PSD um I appreciate and thank the board for your attention and all of the work that you have done during these very challenging times I will use my
032time to share our family's personal story of the effects of remote learning on our child's mental health in sharing our stories with others and working with her doctor our daughter's situation is mirrored by so many other kids for her she sits for many hours much of this time not engaged with her teacher and struggles who struggles with technology and a plan as she sits alone she starts to not feel good and has found that by throwing up she feels better making herself sick has become the negative coping mechanism at bedtime when she feels she doesn't have friends when she feels that her teacher hates her when she's falling behind in school there are so many other kids struggling with more than just crying to go to school it's much bigger than that we are not
033an isolated story this has then elevated when a teacher begins sharing how they are burnt out and how their mental health challenges the struggle I have as a parent a member of this community is that after nine months psd's leadership and approach to education have elevated these struggles with your practices and policies as you consider the plan for spring of 2021 I would encourage you to consider the following consider the proven effects of remote learning on students and their mental health and the regression in most areas of Education compare that data to the local coronav virus statistics consider your mission and your statement that education is essential and ask yourself remote learning at PSD is Equitable for all students look at the professions that have found ways to continue to provide essential services so many
034other groups have stayed in person learn from others and provide leadership that calms the fears of being in person inperson can be can work with very low fears I would also close by sharing that I'm sad I sad that PSD has become so decisive I am sad that it has become parents against teachers and administrators from a concerned parent and Community member I share our story to demonstrate why I feel education is essential and important My Hope Is that our story can help show that thank you thank you for your comments okay next is Miss Kelly Holdridge if you'd like to unmute your microphone are you able to hear me we can hear you welcome hello thank you for your time um I want to start off by saying you guys are doing a great
035job and I know how hard it is so I want to applaud you on everything you're doing and give you the a lot of our community support on the situation regarding Mr miser's retirement we applaud the decision there and I would like to use this time here to talk about being proactive in regards to the Staffing shortages when the news came out that schools were closing due to staffing issues many parents went to the sub website and said no one is being hired right now because they've closed the applications and so um I received information from the CDC licensing and PSD Director of Human Resources that they are taking applications but um it wasn't on their website so I would uh it would behoove the district to be proactive and reach out to the community
036to get more subs parents are also willing to volunteer as subs and that would help with the district's budget so um we implore the school district um to do that and in regards to the custodial or kitchen staff shortages you start looking outside the district for companies to take over when needed and I know there is a process to this but starting the process now would help the district be ready if the need arises next semester it is so important to be proactive and I would also I would like to end by mentioning the parents and the students and the community members that are rallying again tonight outside of the building I know you guys are not there but I wanted you to know that we are there um to support in-person learning thank you
037again thank you for joining us and next up I have Miss Sharon Mueller if you'd like to unmute and join us don't see Sharon on the list right now Kristoff okay thank you so then that brings us to Miss Tammy Warren if you'd like to unmute and join us I also don't see Tammy waren okay uh so then I see Mr Zach thod if you'd like to correct how I said that please unmute your microphone hi welcome hi Zach welcome thank you Zach s here I have a third grader at OD Elementary in your special ed program and I for STS I want to let you know that actually I lied he's a fourth grader but for starters I want to let you know that your special ed team is phenomenal and um we probably
038would have moved away from the school district had it not been for the phenomenal team at oday that work with special ed students in I just wanted to make sure that we communicated to you tonight that it's so important for these special ed students to be in class every day because they are they only get a small window of time as your Specialists have told all of us parents to make a big difference in their life and when we lose days and weeks and months without in-person learning these that that time doesn't come back to a special ed student they don't that that door closes and they're not able to receive the same kind of um growth in their development and their speaking and in their communication with others and and the biggest part of
039that is their social interaction with with their peers of similar age as well as with the peers in their special ed programming and you have by not allowing students in classes we're we're losing ground on all of these students and and on top of that it is a full-time job to try to keep a special ed student focused on a on a virtual platform and fortunately for us we have um we live in a very simple way and so we have the the ability to keep one parent full-time at home with our student to help them stay focused on the classroom but unfortunately for a lot of other IEP students they don't have a parent that can St sit there with them all day and help them focus on a on a screen and so
040that causes A disruption for not only the teacher for the other kids in the class that are with them and so that is an extreme position of privilege to be able to have one of our one parent per student at home with those kids and and unfortunately like I said not all not all families are privileged in that way and I just would hope that the school district would find ways to to get these kids back in class because the IEPs are so important and we can't go backwards on that again thank you for your time and and thank you for such a phenomenal um team in the special ed program thank you very much for joining us and for your comments okay so next we have Miss Sarah Kinsley if you'd like to unmute
041um hi everyone um I have three children in the pter school district um and we love our school and we love our staff and and everyone there but um like so many this year um everything is just taking a toll on us and so that led me to apply for the free and reduced Lunes program um all three the kids were got their acceptance email and initially it was a relief but I knew every because I knew that every day that um my kids were in school that they would be fed a nutritious Meal which is a big deal on a financially tough year um people are losing their businesses and their jobs and facing so many unexpected hardships so I know many are impacted with this one more issue that this pandemic has added
042to the mix and I you know you're probably aware of this to a degree as you have set up um programs for free lunches at the schools and a few other places um you may or may not know realize how difficult it is for many families to take advantage of these um options for example we're um 15 miles away from the elementary school where these lunches are offered and I don't have the ability to take off work to to drive to the school and pick up lunches and I know there's others that are working or have other obligations that make it so they just can't um they just don't have a way to take advantage of this much needed help the decisions that you make have a heavy impact on our entire family's lives so
043I hope you take these issues and all the other ones that are brought to you today under your considerations thank you thank you for your time thank you for joining us and for your comments next we have Miss Ali mcginness if you'd like to unmute the microphone alli's not called in at this time okay Al's not there so uh that brings us to Miss Angie Lindsay please un mute you hear me we can welcome hello hi um I'm a mother of five I have a fourth grader a second grader Twins and kindergarten and a three-year-old and remote learning is a complete nightmare for our children the teachers at my gr are working hard and doing awesome but my once out level child is now Below on many subjects my below level child Gap is continuing
044to get bigger and teaching five-year-old sounds to read over the computer is a complete disaster uh here's my day we log in at 45 we're up and running my Kinder twins ask to have me them the whole F they need help me to play the computer they can't hear the sounds the teacher is trying to teach them over the speaker my third grader comes up Mom I need help I can't find the page okay I'm on I you got to hold on I'm helping my twins he waits patient not so patiently okay I'm going to help him I find the pages the class is halfway done with the the with the page he's so upset he's behind he doesn't know what to do I try to get him caught up my twins are not running
045around upstairs I have't tried to sit down they're not listening they're being fire they're running around they're playing I go upstairs they miss their lesson okay we move on fourth grader comes in my computer's not working reot it minutes later at working she raising her hand to a teacher who doesn't fear for stream minutes okay I don't know what's going on I'm lost now behind it's a complete mess oh yeah and my time is watching screens and screen time this is a normal day every day kids are not getting the attention they need deserve the kids are not learning kids are missing key fundamental things that only of their age can learn qualifi teachers at school they're falling behind in education as well as L like sharing taking DS from someone other than a parent
046getting a etc though I dedicated 100% of my time still not enough we need to be better and speak for the kids they need to be in school with their teachers and peers not sitting in on of screen for seven plus hours a day five days a week the negative TT on these screens are their little brains is not C longterm problem I'm amazed that covid-19 somehow doesn't reach the charter and private school in our community or districts right next door how is it that charter schools have been in person full day every day since the beginning of the year with no problems and PSD public schools are not it makes no sense to me our elementary school was a compliant with all the guidelines and my knowledge had zero cases that we close we
047should be going to full-time pool like normal the director of the CDC recommends it as well as the governor and statistics show minimal of any threat of kids passing the virus to other kids or even kids passing it to adults we are causing more long-term harm to our children then the risk Co even is the numbers are in favor of increase learning let's have the courage to do what is right for our children our children deserve the very best we have the obligation and the power to do that I hope we will take into consideration what the community is saying today and have the guts to do the hard things and make the changes to get our kids back in school thank thank you for your comments and for joining us okay and next up
048we have Mr Tom Griggs un mute welcome um hello everyone uh hi there welcome I just want to say congratulations to Dr smiser I I I wasn't expecting that news and uh PSD is going to lose a lot when you leave you're going to be hard you're leaving difficult shoes to fill so I appreciate and wish you the best of luck but um I actually got on to say I listened in on November 10th to the meeting uh the board meeting and heard comments from um member of the or a former member of the equity diversity advisory Council and and uh that and then from a young man who had his own story to share with all of you to give you some insight into some of how that diversity manifests and I just wanted
049to um so I was motivated to return to service on edac uh but found out that it's been suspended or or not in operation in kind of an in hibernation for a while while and I was thinking this is a better time than almost any I can think of for pter school district to adopt um an equity and diversity committee that is a standing committee of the community committees as as one of the community committees uh that are so important to the district's operation and buy in um so I I just want to encourage that consideration of that as a formal idea to be adopted by the board uh to see that to happen so I appreciate everybody's work um it's been a challenging fall I came back from Brazil in July where I watched
050the Brazilians scrambling they don't have half the infrastructure we have so um it was uh pretty heartbreaking to watch that go on then I joke about running the uh the The covid-19 Gauntlet from Brazil back through 14 hours of air travel back to the United States in July which you may recall was a pretty busy time for the covid uh virus so anyway I appreciate the time thank you very much um and uh best of luck to the board in in finding the the proper candidate to replace Dr smiser thank you thank you Mr Grigg okay and next we have Miss Michelle uh gilinski you like unmute and join us can you hear me yes Michelle we do hear you welcome welcome okay hi uh my name is Michelle ginski and my child is a
051kindergartener in PSD before this school year started I found five other families who have students in my daughter's class and we formed a pod that meets in my basement I have my master's degree in elementary education and I taught for 10 years in some pretty challenging schools I'm here to tell you that remote learning isn't working for our youngest Learners this model of Education isn't sustainable and we are doing our lower elementary age students a huge disservice that will possibly impact them for the rest of their lives this is not a reflection on my child's teacher or her school I've been more than impressed with what the staff has been ble to accomplish in an impossible situation but no matter how hard everybody works kindergarteners are not able to access their education in this type
052of manner um my daughter and her classmates have received only 14 days of in-person school this year how and when will she and her classmates be able to make up this lost time how is a child supposed to learn how to read write socialize take turns and use scissors over a team meeting when will the district understand that parents par and families and kids are struggling and barely hanging on the reality is that there will never be a perfect time to send these children back to school until the majority of the population is vaccinated which is going to take a while but the good news is that we have a month's worth of data from our own District that shows that there was little to no evidence of community spread within the elementary schools other
053large districts like New York City Public Schools tested their students and staff on a fairly regular basis and found very little evidence of covid are youngest children have done a remarkably good job of wearing masks and social distancing in school buildings in fact there's some children in Fort Collins who have been in person fulltime since August because they're lucky enough to attend the charter school explain to me how it's safe for them but my 5-year-old has to learn in my basement I wish the members of the board could have seen my child's face on the days that I picked her up from school she talked nonstop for an hour about all the things that she learned that light her has dimmed since we returned to remote learning please start thinking outside of the box and
054get these little ones back into school building thank you for your time thank you for your comments okay and next up we have Miss Cheryl distaso un mute we'll welcome you thank you for the opportunity to speak I appreciate the leadership each one of you has demonstrated during these un presidented and extremely difficult times I understand that you are navigating many Computing challenges and that you are doing so with thoughtful consideration as a member of school Justice PSD I know it's important to focus on the SRO issues so it is that topic that I will be directing my comments on this evening back at the June 9th meeting vice president Peterson put forth a motion that was unanimously adopted by the board the motion outlined and Outreach plan that included robust engagement by administrations with
055students and communities of color regarding SRO and a timeline for reporting back to the board the first date in that timeline to report back to the board is in or around December 10th I want to make sure that that timeline is still in effect this is the timeline that the community is expecting is that report back going to come to the board at a meeting if it is then honor around December that honor around December 10th date would be today right if the report back will come to you in another way where will that information be available for the community to access I appreciate the CAC update that Christen Draper brought to us earlier this evening but we need a detailed report back from the administration that extends beyond the CAC probably the most important
056date in that motion is April 15th 2021 when recommendations will come back to you on whether or not to renew the SRO contracts for the 2122 school year that April 15th date was thoughtfully chosen as it allows for time for the board to make an informed decision before the contracts are typically signed will the April 15th date still be adhered to again that is the date that the community is expecting if it has been changed we need to know what the new date is thank you very much for your time thank you very much for joining us and next we have Mr Peter good if you'd like un join us yes hi third grader thanks um I have a third grader and a kindergarten in the school system and my concern is just to okay
057sorry it muted me for some reason uh so I have a third grader and a kindergartener in the school system and my concern is to urge you to do the needed preparations for all of these kids to return to in-person phase for learning um virtual learning just it's demonstrated itself to not be a viable option um to give you just a brief personal picture uh my kids are in class for a total of two hours every day four days a week and it basically consists of a half hour of Home Room a half hour of literacy and a half hour of math and then after lunch they get a half hour of either gym or music or art or Library what they call specials um and that's the extent of their virtual learning experience it's
058really limited person interaction with your teachers with other classmates or anyone from their school and no real ability to socialize and only two hours a day to interact via a computer um I realize there's health and safety concerns and Personnel concerns and I understand we're in a unique situation um and I'd like to point out these issues are not in surmountable um most European countries have prioritized keeping schools open um many Health experts agree the schools are not high-risk environments for covid spread when the safety Protocols are applied properly Governor polus has stated that children should be learning in person our own County Health director Tom Gonzalez syndicated he did not advise you to close the schools and that their role and as the health department is to help our schools to implement controls and
059best practices in whatever phase they're in um Mr Gonzalez has been asked to serve on the uh Governor's back to school working group and I hope that the School District board can work with that group to help resolve the many concerns of in-person learning and return our children to school uh thanks for your time and attention thank you okay and next we have Miss if you'd like to unmute and join us hello my name is Anna D I wanted to talk very quickly about oh can you hear me oh sorry Miss we can't hear you welcome oh you you can you hear me now yes we can we can hear you okay sorry thank you uh I appreciate that you guys have had to make a series of very difficult decisions almost uning this year
060and I wanted to add one more difficult decision onto the list I have concerns about SRO operating this safe toot line I think if that line was only related to Notions of security and interpersonal violence I would understand but I'm concerned about the overlap between mental health issues and the law enforcement system I do not believe that it is appropriate to overlap personal and private issues of mental health with the legal system which could lead to misunderstanding escalation and possibly criminalization once a call is made professionals are sentenced to intervene with the individual's interest Colorado's attorney general Phil Weiser said that in an Ideal World there would be Mental Health Resources in corresponded programs in place desend a mental health professional to intervene rather than a police officer he indicates that there is a need
061to limit law enforcement involvement in issues of mental health if we ought to keep in intervention to mental health professionals I think that logic should extend to the First Responders and safe to tell operators if we want to limit law involvement with our students we need to non-law enforcement operator thank you thank you Miss Den for joining us and next we have Jamie Amaya if you'd like to unmute and join us Jamie's not called in at this time okay all right so that brings us to Mr Israel Herrera s if you'd like to unmute and join us he's not called in either okay uh so last on the list is Miss Sarah AR if you'd like to mute and join us I don't see Sarah [Music] AR okay I'll roll back around one more time
062so at the top of the list we have Miss Katherine colino has she joined us yet Lauren no okay Sharon Mueller I don't see Sharon Mueller okay Tammy Warren no Tammy and Ali mcginness don't say Ally either okay all right thank you very much okay so that brings us to the end of community comments um and I thank everybody for joining us this evening obviously there's some really important thoughts out there um I think I reflect back on the comments DJ was making and the board is listening working as far as we can with our Administration I do believe there there's a lot of really hard work going into the planning and we're hopeful for uh better outcomes coming January okay moving on in the agenda that brings us to the consent agenda which is
063item 5.0 on the list and board members would anybody like to pull anything from consent okay seeing none Nate would you like to make a motion for consent would probably help if I unmute I move that the board approve and adopt the rec recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda thank you and I have a second from Kristen Draper Jill could I get a roll call vote for the consent agenda please DJ Anderson DJ Anderson votes I Nate Donovan Nate Donovan votes I Kristen Draper Kristen Draper votes I Kristoff fev Kristoff fev votes I Naomi Johnson Naomi Johnson votes I Rob pson Rob Pon votes I Carolyn Reed Carolyn Reed I motion passes 70 thank you Jill and this is one of the few times I'll actually thank the board for not pulling
064any of the 16 items on consent off our meeting moving along when I saw the list I was a little panicky so okay um that brings us to action items and I believe what uh I understand is we'll take a recess after the action items and before the informational items to give uh Dan and the IT staff a minute to check mics or something like that so the meantime we'll move through the action items uh first up is uh item 6.1 which is the 2020 fiscal year external audit related documents uh would a board member like to make a motion to put this on the floor please yes I move that the board approve the comprehensive annual financial report report also known as caffer for the year ended June 30th 2020 the accreditation report and
065the board resolution authorizing the use of a portion of beginning fund balance as included in the board packet including the final governance letter and opinion letter provided after the board packet was distributed thank you do I have a second from board member got a second from Christ Draper now we do have Dave Montoya here but I believe we don't have a presentation so I'll just open it up to any questions or comments on this board action item anyone okay all right and as I understand it I I was trying to remember but normally we would have um somebody from the audit committee here presenting but I I think under the circumstances we do not so so uh Dave you don't have anything to add at this time right you hear me you're very very muted
066okay I wasn't sure have a technical problem yeah we were GNA provide these on consent okay very good and Rob yeah and I'll just confirm that these documents were discussed in the audit committee uh Carolyn and I are representatives to the audit committee from the board they were discussed in the audit committee and there was agreement that under the circumstances of presentation by an audit Committee Member was not necessary this year give yeah okay thanks for that any other final comments on this this one okay seeing none Jill I'll ask for a roll call vote please DJ Anderson DJ Anderson votes I Nate Donovan Nate Donovan votes I Kristen Draper Kristen Draper votes I Kristoff fev Kristoff fev votes I Naomi Johnson Naomi Johnson votes I Rob Pon Rob petson votes I Carolyn Reed Carolyn
067Reed votes I motion passes 70 thank you Jill okay uh the second action item this evening is 6.2 that is the all important mil Levy certification I do see we have both Dave Montoya and Brett Parsons with us this evening but why don't we uh get a motion to put this on the floor as well board members I have a motion go ahead Nate yes I have a question for Dave uh in preparation for doing this motion is it okay to do a motion based on the recommendation in the uh agenda item summary um is that sufficient or should I read it off of the actual mil Levy resolution should be one the the one in the agenda item itself is probably a summary I would recommend reading the full motion off the milley resolution
068to make sure we're correct okay um I'm just going to read the whole thing unless it looks like the the well I think the last paragraph should do it right I'm looking at I'm looking at it right now Dave you're gonna have to speak even louder um we can barely hear you sorry about that I think I better read the whole thing yeah read the whole thing and then just reference the numbers as presented yes okay all right so uh starts I I'm move that the board approved the following mil Levy resolution whereas the board of education is required to formally certify to the board of larer County Commissioners the mill Levy in accordance with CRS 39-51 1228 subsection 1 no later than December 15 2020 and whereas analysis of existing statutes and amendments to
069the Colorado Constitution has been been done to determine what Mill lby is allowed under those statutes and amendments now therefore be it resolved by the Board of Education of pter school district R1 that the secretary of the Board of Education formally certified to the board of larer County Commissioners the mill Levy in accordance with CRS 39-51 128 subsection one in the following manner for the tax year 2020 collectible in 2021 the governing board of the pter school district R1 hereby certifies a total Levy of 55.0 Ms to be extended by you upon the total net assessed valuation of 3 [Music] b751 m779 315 to produce 206 million $347,400 collectible in 2021 as outlined in the table in the resolution you are hereby authorized and directed to extend extend said levies upon your tax list in
070accordance with CRS 22-40 d102 subsection 6 Hooter school district is required to inform the County Treasurer of the general fund Mill Levy that would be required in the absence of State funding received pursuant to the quote Public School Finance Act of 1994 end quote and the estimated funds to be received for the general fund the Colorado Department of Education has has estimated the amount of funding Hooter school district will receive from the state for the general fund to be 175 million 50,9 144 and that in the absence of this funding the district's general fund state Mill Levy would be 73.6 58 instead of 27.00 approved and adopted this 8th day of December 2020 hoter School District R1 by President Board of Education test by Secretary of the board of education so I make the motion
071that the board approve that M Levy resolution very good okay and I just want to make sure that came across clearly to everybody okay uh do I have a second from a board member second from Naomi Johnson and uh I think we're turning it over to you Brett to do a presentation at this time good evening this is Brett Parsons and uh as was said in the resolution one of the items the board's required to do annually is to certify the M Levy to the uh County uh no later than December 15 uh that's what we're in the process of doing tonight if we look at the first slide step one we look at the assess valuation that comes from the county assessor's office and that's really the beginning point of of the process here
072so the rule takeaway for the current year is that this is a non reassessment year so if you remember every other year the state reassesses that would be the double digit percentage increases we've seen over the last several years um and then this is a non reassessment year so that being said if we look at number Dave would you please send Lauren the budget uh update in the actual slides itself they are in the the mil Levy assessment folder in just one second Lauren or Lauren will have up the assess valuation worksheet roughly um because it's a non- reassessment year the nut assess value this year is almost identical to last year that's what typically happens in the non- reassessment years that number is the three b751 million we talked about a minute ago so
073looking at the assess valuation that's the driver of the calculations and the other piece of information that comes from the Assessor's worksheet is what's called taxes evaded and refunded and what that is is whenever there's uh there's an abatement and refund process under statute um what it is it is a dollar decrease of a certain or the prior Year's actual tax levy so whatever that amount is we're allowed to set a levy in the subsequent year to collect the amount that was lost usually that amount for Us is around 600 to 700,000 it's a little bit higher this year at around $1.2 million and I think a lot of it had to do with more people paying attention to the abatement and refund process due to the current situation than we would see in the
074normal year did you find it Dave the second slide is talking about the the assistance that CDE provides so we get the information from the cessor at the end of November typically this year we got on the 24th so we run the calculations internally we see what the mill rate should be then towards the end of November no later than December 1st I believe CD required to send the information to all districts with their calculation steps as well um they send that out we confirm their numbers with our numbers if there's any changes to assess valuation that comes later from the county or anything else that changes specifically around M levies himself uh we would work with CDE to get those numbers done a good example of that happening would be this year the 2019
075M Levy override has a mechanism built in to allow um an adjustment for inflation each year as in the school Finance act CDE does not know or take into account that automatically each year so we have to tell them we're going to do that so that was just an example of that then the third slide that we see is the actual form that CDE gives us uh that's talking about the certification in m levies the form is the same this year as in Prior years with one exception so here in a second Lauren will have it up and we can see exactly what I'm talking about but one of the changes in the school Finance act this year was that there is now a mechanism for districts that are levying less than 27 Mills under
076the mill Levy freeze portion of the school Finance act they are now required to Levy the full 27 Mills and issue a credit uh effectively to get down to the amount that they're currently uh that they're currently levying underneath the mil Levy freeze and it's the line 1 a and one B Lauren could you could you blow that up a little larger and Shrink us down is that possible we some of those numbers are going to be really small other way just give me a second there you go thank you sorry Brett no problem can you go go to the next slide Lauren thank you so this is the CDE sheet so the difference I was describing is Line 1 a and 1B the reality is for the 40 districts or so that are already
077living at 27 Mills there's no change in this process for us compared to what we've always done we levied at 27 Mills under the M Levy freeze we're still at 27 I just wanted to bring it up that some some districts will be seeing a little bit different process this year and how they and how they Levy um so looking through the other components the override portion the abatement portion I mentioned all this information is provided uh by CDE we work back and forth as mentioned the only thing they do not provide is the bond Redemption fund Levy that's the levy required to make The Debt Service payments we calculate that internally um and populated after that we take that information and in step three on the next slide we input that information in the
078resolution that was just read a few moments ago that's the assess valuation of both grow gross Tiff and the net um as well as the sum of all the individual Mill levies from the sheet um thinking about this right here just the background this past year we were at 56 Mills the mill Levy rate this year is 55 so it's a slight decrease over the prior year and that's primarily attributable to the slight reduction in the bond Redemption Brad I think we have a question from DJ if if you're is that right DJ did you want to okay go ahead yeah I I on the one slide back from this when you were talking about the bond Redemption fee and you guys calculate that that's a calculation that happens every year correct yes that's correct
079okay thank you looking at the next slide after the resolution we'll go over the detail and I can explain a little bit more in just a second DJ on the actual bond fund itself so we really think about it in three components we have statutory levies M Levy overrides and bond Redemption fund so as far as statutory this is what I was speaking about under current law we're required to Lev at 27 Mills for our portion of the school Finance act that number is highlighted at the top there the second number the Senate Bill 184 allowance that is exactly uh the portion that goes to the evaded and refunded taxes that's the number from the assess valuation from the county we Levy a tax rate up to the amount uh from the county to get
080uh to get that so those numbers have both said in statute there's no calculation involved other than to set those to what needs to be collected on the next slide is the voter authorized overrides so in years past all the other levies all the previous M Levy overrides were fixed dollar amount so granted the M Levy rate change from time to time depending on assess valuations so typically in the reassessment years when we saw the large increases those would change um that Dynamic holds true for the 1988 through the 2016 override the one thing being different about the 2019 that I mentioned a second ago is it grows by inflation so it was $1 million as past this past fall it grew by 1.9% which was the inflation rate in the school Finance act for
081this year so we're actually levying up to 8,342 th000 for the 2019 as planned for that process then on the next slide we'll talk about the bond Redemption Levy itself and as DJ said exactly exactly correct this M Levy floats uh depending on what assess valuation is and what the debt service schedule is so it's been kind of I don't want to say variable but with the with the litigation delay for the 2016 Bond we didn't get those bonds issued to 2018 as well as a number of refunds ings we completed One refunding Summer of 2019 One refunding Summer of 2019 and additionally we just completed another refunding this fall um all those changes and savings that we have go into the debt service schedule itself so at at that point we know what fund
082balance is in The Debt Service fund we know how much fund balance we need to have in order to make our semiannual Debt Service payments and then we work back into the the actual Levy needed uh to make those payments um and it changes from time to time ultimately our our fond repayment plan is stair stepped so I'm off the top of my head I can't remember when the next significant step down is but at some point in the future we'll have a step down and it decreases over time until the bonds are paid off or if we had another bond election that number would increase as required to make service pays on the next slide we have the timeline we're at the tail end of the process uh we got the preliminary AV back
083in October I mentioned the November date um I worked with CDE on December 2nd to get the calculations updated revised we have the board meeting tonight and then as I said um by Statute these numbers are required to be provided to the county by December 15 with the information uh provided to CDE immediately following that on the next slide was the uh was the the final portion of the actual resolution itself to be voted on tonight and then the last slide is there any questions about the process okay I can only see those of you on the right side until we get the slides mov over I do see Rob's hand so go right ahead Rob yeah could you go back to the slide that shows the 2019 uh the assessment yeah that's fine you
084said you said uh we're at 18, 342,000 the side says 338,000 what what am I missing that's a very good question the way these are calculated and the way that CDE does the math on them is not individually they're all in aggregate so when we're doing the math I know that we're supposed to Levy 61 m 354,000 below the actual ballot language himself and it's the process of setting the levy in aggregate for the total of all M levies not at the individual uh not at the individual Levy by year so we break them out on this override resolution or excuse me on the M Levy resolution to show the detail uh in in efforts of transparency but you will see uh minor increases or decreases above that language for that reason and the reason
085they can't be precise is you only got three decimal points basically exactly correct that's we're required to use three decimal thanks for the clarification Nate go ahead yes so as we see the total net tax generated is a little over 206 million can you remind us of what the total uh ballpark total budget for the 2020 to 2021 one school year is just so we know what percentage the total budget is uh is this uh calculation the general fund budget's approximately 300 million so once you remove the the bond portion we're looking at a little over 160 million of local tax collections uh out of 300 million general fund budget so roughly we we kind of hover in the range of close to 5050 as far as local will support combination of property taxes and
086other revenues in state aid from year to year okay thank you okay Naomi go ahead hey gentlemen great work here um if I am mapping this correctly it looks like our override levies are about 20% of that 300 million operating budget is that fair let me look at it real fast yes that's correct awesome wow what a great accomplishment for our community to be able to help our school district by providing us with an extra 20% for our operating budget that is amazing and I just would like to thank our community members um for stepping up to do necessary to make pter School District um an amazing place to receive an education so thank you all that's a very good point that we bring up in a lot of presentations we give is in absence
087of that additional funding PSD would look very different um and we don't want to take it for granted that we have those additional resources I think you're getting a unanimous thumbs up from the rest of the board now comment thank you other board questions or comments okay uh seeing none Jill I'll ask you for a roll call vote please we lost Jill um or Lauren is Jill still there I apologize call for a vote roll vot please completely Frozen thank you DJ Anderson DJ Anderson votes I Nate Donovan Nate Donovan votes I and I wonder if Naomi can vote since she's in the fun house of mirrors exactly so Kristen Draper Kristen Draper votes I Krista fev Krist fev votes I Naomi Johnson Naomi Johnson both I Rob pson Rob Pon votes I Carolyn Reed
088Carolyn Reed I and motion passes 70 thank you Jill okay and then the final action item for the evening is 6.3 and it's one of the monitoring and policy reviews this one is El 2.3 the financial condition and activities of the district um so board members would somebody like to make a motion for this go ahead Nate yes I move that the board determine that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted Board of Education policy El 2.3 in her internal monitoring report dated 12 12820 and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusions stated in the internal monitoring report thank you Nate uh and I have a second from Kristen Draper okay any uh discussion on this item from board members questions so we have Dave with us over over and over again but we're not uh
089getting much time out of them this evening thanks for joining us though Dave okay um if I see no questions or comments then Jill I'm gonna ask you for a will call vote please DJ Anderson DJ Anderson votes I Nate Donovan Nate Donovan votes I Kristen Draper Kristen Draper votes I Kristoff fev Kristoff fev votes I Naomi Johnson Naomi Johnson votes I Rob patteron Rob P votes I Carolyn Reed Carolyn Reed I motion passes 70 thank you very much okay and with that I understand uh we need to take a recess so that Carolyn can go pick up her husband and gy um I'm just kidding um sounds like he found a ride so um no we do need a recess as I understand it so how about Lauren or Tessa are you thinking five
090minutes or something like that yeah can we do maybe a five minute recess and then as everyone comes back in we can test some mics okay so we'll test the mics at that time okay great so uh look to come back around 605 thanks everyone e e e very good okay it is 6:07 p.m. and uh the board's out of recess and Rec reconvened in the regular portion of the meeting uh we are now moving on to the informational reports and discussion items so item 7.1 on The Bu on the agenda is the uh now regular budget update we've been doing um this evening we have budget director Brett Parsons and executive director Finance Dave Montoya back joining us again providing the update for the budget information to the board is that uh what is
091it DJ what did I do wrong update school year update first uh tell you what um Scott and Todd what did you have on your agenda on mine I show 7.1 is the budget update I'm not looking I'm looking at my talking points not at the uh novas hold on let me let me just on no on nois it is the school year update first sorry okay uh since that's what was advertised why don't we switch it around and uh so we'll go with 7.1 being the 220 2021 school year update and that would explain why we had Scott and Todd on the screen so uh I'll turn it over to our two assistant superintendents to this upate thank you that sounds great thank you very much Kristof and U glad to be here to
092give our regular update on the school year I'm going to go ahead and go first because our kids are younger and I get to go first and then Scott will go after me that's how we like to do it all right just a quick update a few of the things that we have share before we want to continue to update on let's start with attendance attendance information continues to be really good the elementary group is continuing to stay around 94% secondary um I hadn't shared that sent that information yet to Scott that their attendance also stays in the 93s and I I think the message here is um while attendance isn't necessarily the full measure of where we are the attendance numbers continue to be good students continue to connect with their teachers and assignments
093and that's really good news I know Scott I monitor that attendance a couple times a week just paying attention to it those numbers have continued to stay very stable so we're really pleased with that uh we are continuing great success with remote remote learning I know both of us are going to give an update on how remote learning looks at our respective levels at the elementary level um right now we had I did some checking today we had of the one through four priority groups that we have talked about quite a bit here of that particular group of students we have 441 of them are already started and then we have uh our principles we asked our administrators to evaluate that list and if there were any students they felt would also benefit from remote
094learning we gave them the leeway to add students of that group another 243 have signed on and are participating in remote learning for a grand total of at elementary of 684 so that is a lot of students when we started with our first group of about 1,600 or so plus some additions kids are coming in we're continuing to leave enrollment open for remote learning support uh I want to put a plugin for our partners out there particularly boys and Girls Club alphab best and Matthew's house and I don't want to leave anyone out there are others Housing Authority there are others who are doing a lot of work for us and they're doing work in two different ways one of them uh they know that in particular phases that we're in we may need additional
095Staffing and additional help and they've been trying to round that up and depending on the phase we're in we do have a resource we can tap into in our community we they've also been looking for additional space uh as you know when we were in phase three space was at the premium students were in the buildings and so there was limited space right now because we're in Virtual learning phase one we're not competing for locations uh we have the media center we have the cafeteria we have the gym so in most cases all of our remote learning support at our respective locations is being handled with plenty of space uh so we're really pleased with those numbers I know Scott's going to update you on how the secondary participation is looking uh students can join
096at any time we have no deadlines we continue to invite uh a lot of our families and I don't have an exact number on this uh were pleased with the invitation but had situations at home where they felt like they could support their students in the environment they were in so not all not everyone accepted those invitations so I don't want you to think that it was a bunch of NOS or or more more importantly a lot of no shows that's not the case we continue to invite continue to track where our students are I'm really pleased at the number uh that our principal dug into to add some additional kids you know stories change over time when we looked at that data uh the first couple of times we group kids by their priority
097with one being the highest priority but we also know that things happen in our schools and our families face different issues and so Scott and I wanted to make sure our principles had the leeway to add students and they did so and the return rate for those students who have been invited is really high uh so we're pleased that we're continuing to meet needs and getting over a thousand kids in our buildings uh that's just a big plus for them and those who struggle I know we we heard a lot from Community comment tonight about students who struggle one way or the other and so we're trying to provide that service uh for right now we are going to be in Virtual learning our virtual model through winter break and so we'll continue this for
098the rest of this week and all through next week we are now prepared regardless of the phase we're in if we're in Phase One or phase three to provide continued remote learning support I also want to put another plugin for some folks that are really helping us with this Sarah morowitz who many of you know works for the Bohemian Foundation has been our facilitator in this work she's done a remarkable job bringing our Community Partners together and we always uh value that partnership with Bohemian Foundation they've done so much great work for us and they've been really selfless in this I also want to put a plugin for United wave they have they have done a lot of work to help V uh volunteers that's a tedious process and they didn't want to have all
099the outside volunteers have to come through uh so United Way and dar Sullivan and her team have a great uh practice for that and that is really speeding things up to continue to serve our kids so remote learning I think it's a success story and I think you're going to hear some of the same information from Scott about success as far as virtual learning update a couple of things that are going on we're still seeing our biggest challenges in this environment with our youngest students uh as you know our prek students continue to be in session and they're doing a remarkable job but for our kindergarteners first graders in second graders uh they're hanging in there our teachers are working hard to continue to develop those relationship ships in this environment I'll get to that
100in just a minute uh but we are still seeing if you know there's no difference in the last time we updated as far as a particular group or age band of students who continue to struggle the most and that's not to say that all of them are but you heard from some of our parents tonight who love the children very much and you could feel that coming through in their voices and I know this is something we talk about a great deal um so we're monitoring that carefully our primary teachers are doing remarkable work to maintain those relationships um I mentioned last time too we are seeing this go around some changes you know we did virtual for a while we switched to phase three then we switch back to phase one a couple of
101things that are different this time around and they're in a good way a lot of our teachers have shared with us that uh because they went into phase three and met the kids face to face talk with them and continue to to develop those relationships when they switched back to Virtual was a little easier knowing who they were uh being able to have some context and some frame of reference for that and we heard that from anecdotally from several teachers they feel like this time around is working a little better in that respect we also are seeing this time around more of our teachers and I don't have an exact percentage but more of them teaching from home uh the first time around we had a large percentage of our teachers opted to teach inside
102the buildings Matt Bryant and his operations team made that very possible and and in welcoming for our teachers to come in and teach from their home base really appreciate that facilities team this time around uh a few a few more are opting to stay home and work from home through winter break that's neither here nor there but I just think it's an important part of the information we share with you but again our facilities team Matt and his team Jerry Garrison Leanne all those guys they've done great work helping teachers out letting them get into their rooms and making sure that it's a great place for them to work from and and that's continuing so we really appreciate that um that's that's it as far as virtual learning I do want to let you know
103to wrap up as far as my part because I know we'll have several questions we are and and Scott will talk about this a little bit as well we are working and we recognize that so many of our families want to know how we're coming back after winter break please know that we're paying close attention to that work right now and we hope in fact we we intend to communicate with our families next week at the very early part of next week about what we're going to do of course we want to talk with our Board of Education about our work and some of the uh things that we're considering and we're working right now with our principal I would say the biggest Fe sure that we're bringing into the next conversation about how we
104open and the way we make our decisions as we have uh our team led by John pentino and a few others have developed a great dashboard that provides a much deeper insight into the type of things we're looking at to not only keep schools open but what we would look at if we needed to turn back the other way I think one of the things we've done up to this point is focused heavily on the Community Health Data that we see on the dashboard from larer County Department of Health and environment but while we were in phase three we collected a significant amount of our own data knowing what impact looks like on learning knowing what quarantines do to schools knowing what the impact on substitute teachers and coverage and so we have worked uh
105with a team to illustrate that or show that in a dashboard format and so one of the things we intend to do when we communicate with families next week is to give them a closer look at those data points that we look at for our reasoning and our rationale and I think they'll like that we'll talk about trend lines uh chases and age bands and some of the things we haven't put out there as explicitly as before but we're all Learners and like I said as we collected that evidence and we' collaborated with our peers along the Front Range we've learned a lot about how to show the data that's most important for families to look at um we don't want that to be a surprise we want our families to know the type of
106things we're paying attention to so we'll be eager to share that with you in the coming days and talk through that but again I think the main point here is we know as our families head into winter break they want that predictability about schedules and we intend to provide that for them as well as the data points we will be watching evaluating monitoring through uh the post Thanksgiving and post holiday time uh and they'll be able to watch those metrics just like we watch them they'll understand our decision I think a little more clearly I'm going to turn it over to my partner Scott I know he's got a update ready to roll Scott can we ask questions you want this Swit it over to him DJ great I just want I just want a
107clarification on the uh remote remote support that we that you're providing uh how many is that is it like two hours a day is it h how much time are we getting with these kids to help them at the for the for most of our students it's the full day we work off our we work off our schedules Transportation provides that I think um also keep in mind you know when the students come in in remote learning and I'll just reemphasize this and remind everyone they are coming in and they are still participating in the remote learning in their classroom so they're they have the technology already they have the wireless so they don't have to worry about those complications they come in and they're supervised in a safe environment more importantly those students can
108continue to have access to any mental health providers that may be working with them many of our counselors are taking a lot taking advantage of that time and working with check-ins seeing how families are doing they're learning a lot about the students and then our district level mental health support many of our students participate in that on a rotating basis or on a regularly scheduled basis that's still provided for them we think that's powerful uh especially during this time that we give them access and the other part to it is the food security um we know that that when our students come in many of our students are really vulnerable in that area and Craig Schneider Matt Bryant keep mentioning Matt Bryant tonight Matt Bryant's having a good month he's coming through for us on
109a lot of things uh but we give them that food security as well they get in they get a meal uh they also have opportunity to take food there's there's just uh it's just an all-around supported environment but it's all day we do have some situations DJ where some of our students who are in integrated Services their time may be truncated a little bit they may be working with families to bring them in and take them out uh that that all day in that environment isn't really effective for them they have some targeted work that they're doing they would be an exception but for most of those students they come and they're Bell tobell thank you and TOD just to follow up on that how many days a week uh right now we're for our
110for our remote learning right now four days a week yeah our teachers are still taking advantage of their Friday time um and we are working on trying to to ideally we want our students taken care of every single day but we're continuing to um in in most cases we're looking at a four day a week now all right think maybe we should push on with Scott then yeah unless you have other questions for me but I'll stay on here for that those as well okay Scott I think you're muted there I'm not sure yep thanks Kristoff um thanks Dr Lambert for kicking us off and and I'll start with uh um that remote uh learning support as well um Todd talked about numbers um at the middle school level we have 201 of the one
111through fours that are participating have signed up to participate and at at the middle school level 122 um students were selected by the schools to come in so that gives us a total 323 middle school students um so proportionally pretty close to what we have at elementary um and then at the high school level we have 159 of the one through fours and the high school uh they added 39 so that's a total of 198 at the high school um one of the added things at the high school if you remember back uh at the end of September and October we also added small group work so the ability for students to come in and do the Hands-On work that continues as we're back in phase one now um allowing students to come in um
11215 students at a time to do the the active learning stuff that is harder to do remotely so we have some of that going on in all of our buildings as well I don't have concrete numbers on that but I know that is going on as well and then just like Todd talked about we have um special needs students some coming in for the two-hour boost session and some of our integrated Services students coming in for the entire day we continue to Todd talked about um transportation we continue to run Transportation which allows for middle and high school um to bring students in that need transportation in order to come do that and so that has been a positive even though we don't have lots of students on any of the buses um running the
113buses allows for any student we need to get into the school to have access if they were on Transportation so that's helped us to get the the remote learning uh sessions going but also to help support those other small groups that uh that may be happening at the middle of the high school at the two secondary levels they may be using Fridays enhancing Fridays maybe what I'd say to bring in some of those small groups so we have some small group stuff going on at some of our middle schools um and we have some small groups that they're they're working on uh on a Friday at the high school level as well it's a little easier for the teachers to engage in some small group support when they're not also engaged in the other uh
114direct instruction that they have the other four days a week currently so um so that is uh fairly successful we're excited about how that's working and as Todd said we're still open to add individuals at sites as uh as buildings see the need as they are reached out to or or hear there's there's a need uh they're bringing students in we'll continue that um through the next two weeks and then whatever second semester looks like if we're um in phase one two or three we'll continue with theot remote learning support as well so um that's the the remote support um I do want to add Todd talked about uh all the work that the community groups are doing I think one of the things that that also has been um very supportive from a district
115perspective is we have lots of families in financial need and and so whether that's their car or where they're living um uh support with uh paying uh paying heat paying electricity um and uh some of the the community groups have come together with financial support that John McKay's group our counselors at schools can tap into to help support families as well so they they not only are doing the the support to find people um to help us think through to to to staff our spaces but also to help find financial resources that can help our families in need as well obviously that's that's something that that's a huge benefit in a district that that is trying to be frugal with our money and trying to figure out how to make sure we're doing the best
116we can with our resources to have that added support is benefiting lots of families so thank you to our our group for that um I also want to share that uh I think we talked I I can't remember how many weeks ago but Naomi and DJ had heard um from uh individuals that they're meeting with about uh modification to our phases um our big four high schools have spent more time than the rest of ours looking at how we might modify um and have a potentially a little more creative or a little different look at how we come back particularly with our four high schools because as we're data driven um if you look at our data the most impacted sites we had were our four big high schools so that's in motion right now
117they're doing a nice job the four big high schools of thinking about how that will look different um and what what might be a way for us as a secondary group and particularly those for break high schools to stair step back in to get our students some face Toof face time but maybe have it look a little different than it looked when we were back this Pas time so that's in motion those principles are doing a great job of thinking about how that could look at the at the big high school level and all of our secondary principles thinking through what uh what it could look like um there's a couple other things I just want to respond to I think um we heard we heard Community comment both tonight and last time about subs
118and one of the things I just want to say to the community is you know as we have planned we've really tried to be intentional about how we use our subs and so we have Subs aligned to buildings and that's how we did it when we opened up um in phase three we're looking at is that the same approach we have next time there are constraints when we do that but we also if you think about the kind of bubble effect we also um help ourselves by having Subs that are aligned to specific schools it's also enhanced um some of our subs as we brought them on because we've got a lot of parents from those sites that are subbing but I think that's good for the community to know and I did have a
119chance to check with uh Vicky Thompson tonight um to make sure that that we in fact have um the the open sub pool as we speak and it is open on our website right now so if there are individuals as we may have heard earlier um if you go to our website there is um we are do have our subpool open to hire individuals as we speak so for anyone out there that wants to help support us as we get back and going know that that is open on the PSD website as we speak so so thanks Vicki for helping us um take a look at that and make sure that that's um um available for those that are interested and then the last thing I'll close with is there were a couple questions that
120uh board had about pek and we haven't had a chance to talk about that but that was um in the board packet tonight um and pek um is an interesting program one that I'm excited about bringing into the district um one quite frankly I hope we expand and the question was does it interfere or does it uh um um take away from what the Futures lab uh pathway is and the answer is no it actually dovet Tales works pretty well with it and many districts look at a PTEC program really is a 9 through 12 program um it's pretty intentional the classes you have to offer students around an AA degree when they're in the program and so the one we're looking at bringing in as our first one at pter high school um Kathy
121McKay and her team have done a really intentional job of thinking about programming that students would take and it may very well be that their highest level programming there has to take place at Front Range it may very well be that their highest level programming um takes place at Futures lab in the lab that Woodward Governor is looking to build with us um and so those kind of programs um I'll give you an example in St vain they have at least three different PTEC tracks that I know of many of them um happen at the comprehensive high schools and then the highest level programming happens at their Innovation Center so that you can you can be intentional about um how you deal with those students that need the highest level programing and in any one
122of those programs it might not be very many students that get there but when you bring them together at The Innovation Center you can uh pull your resources if you will but it all highest level programs also become Standalone for kids that aren't in the ptech track but they can still access that highest level program so it's an enhancement to the district it's not a detraction from the Futures lab they dance well together um and they would be those kind of programs would be enhancements across our district if we were able to bring more in so I think that that adds then I'll close with a thank you um I know we see lots and lots of individuals doing great work I had a chance today to sit with our our middle school and high
123school counselors for a meeting and you know there's lots of changes lots of tweaks all of our staff are working hard but I had a chance to watch them today as they're thinking about the student experience for our middle school and high schoolers um they're already thinking about exactly what does it look like for the registration process which is a big part of like just the transition from 8th to 9th they were talking a lot about today but from 9th to 10th 10th to 11th that whole registration process of getting students into the classes that they desire how do you do that in in in this model if that's where we are their planning today was trying to think about how do we create a student experience not knowing exactly what phase will'll be in
124what the ability will be to either be face Toof face or remote so I just want to to to give thanks to that group of individuals that provide so much for an organization and I had a chance to watch it in action today and so I want to put that out publicly and celebrate that group for um continued positive energy the work they're doing to support students but also the work they're doing to create the conditions for students to have experience as they move through the rest of this year and into next and that's the conclusion of my comments for tonight thank you very much and I see a question from Rob go ahead Rob yeah I'm I'm assuming this is an obvious answer but but given where we're at in the world today I'll
125ask question anyway and that is as you're planning for next year in terms of classes actually there are two pieces to this now that I think about it one of them is may be more appropriate for Dave and Company but uh I'm assuming that whatever we do in the spring semester you're assuming that the fall semester is going to be a normal school year in terms of what what kids are signing up for and what kind of programs we're going to offer and whatnot is that correct yeah we are we are planning that we'll be face to face um I would call it phase four for the fall um obviously things could change dramatically but that's what we're thinking right now is that that's where we'll be we're planning that way um and uh um
126that that next year we'll be classes as usual albeit I suspect we'll still have some individuals wearing masks because they choose to but I don't even see that masks would be mandatory given um likely we'll have some subset that that have been been vaccinated by then so yes I would say the planning Todd may we haven't talked specifically but I think both of us would say we're we're targeting phase four for all our students for the fall and I think both of us would like to figure out a way to get a good chunk of them in for something like that even before we walk out for summer so course but we'll have to we'll monitor things as we do that but certainly for the fall thank you okay thank you other questions Kristen and
127then Naomi so I had a question about the busing um so right now what we're you know with we're busing um looks like close to a thousand well uh yeah close to a thousand kids um for Boost sessions and remote learning um and so is that not allowing us to do a lot of we were doing the lunch deliveries in the um in the fall so are we doing some lunch deliveries as well or are we is is the the busting that we have to get the the kiddos to The rimo Learning Centers sort of not allowing us to do the the um lunch deliveries as much it's I don't think it's that that's not allowing us that one of the changes we've made since fall is that we have all of our buildings open
128um and so as we're doing boost sessions and and remote learning in all of our schools we have more school sites that are open so I think we're monitoring it that way I think we've had some conversations about could we find neighborhoods that aren't w't able to access and do some kind of uh shuttle to those but we had more sites open we we tried to trim down the sites we had open in the fall and then run them kind of as a hub and spoke um now given the fact that we have almost all of our sites that we have remote learning students in we're we're at least for the first week now week and a half we're we're running Food Services out of each of them and and trying to support as best
129we can um they're certainly learning and tweaking that we can do um given the community comment tonight I think something for us to pay attention to and I know that's something that John is pretty passionate about in terms of trying to figure out what neighborhoods might we not be serving so it's on our radar for sure okay thanks and just as a clarification too um the the kiddos can go to any school to get a lunch correct they don't have to go to their home school or to the correct yeah okay that's correct and who were you wanting to jump in yeah I just want to clarify something there I was asked the question about the four days a week we do have and I and it reminds me as we think about food and
130and the work there we do have some of our original remote learning sites are serving are are um working with kids five days a week there aren't a lot of them it's Irish putam and then a couple of our volunteer groups that were early at um shepardson olander Laurel they have some five day a week students the majority of them uh are going on the FL but they are working in those sites which is super helpful for consistency um in that in that manner I just wanted to clear that up it's not it's not the majority of them but there are some areas where we are able uh in particular with some of our kids who are most vulnerable to work through attendance and have some help on five days just depending on where they
131go thanks for the clarification and Naomi you had a question I believe right yes thank you I have two question questions gentlemen always a pleasure um my first question is what are the possibilities of deciding School opening and closure on an individual basis for example we've heard um from community members who have children attending the mountain schools and they're already very isolated and remote would it be possible for a school like that to open in phase four even while other elementary schools um that are larger are operating in a different phase you know Naomi I think that we would consider all options as we come out of winter break I know Scott and I have talked about um the plan I'll speak at a higher at a 30,000 foot view on that question real quick
132and then and then answer that we are designing our data sharing with the idea that we want to isolate in the smallest groups possible and so that means that we want to have the type of data that is detailed enough for our administrators to evaluate where they're able to shut a class uh a grade A section and not spread that out into the whole area so that's always been our goal is to try to minimize that as much as possible speaking specifically to your question would we consider options where some open to different models we have some unique situations you bring one up in the mountain schools uh we've talked to Mountain School families I would say that we will look at all innov options with the idea that our priority is to find safe
133ways to get our students into the schools in front of their teachers so uh nothing would be off the table the Mountain School parents uh have been great as far as communicating Mr shacket up there the principal he continues to look for innov innovative ways to help families they have some different schedules than in other places because of busing and families and some of the issues you remember those families if they have elementary students or middle school students go to CLP middle uh so that's a little different for them so we've tried to give them some flexibility in the schedule I think when we come back from winter break we'll continue to look for innovative ways to get kids in front of teachers and also for our buildings that are not experiencing as many uh
134positive cases would it be possible for some of those buildings to remain open longer in the spring take it away Scott well I I just I think as Todd talked about I think we are trying to think um more micro than macro um and we talked about that last time Todd talked a little bit about what we've been able to to see with data our own helps us a lot to be able to look back at our experience over the the five weeks or six weeks um but I think John and his team have also done a nice job of taking the community data and narrowing it down to our own communities data within lmer County and by age band so that helps us a lot to see what's happening by age band in the
135community and also be able to monitor what's happening at our sites um and yes be more intentional about um smaller groups which ultimately might allow more kids to be in school more often um that that will be our bent as we come back is to try to look at how to do that the second thing I just wanted to say is I I had a couple texts come in to me right after I answered Kristen's question to make sure that I clarified because we already are running some routes to some of our hardest to reach a neighborhood so they're already on that both Matt and and uh John both texted me to tell me I was incorrect so um so I just wanted to put that in the room that they already are on it
136those two they don't mess around don't feel bad Scott corre gleefully told you you were Incorrect iag and then my second question is about phase three um it was awesome that we were able to open up the buildings and get students into their meet their teachers and work with their teachers um and we've heard lots and lots of difficulty about phase three with teachers attempting to teach to four separate groups of students simultaneously um trying to figure out how to make it work in the classroom and with remote students at the same time lots of students have talked about how on their in person learning days they were just sitting in their classroom but opening up their laptops and working through the teams meetings or the um Google Classroom meetings the way that they would
137be at home and again reiterating how important it is to be face Toof face I would hope that we could do some reimagining and Innovative thinking around that as well so that we're really taking advantage of the bodies in the scene and not um and not having it be the same type of education that they would be receiving at home are there plans to re-evaluate phase three and um perhaps augment it for the spring in the event that we would need to be in that phase I'll take that I I the answer is yes I think we're we continue to be a learning organization and so learn and I think there are lots of teachers that were doing um pretty solid practices with with phase three and phase three is complicated right it's the most
138complicated phase we have I talked earlier about what's happening with the big four um I think we're taking a look at where they landed was rethinking phase two um we won't go to 25% of the kids in that doesn't one day a week it where you have that happening with a fourth and three4 is likely not something we're going to do at secondary so relooking at that and potentially the new phase two if you will at the the secondary level would be still the same number of students but only two days a week which would allow for three days a week to being remote that may be a a a program we look at at the high school level that lets us kind of stare step in then three days a week would be predictable
139like it is right now with happening remote so all of that remote learning would be consistent for the kids and the teachers um and then looking at two days one day for a one day for b um might be a way to get them some face to face that could then be augmented by the small group work they're already doing so that may be a way to enhance what we're looking at that's that's some creative work but then continue and to talk um teacher to teacher about how did they manage phase three uh it's more likely that you could go beyond phase three younger the kids are um and the the older the students are the harder it is to see going past phase three very soon so we're going to likely be in phase
140three with some of our students so continuing to augment that Naomi and make uh the experience for students better I think is on the minds of teachers and principles and uh um so we'll continue to look at how do we make that more improved I don't think I have anything to add much to the elementary we'll continue to monitor as well I will say this one of the things that's been challenging is because so many of our teachers have tried to go above and beyond um they they are so used to the such a high quality when the students are in person so one of the things we've seen that's been challenging is when they try to maintain like you mentioned a group inside and a group outside you know they're trying to stream at
141the same time uh we've learned a lot you know I think I shared earlier we you know we learned a lot the first time we came through virtual we learned a lot during phase three too and I think if we ever went back to that we would likely you see some of those improvements for sure um but I what I ran up against when we had some Str are when teachers were just trying to make it work it was generally uh teachers just trying to go above and beyond and deliver as many things possible for their families and be as customizable as they possibly could and um boy we we'll take we'll we'll take that any day get a good learning for us as well thanks okay Nate has a question yes I hesitate to
142bring this up but when we think toward toward the future and how to deal with learning loss and maybe we don't have the money or maybe our staff's going to be exhausted and want to sleep for two weeks after school gets out but are we thinking about the possibility of Summer enrichment or in the fall ways to recapture some of the learning loss on a regular schedule can you can you talk to that I think Scott mentioned that earlier I was glad he did and I know he we both have thoughts on that I think the answer is yes for sure um we are considering what summer looks like I think we have Scott and I have both dug into the studies that just came out from Renaissance Learning which we participate in a great
143deal as well as in WEA and they're telling us a little bit more about the norming across the country and where they're seeing some of those challenges looks like we're having more learning loss in math than in reading and we're seeing our students who are most impacted falling behind faster than others I think those were conclusions we probably would have drawn at the beginning but to your question specifically Nate yes we are already uh in those conversations and I think the next time we come together uh Scott I don't know if you agree with that we probably would have a little bit more detail and some form to that question and maybe some uh specific information about what we're thinking would you agree I do okay other board questions or comments okay thanks to both
144of you for that update very good um yeah I know there's just tons of work going on and um a lot of anxious parents and we'll uh look forward to your continued updates um as you go along so we can keep working together okay now we'll move on to um with 7.2 the budget update and we'll add in budget director B Parsons and executive Dave Montoya so um I will turn it over to the two of you thank you great thanks Kristoff and uh I'm gonna have Brett go ahead and hoping people can hear me this time okay um I'm gonna have Brett go ahead and lead off with uh kind of the state of the the budget where we're at and then I'm going to follow up at the tail end and just bring
145the board up to speed with where we're at in the budget process um some of the progress we've made over the last couple weeks and uh that's it so Brett thank you so I'm going to go over two slides pretty quickly first uh review of Where the budget is at in the current year and then the limited things that we know about the budget as we look forward to 2122 So within the current year we've talked a lot about about Revenue expenditures what those things are but the real pressing issue is October count so you've uh you've seen the information before we're down a little over 900 kids on an enrollment basis and we've had conversation around um we are going going to be using the averaging component of the school Finance act for funding
146in uh the current fiscal year so this is a new thing for PSD uh in my time here we've not been on this component uh nor I don't think in in Dave's time either so the real question is how does that average work it is a greater of um the current year plus up to the last four years in uh in combination in in an order to actually get to what the greatest funded people count number was so we had an idea of what that was we thought as a dollar amount it was going to be a little over $3 million based on our preliminary analysis looking at the information that CDE released today which is the preliminary School Finance Outlook uh based off the first round of October accounts that were turned in we're
147looking at a funded people count change on the average basis of 470 pupils down over the prior year so just as comparison we budgeted flat okay um on an enrollment basis we're down over 900 kids from the prior year so what this averaging concept did was held us held us harmless effectively to only the loss of 470 funded peoples instead of the 900 or so number on a dollar basis that's around 3.5 million so pretty similar to what our rough estimates were earlier in the year when we talked so that's one of the big uh one of the big changes that we knew was coming additionally uh myself uh and and peers in the in the industry across the state I think were also pretty caught off guard by the rerun of school Finance after
148October counts there was an additional PPR decrease across the state that was driven by reduction in at risk counts so if we think about so we know that we're one of the 15 or so floor funded districts we're funded at 95% of the Statewide average when you think about how the state did the calculation back in June it's based on estimates for the coming year true it up in December to actual due to covid and the situation in hand the state was anticipating around 40% of the kids would be uh qualified as at risk Statewide after October count that number came in at around 35% of students Statewide are categorized at at risk that in turn decreased the Statewide average PPR that new decrease Statewide average times 95% is also a decrease for us it's
149approximately $70 uh per um funded pupil lower than what our original budget called for or approximately $2 million less in funding um than we previously had um the real um so the driver I mentioned the atris the real driver of it is we talked earlier I heard some talks about about Child Nutrition and what was going on there as far as delivering Mills as far as the US government's uh the federal government's uh delivering or paying for Mills for all students through the year all these things that happened are very advantageous for our students and definitely the right thing to do but a byproduct of that is without most kids being in person and having that desire to turn in the free introduced lunch forms and then once everybody gets a free meal regardless of
150status I I'm G to hypothesize that generally many many fewer families turned in those forms than we would see on an average school year when we were in person and when there was not a federal waiver effectively in place for the school year um ultimately that money is already budgeted in the Department of Education so it'll come to ahead probably in January whenever they do the uh supplemental bill for the 2021 fiscal year uh because I I think the question in hand will be will the JBC and ultimately ultimately the legislature want to take those resources that exist now unspent in in Department of Education and shift them elsewhere in the state budget or do they potentially want to look at those additional dollars um and and look at school Finance fight under the negative
151factor any other of the options available um at their at their disposal I think the number in total is run 130 million Statewide so not a massive amount of money out of the six billion or so that exist in school Finance act but still a meaningful amount of money uh just just to bring that point out uh that's going to be the big the big decrease that we take in Revenue as we look to the year otherwise most of the items that we're looking at are coming in fairly close to budget the vast majority of the uncollected property taxes as of the financial statements um has already came in we had around four million uncollected um at the end of the accounting period which is August 31st uh for a fiscal year uh end in
152June uh We've collected about three million of those delinquent taxes through the end of November so we only have around a million dollars uncollected property tax right now related to the prior year of course we don't know what this year is going to bring we could see you know other uh you know future non- payments Etc but as far as looking at the prior year collection uh that that's looking pretty good the only other real changes from budget uh that pop out at a high level I would say is probably going to be student fee revenue and building uh building rental those revenues because we're not in session because of the restrictions related to covid uh building use uh students paying fees from you know participating these activities and all that those are just down
153due to participation and the the AA availability to offer you know those type programs uh so we'll keep an eye on those as we go forward um and update I'm update again later on that looking at the expenditure side we in in the previous presentation you know we really heard uh some components about the supports that are out there and everything we're trying to do as far as what we knew in June those items are coming in very close to budget psdv is still coming in close to $ million as we look at the total compensation excluding pstv they're slightly under budget so the real question as we go throughout the year is we're currently doing needed supports as the situation evolves and changes on the ground over time those items are hard to quantify
154in advance so we just have to we just have to watch and monitor those um you know as we go through the year and I know we've said it over and over again but the situation just evolves by the day and by the week it feels like and it makes it very difficult in extent to quantify some of these um you know earlier in the process that being said as we shift to thinking about 2122 the real next steps for the current year budget uh is probably what happens in the next six weeks December 22nd the midyear uh forecast is going to come out we can go ahead and go to the second slide please uh December 22nd the second forecast is going to come out that's really going to see if there's if the
155governor's budget proposal from September really has any chance of holding water so to speak from a budget development perspective and what they will be able to fund versus what the governor's budget requests are uh next up is at the end of December we will do the second quarter uh FMS once we start to get or once we have six months out of 12 expenditures and revenues uh passed we really start to get more certain about our estimates and what we're doing than we are at the three-month Mark so that'll be a big um that'll be a big step for us and then at the end of January we adopt the revised budget taking those midyear assumptions into account and at that point really shift gears to which what we're going to do for the 2122
156here um we mentioned the governor's budget proposal before it is I mean I can hardly say the number out loud it is so significant so for instance the adopted PPR is 7,658 um after after the decrease I spoke about a minute ago it is now 75 um 7585 so a little over $7 less than before the governor's budget request calls for a PPR for PSD of over $88,500 um that's a lot that's more than we ever had before from a PPR standpoint and that's after the negative Factory that's the net PPR um it's it's just a big number um I I I mean I'm optimistic I would love it would be great great great news for uh for students uh in community of PSD if something like that were materialized uh but I kind of
157want to keep it um you know I just want to I want to watch it as it as it comes through the process and keep a close eye on it because it it just seems unattainable from what we see on the ground from what you see driving around town from what I know we're dealing with here and all the conversations we have with the board and internally it just seems it seems pretty pretty lofty U so we have to keep an eye on that as we go forward like I said the December forecast is really going to um you know is really going to play into that as well and the last component is really the financial impact of CO as we look through say July to the last month or so economically everything was
158turning out better than the state's expectations with the current situation on the ground with uh you know the level red the restrictions by County uh you know the very across the state all taking into all going into you know effect you know there's really two kind of questions I think that impact us one is how does the state to total revenue from income tax uh sales tax those things change alter based on what happens over the next several months and then at the local level I mentioned property taxes a minute ago even if tax collections at the state level maintain robust uh compared to their expectations we also do extend the risk of decreased property tax collections locally the potential for foreclosures any of those kind of things that can that can happen kind of
159independently of what the state budget is facing at their level so those are the highlights both in the current year and what we're talking about and thinking about as we look forward to the next year and with that I'll let Dave talk more about planning for the upcoming school year thank you Brett appreciate that and I uh do appreciate your your words around the governor's proposal I think what we're doing is trying to temper our expectations until we can verify and and see how how this all shakes out but um news is a little more positive than probably the last time we talked so that's good um I want to I want to shift gears here and and talk more about and and just maybe uh in in spirit of the conversation we had last
160time we talked a lot about the budget process that we're using and that it's a different process um it's it's basically looking at the foundational level of budgets um both at the SBB level as well as the supporting Central roles across the district so um won't go through that again just to to avoid the redundancy what I did hear from the board last time was though a High desire to stay informed as the process develops um and to understand where we're at and and where we're going so this is kind of a a touch and go to to let the board know exactly what what the pro where we're at in the process and and the next steps and uh want to say I'm pretty excited about the process that we've made the progress um
161it's been uh it's been really good to interact with our principles on a budgetary basis again as well as our Central department so that's just been that's been a good part of the process is to to you know reestablish some of those relationships especially in this online environment so um we LED this process out by um before the Thanksgiving break by having uh two sets of principles come in and establish what we're calling and this is on the focus of the student based budgeting side so purely looking at student based budgeting schools that exist under that model so traditional elementary middle school and high schools what we did not talk about and I'll talk more about in a second is our alternative programs or our Central support sets a separate process that's happening the first
162process though is around those Traditional School settings that I mentioned and um rightfully so um as you would expect we would want to focus with our schools first when we're looking at budget needs so what we did is before the Thanksgiving break we pulled two sets of ele of of principles together one was focused on the elementary side and one was focused on the secondary side and in that group what we did is we we actually really challenged ourselves to to think a little differently and to not only think about the challenges from a a financial sense uh yes we're doing this for a purpose because because money's tight and we need to make sure we understand where we're at with need um but also to take a fresh look at not not necessarily looking
163at things through the lens of how have we done them before but asking a very bold question how should we do them now and what is the need now going going forward um and I'm pleased to say that all the groups all the principles we've had multiple people involved in this process now um they've all done although we get stuck at times um it's natural we've all done a really really good job of shifting gears and saying how would we deliver Services based on need what we know now and um and probably not surprising to the the board and uh I think one of the concerns of the board last time we talked was um we want to make sure that board priorities are being considered in there and and I'm pleased to report back
164that um those priorities I think are shining through the discussions we're having because of exactly what I described don't focus on what we've been doing and how we've been doing it or where the resource has been coming from but talk to us about what the need is and so as we've been talking about that what we did is we started off before Thanksgiving with those two groups to develop what we call base level models and when we when we have the base level models what I mean is we have this they're prototypical models it's a it's a process very similar used by US 14 years ago but it's also a process that was similar to um one that the States run for things like the labato costing out things like that so it's not not
165a foreign process and what we did is we say let's build some prototypical models and and we had a little bit of fun with this as a group and uh it was a great opportunity because we said hey let's build a staffing plan for B Elementary and so we had we were able to put a name to a school that nobody at this point I mean I know we have an a principal for that but nobody on the group was doing that um we were just having fun at creating Staffing plans for a new school and we started out at what we would consider the most efficient levels um again we're not recreating everything we learned in the past and one of the things we've learned in the past with um student based budgeting is
166there is this fact that the larger the school is it is more it operates a little bit more efficiency efficiently and that shouldn't be a shock it's not to say that's not to place any kind of a criticism on the school it's just as you get larger you cover your fixed costs a little bit easier that's the whole idea behind this so so starting at the larger schools made intuitive sense to the group and what we decided to do was start Staffing plans of an elementary school of 600 a middle school at 900 and then a a large high school at 2,000 and we from the ground up identified what functions operate within the buildings what functions are those that are at the direction of the principal and what are the needs based on their
167experience as practitioners um so again mentioning the um the board priorities we talked about mental health we talked about counseling we talked about interventionist we talked about all the things I think that I've heard the board and and the organization talk about for for many years we talked about them in a very concrete way put together a plan to say based on the understanding that we don't have infinite resources what is the minimum need and and I think our practitioners are doing a really good job of establishing that so we've gathered that data and um and we're beginning to work with it the next element of that group was to introduce size variants so what we did is um at the elementary school um we scaled down to a 450 school and then a 300
168size school and we did the same thing we said okay how did these Staffing plans change as you go down in size and no shock because we had done this work before as you get smaller it gets tougher to operate building and and those those inefficiencies start to to highlight where we were able to capture them and I think quantify them in a way that we can present exactly what's necessary from anywhere from a 600 to a hit 300 student school on a base level um for the middle schools we did something similar 600 900 600 and 300 and at the high school 2 ,600 and 1200 those are our base level models and and I'm going to talk about the factors in a second but this first phase was purely focused and we all
169acknowledged those of us doing the work that you know this these aren't our students don't just come the exact same every day right and so so building a school for 600 at the elementary school is of which is basically a fourr round school 25 kids per grade level is kind of the way they looked at it um when you look at a large school like that it's not really reality the reality is sometimes you may have 40 more kids in one grade primary grades have more have may have more kids at that level so we introduced variants in there and and what it was was just lack of a better term I don't know if it was completely scientifically random but we as um we as a group just started manipulating numbers and said okay
170what would happen if we had a first grade class come in with 120 kids well that introduced some very interesting Dynamics because of the primary grade so we were able to capture all that information I'm not here to report out what it looks like yet because I think that's the next phase is for Brett and IA to really work on the information that was gathered and see if we can make some sense of it again this was the base level group and the focus was kind of this imaginary all kids come the same there's no no unique needs um no student specific needs and we all understood that that's exactly what we were doing the only variability we really introduced was size at this point so so I think we've got a really good base
171level to start working with um over the break we took that data and made it digestible so that we could present it to the next group of which convened after the break was our factors group and our factors group is um practitioners again principles we introduced more principles to the process um and they brought together expertise of um various different needs that may be student specific so in the past we've used things like at risk elll gifted and talented um and we really started with the blank blank page again but armed with what the prior group had done is a base a newly established base based on needs so and we're too early for me to really comment on exactly where the factors are I'll just tell you we're looking at them differently because the
172base this was the resounding what I heard from both groups and the factors is with a properly established base we can look at factors a little bit more intentionally so that was a really interesting outcome as to where we came is that by establishing a proper base um we can maybe look at factors a little differently and and we're at that information gathering stage now um I spent last most of the last week with the with the principal groups on the factors and uh and I think we did a really good job of identifying how the factors may look different even amongst levels between Elementary and secondary so um again we we're going we're approaching this process with uh the idea that um creative thought is important and doing exactly what we've been doing in
173the past isn't necessarily doing us the best service so so that's um that's where we're at in the process we've also begun work um this week and in last week um with our so once we started with the traditional schools we immediately shifted gears and met with um our alternative principles or Al alternative schools to start talking about how we might look at that and that may be an SBB type look it may be some other way we haven't yet determined that we're going to let the group kind of meet and make some decisions about how they want to do their work um we also began work with our Central support areas of which by default if your budget area does not fall into a school setting whether it be traditional alternative um You by
174default fall into the um the central support area and Brett has already begun working individually with those groups um to talk about what that process looks like again they need to look at this new base and say okay if that Staffing level is provided the building how would I modify the level of support I'm providing at a central level um we're mid mid Midstream in that and I would look forward to uh in January coming back to the board with a lot more clarity to all this these dat this data that I'm talking about um we're going to we're going to be spending much of the break trying to decipher the data listen to the input um listen to the notes that were taken and try to put together a skeletal budget plan that we
175can begin working with um that in light with um you know some of the stuff that Brett talked about the the next economic forecast being finalized in December um the legislator starting legislature starting up in January I think we're going to be very well poised to understand what our need is coming into February um that will um help us align to what those Revenue amounts are and additional needs within the district and uh best best hopes here is that we will be able to have a very solid understanding of what our budget looks like so that we can deploy resources for our schools in March um so that's where we're going and the timeline um again I'm I'm I want to really really thank um those of the those that have been participating in these
176working groups um in our district um working with our practitioners has been uh I I did this work a long time ago so having an opportunity to come back and do it again is always you know that's always a great thing because you can do it you can learn from all those things you wanted to do last time what I learned from last time is we got to listen to the practitioners and this process is designed to do just that we're listening to the principles they're the ones that know how and what the need is and it's our job to take that and translate it into something that we can try to allocate resource to um now I've been talking a lot and many of you probably are saying well okay if I'm tracking with
177you Dave you're establishing a larger base that may cost more money and and where does that all come from we don't have that answer today um that's part of the process is is identifying what is the need but then also identifying maybe what is not necessarily needed we're not to that phase yet we're also not to the phase where we've identified what replication may be um that we may be able to identify in the system and to be more intentional around so again that's the work of January and February coming up very soon um before we know it'll be here so um with that I can stop talking um I want to give you a brief update where we're at and take any question questions yeah so I have two questions one of them is
178uh given uh given the situation on the uh in terms of the money that you were talking about Brett are we going to have to uh pull any money from our reserves this year in order to cover expenses for the current fiscal year so the way that I currently for the operational expenses you've been talking about no I understand so we know that we have the Corona virus response Reserve which is the offset of CRF we are planning on spending all those that's been the plan all along the question if we think back to like our three- tiered multi-year plan sheet from this past summer is how much do we draw down from either unassigned Reserve or from the 2019 milw override Reserve which we reserved the full the full District portion this past year
179when I did the first quarter FMS it looks like we were drawing down probably approximately $3 million from one of those reserves or the other I put it in the 2019 M reserve line item because I think we earmarked up to $6 million over the next year or two uh to reduce Staffing cuts um or to offset uh you know decrease Staffing due to cuts um that was before we knew about the additional $2 million uh from PPR that I mentioned earlier tonight uh so I think the next time we talk with the board we'll have to give a little more robust update around how those revenues are really coming in compared to expenditure expectations um and what what uh the potential impact on reserve draw down that is because ultimately that's going to play
180into the 2122 work that day is planning on because typically at the second meeting in January we'll have another multi-year multi-year budget projection or our first stab at it and so this is the input so however much so we know we're going to draw down reserves as was planned and as as is as is um as appropriate as can be given the situation so the question is how much do we draw those down because that's the starting point to our new multi-year plan specifically around 2122 and 2223 and to be fair up front we had this conversation before I actually think 22 23 could be the more challenging year than 2122 for a number of reasons okay thank you the other question that I wanted to ask is um as we do our planning for
181next school year what are you assuming about the number of students you know those thousand students that disappeared what percentage of them are we assuming are coming back we are not that far along yet in the process but we've had that conversation internally a number of times and that's going to be a big question from here all the way to Colorado Springs we're all down three or four per of the kids and nobody knows I say nobody knows where they're at we we obviously at this point have done data collecting I know that uh it planning uh the assistant soups done a lot of internal surveys Etc data analysis on where they went the question is regardless of where they went how many come back and the catch is depending so now that we are
182familiar with the averaging concept of the funded people account we can take that concept into consideration and planning for the new year budget but the question is depending on how tight the spread of Revenue to expenses and what reserves are depends on how much um estimated or calculated risk we're willing to take in planning for funded people count next year above and beyond where we came in at in reality this year okay all right okay so Brett I was gonna I was gonna I was gonna just I was gonna add one thing I think Brett's exactly right uh the second board meeting in January is where we bring the the bud the normal annual budget update with the the multi-year projections um we're going to want to really make sure we understand what those multi-year
183implications are the best we can understand them at that time um and so so I look forward to Gathering that information playing some of that out um and maybe having some discussion around what our assumptions are around some of those um like how many kids are coming back just so that we know what our assumptions are collectively because the reality is our assumption may not be right on target we're going to not want to know where it's at and we're going to want to know how to monitor it and adjust for it so yeah I think that's right and and if you or when you come in with that information in January uh good background will be the data analysis that you talked about the staff having done um in order to for us to
184be able to judge and give input on on uh on what assumptions what risks we're willing to take right because yeah board questions me hi gentlemen really outstanding work I'm consistently impressed by how um how much you're able to squeeze out of turn-ups here in the realm of education do we have a forecast on staff loss based on the budget do do we think that we're going to experience a loss of person Personnel based on what we're seeing here and our enrollment in the current year are you talking about for the next fiscal year I'm talking about for um for next year start in the 2122 school year so purely so notwithstanding HR analysis on it we know that we have more staff this year than before due to the addition of PSD virtual and
185we know that we have less kids than before so that alone says that we're overstaffed for the number of kids that we have in current context and then uh to director Peterson's question yes if we do the analysis if we realize that the kid count this year is what we think is going to happen next year and we set the budget in that lower count we will need L staff to bring the budget back into balance okay thank you okay other questions the board okay well it sounds like uh we'll look forward to seeing the two of you in January with more updates and more numbers and thank you very much for the presentation and the update this evening thank you with that oh okay right up those were waves all right um um so
186that brings us uh just as a reminder the entire board was present and voted to add an agenda item and that's an executive session now I believe that Carolyn can hear us if everything is going as planned um but at this that was that was Carolyn in the background okay um so at this time I'd take a motion from the board for an executive session to discuss uh search firms for the new superintendent would somebody like to read that out go ahead Naomi all right I move that the board enter executive session as authorized by Colorado revised Statute 24-6-12 subsection B and Colorado Revis statute 24-6-12 subsection 4E to receive legal advice and determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations develop strategy for negotiations and instruct negotiators relating to the hiring
187of a firm to provide services to the school district in its search for a new superintendent individuals invited to join the board in executive session are Executive Director of Finance Dave Montoya Executive Director of Human Resources Vicky Thompson legal and policy Council Autumn Aspen attorney darl farington and assistant board secretary Jill Bruner thank you very much do I have a second for that I got a second from Nate Donovan so Jill I'd take a roll call vote please DJ Anderson DJ Anderson votes I Nate Donovan Nate Donovan votes I Kristen Draper Kristen Draper votes I Kristoff Fe Kristof Feb votes I Naomi Johnson Naomi Johnson votes I Rob Pon Rob Pon votes ey Carolyn Reed Carn Reed can you guys hear me yes we can go okay I didn't know if you called my vote
188yet or not yes Carolyn I vote I motion passes 70 okay good enough all right all right um so just as for everybody and and uh the audience to realize this is the last thing we will do in public session other than adjourning the meeting complete this so for the remainder of the board um I believe you have well actually many of you see it on your screen but we can we need to join the teams meeting after this and uh I know uh that are we have the attorney in there but does everybody want to join right away or do you need a f minute break at this point oh I think we need a five minute break at least okay so why don't we re plan on reconvening at 7:30 uh inside the
189executive session okay thank you very much and you can all leave this meeting e e e hello Tessa and waren and you guys all there yep we're still here very impressive let's see so we're gonna get Carolyn back Autumn are you there I'm here I think you could probably go ahead and okay that's what I was thinking um and Jill you're you're on I don't know if we even need Jill so um Lauren do you want to make sure we're recording or are we recording you recording okay okay very good it is 8:46 PM we have just returned from the executive session and that brings us to adjournment of the meeting at 8:46 p.m. thanks everybody good night thanks you guys thanks uh all of you pessa and Lauren and Dan and Jill everybody so
190autumn thank you for