001Mr. Chavis >> present. >> Mrs. Cole here. Mrs. Evansson >> here. Mrs. Heights here. Mrs. Woods >> here. >> May I have a motion, a second to approve the agenda today? >> Motion to approve the agenda. >> Second. >> Mr. Chavis. >> Approved. >> Mrs. Cole. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Evansson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Heights. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Woods. >> Yes. regarding executive session pursuant to section 24-6-424B Colorado Revised Statutes for the purpose of conferencing with an attorney for the local public body for the purpose of receiving legal advice on a specific legal question. Do we have a motion and second to go into executive session? >> Motion to go into executive session. >> Second. >> Let me just clarify who I'll be in executive session. >> I do it afterwards. >> Okay. Thank
002you. Good. >> Mr. Chavez, >> approved. >> Mrs. Cole, >> yes. >> Mrs. Evansson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Heights, >> Mrs. Woods, >> yes. >> And present executive session will be Director Chavez, Director Woods, Director Heights, Director Evson, Director Cole, Superintendent Dr. Hill, and Attorney Tammy up. Hello everybody. Thank you for joining us for our board of education meeting on April 7th. Uh call to order. Uh pledge of allegiance. Casey, would you do pledge of allegiance for us? Lead us. Director Evansson, would you please read the proclamation to Arab American Heritage Month? >> Thank you. Whereas April is nationally recognized as ArabAmerican Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the history, culture, and countless contributions of Arab Americans across the United States. And whereas in Colorado alone, over 40,000 people proudly trace their heritage to Arab
003an ancestry, bringing with them rich backgrounds, beliefs, and traditions, and demonstrating a strong legacy of innovation, hard work, and community-minded values. And whereas District 51 embraces and celebrates the vibrant heritage of ArabAmerican students, staff, families, and community members and remains dedicated to creating school environments where all students feel seen, respected, and empowered to learn alongside their peers. And therefore, it be resolved that the Mesa County Valley School District Board of Education and Superintendent Bill proclaim April as ArabAmerican Heritage Month and invite the entire D-51 community to join us in recognizing and celebrating the meaningful impact Arab-Americans have made and continue to make within our schools and community and our country. >> Thank you. Our next item is bond projects progress update. Good evening board. My name is Clint Garcia. I'm the chief operations officer and
004uh tonight we want to just give you our monthly update for Central High School tonight and then of course our PIP projects. Uh we'll just give you a brief update and Micah I'll let you take it away. >> All right, sounds great. Uh once again, Mike Adams with Dynamic Program Management, um owners rep for the school district on these bond projects. Are you guys hearing through the microphone? Okay, >> is that good? >> There we go. Sorry about that. >> Um, quick clarification, this is only for Central High School >> and so I was not ready to talk about the PIP projects. If you have questions, feel free to ask them. Um, we've got uh here we've got our bucket slide. Again, it looks like it think there's some sort of um issue when we
005convert it to Google slides. So, we'll have to figure that out moving forward because I'm not seeing um the numbers up there, but you can see at least the slices of the pie and how it splits up between Central Fruda and then the PIP projects. Um so, a little update on how everything is going there at Central. Um exciting news. Um ground has been broken and is moving forward. Um, so I'm sure you'll see here soon, uh, there's some plans coming together for a groundbreaking ceremony. I know there's a committee kind of working on the details right now. Sounds like, um, looking at end of April or early May uh, for that to happen. Um, you know, that it's a whole program. Um, very exciting time. So, I'm I'm sure that the details will come
006out soon. Um there with the schedule you can see uh as the athletic addition and renovation um portion of the project has kicked off. Um the Federal Hall temp library renovation will happen this summer. Um this summer the admin modular will be set out front um as well as uh the Feder Hall locker room demolition. Um that's actually going to start here December uh with the twotory classroom edition um starting um about a year out from now a little under. Couple budget updates. Right now the total budget is about $75.4 million about a little less than half of that has been uh committed um primarily uh bid package one with FCI the general contractor. Um what's included in there is that athletic edition up in the southwest corner of the site. Um the Feder Hall
007renovations taking place this summer. A good amount of the site work and then a good amount of the MEP work, the mechanical, electrical, plumbing systems for the buildings are included there in that number. Um, and so here in the coming weeks, we'll actually be getting the uh 100% um construction document GMP for the project, meaning kind of the the final um pricing of of where things are coming up out for the whole set of plans. Um and following that is when we'll start to see um that total committed to date number go up um to you know closer to what it's expected to be for the duration of the project. That total expended to date um about 3.4 million um and as we continue to roll uh that that will start to increase pretty rapidly.
008Um there at the bottom you can see construction schedule and budget just as a percentage complete. We'll continue to track those uh month over month. Recently completed. Got some pictures here. Um you can probably hardly recognize it, but that is the old locker rooms there on the left side of the screen. It's a little hard to see at the moment. Um but abatement has been completed in those areas and the walls and floor slab are starting to get taken out. Um so they can start turning that portion of the building into uh what it will be in the long term. Um also recently completed uh as I mentioned earlier the final construction documents are complete. Um and then furniture procurement has also recently been completed. So, uh, this got broken out into two phases. The
009first phase being furniture being installed this summer in Feder Hall. Um, and so we're currently working through uh contracts with those furniture vendors um, at the moment in progress. Um, some more pictures over there on the left of what's going on. Uh two of those you can see are the athletic edition there in the southwest corner of the uh building. Um they're starting to um you know do the excavation and here next week we'll u begin drilling the deep foundations um in progress. There's there's also some coordination with Verizon for the relocation of the cell tower that's on the campus. Um and then uh also in in progress is the GMP estimate. As I mentioned earlier, we should be seeing that here in the coming weeks upcoming. Um here's once again just a a site
010diagram of what's going on. You can see uh there in black lines the athletic edition edition happening out front. um the admin modulars that will be placed this summer and then the portion highlighted in yellow is uh where they're currently doing the interior demolition. Couple of plumbing items. Uh actually uh spring break is now behind us. Um but we do have the Federal Hall and wrestling room moveouts. That's uh the next um area that FCI is going to start getting into into inside the building. Um, constructionwise, I think we've talked about most of these items already, so I I won't go ahead and read them again. Once again, um, just a general floor plan, a reminder of what things will will look like here when, uh, the, uh, project is finished. That's it. Um, do
011you guys have any questions today? >> The only question I had is when you're talking about uh, about the wrestling room and all that and the money you're spending for the athletics. Does that include also the money that could be spent regarding like football fields and track and all that or is that separate? >> That is separate. >> Separate funding. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thanks everybody. >> Thank you. Next, strategic plan update, well-being and belonging and student wellness. And while they're coming up here, I just um for the board, we have had some conversations over the years about tracks and fields at the schools. And so I um I'm going to bring that to the board pretty soon. I think we need to have a conversation sooner than later about just discussions around whether
012we should have uh tracks and turf fields at our schools for some reason. So, um we'll put that on a future agenda >> for uh Miss Marsh speaks. Uh just congratulations again being a grandma. >> Thank you. I'm very proud. Yes, Vicki and I just a week apart, I think, of our Yes. Yes, I do. If anybody wants to see pictures, I have them. I have lots of pictures. I'm sure Vicki would like to show her pictures as well. Yeah. Um, that's my slideshow. After this presentation, it will be okay. All kidding aside, good evening board. Um, I'm Jennifer Marsh, the chief academic officer, and I have members with us um here tonight from the Student Wellness Task Force, and um I'm going to have everybody introduce themselves. Um, this is the Well-being and Belonging
013Student Wellness Task Force, and I Let's start left and then we'll go right. >> My name is Daniel Burke. I'm executive director of technology. >> Good evening. Amy Frasier, director of social, emotional and behavior services. >> Good evening board. My name is Tracy Diego and I am the director of access opportunity and family partnerships. >> And I'm Dan Benell, the executive director of student services. Uh Megan Hill, assistant principal at Taylor Elementary. Julie Schmaltz, assistant principal at Grand Mesa Middle School. >> Good evening. I'm Lana Hullshoff, the coordinator of culturally and linguistically diverse education. >> Okay. Um to ground our work this evening, we'll briefly anchor in our strategic plan. As mentioned in previous strategic plan presentations on the 2530 um strategic plan, our mission and vision remain unchanged from our previous plan. And also
014unchanged are our core behaviors, our graduate profile, which outlines the essential skills every student needs to thrive. >> So our strategic plan includes four focus areas, each supported by two priority areas. Tonight, members of our task force will be highlighting student wellness within well-being and belonging. This priority is especially important because it connects two critical outcomes, belonging and attendance. The student wellness priority area is defined as cultivating a safe, supportive, and inclusive learning environment where every student experiences belonging and has access to success. This priority is unique because it intentionally connects belonging and attendance, recognizing how closely they influence one another. Students who feel a strong sense of belonging are more likely to attend school regularly, engage in learning, and build positive relationships. Conversely, when students feel disconnected, attendance often declines. Tonight we will share
015both our progress and our celebrations in belonging and how that uh it is the beginning to show up in our attendance as well. We will also share the strategies we are employing and uh employing to achieve these results. We'll start with student belonging. As a reminder, our strategic plan includes three belonging goals, two of which you can see here. For goals one and two, our district has committed to a 7% increase in the number of third through 12th graders um the grade students who indicate they feel like they mostly or completely belong at their school by 2030. Mostly and completely are the two favorable responses to the question when are you uh when you are at school how much do you feel like you belong? The targets are as such. In secondary, we plan to
016increase from 50% to 57%. And in elementary, from 65% to 72%. These are ambitious targets, but achievable through strong tier one practices around relationships and aligned systems. It's important to note that belonging is not a soft metric. It's a leading indicator that directly impacts attendance, behavior, and academic outcomes. And we're already beginning to see the impact in our data. The dotted lines in this slide represent our 2030 targets for each level. Elementary at the top, secondary at the bottom. Starting with elementary, from spring of 2025 to spring of 2026 at the elementary level, this number of students who indicate they feel like they mostly mostly or completely belong at their school increased from 65% to 69%, a 4% gain. This is the largest year-over-year increase we've ever seen in elementary. Previously, the largest gain was
0172%. Huge celebration right there. Yep. Absolutely. At the secondary level, the number of students who indicate they feel like they mostly or completely belong at their school increased from 51% to 58%, a 7% gain, which is also the largest increase on record. Previously, 3% was the largest gain. And notably, secondary has already exceeded the 2030 goal. that is set in our strategic plan. Yep. Another opportunity to celebrate. Overall in belonging, both elementary and secondary are near the 90th percentile when compared to the same age peers nationally. This means our students have responded to these questions more favorably than students in 90% of the districts across the nation. This level of growth is not accidental. It reflects an intentional systemwide work across our schools. To build on this momentum, we focused our work in three key
018areas which we will share later. All right. Goal three focuses on school level growth. This year, 68% of schools met or exceeded their growth targets and 10 schools achieved doubledigit growth in belonging. This shows that improvement is happening across the system, not just in isolated schools. Let's take a closer look at how that growth is distributed across our schools. This slide includes elementary schools. The dotted line represents the prior year's median, which determined each elementary school's growth target. Schools below the median were expected to grow by 2% and those at or above by 1%. Gold indicates schools that met their target. Light green indicates those still in progress. The black line shows the new median which will guide next year's elementary targets. Again, the dotted line represents the prior year's median for our middle schools,
019which determined each school's growth target. Schools below the median expected to grow by 2% and those at or above by 1%. The gold indicates schools that met their target and light green indicates those still in progress. The black line shows the new median which will guide next year's target for our middle schools. And finally, in high schools, the dotted line again represents the prior year's median, which determined each school's growth target. Schools below the median were expected to grow by 2% and those at or above by 1%. Gold indicates high schools that met their target. Light green indicates those still in progress. The black line shows the new median which will guide next year's targets. Overall, we're seeing strong systemwide progress in belonging, and schools have been intentional about how they're supporting that work. To
020support this growth, the work in schools has focused on three key areas: systems of support, conditions for belonging, and student voice. I'll walk through each of these areas. To support belonging, there has been a focus on strengthening systems across schools. This includes strong start planning, transition supports for students impacted by school closures, and the use of plan do study act cycles to continuously improve practice. Schools are also using student perception data to monitor belonging and adjust in real time. In addition, structures like early release Fridays have created space for professional learning and schoolwide response to student needs. These systems help ensure that belonging is not left a chance but built intentionally in every school. Specifically for receiving schools of students who were dis impacted by last year's school closures, the strong start was an extension
021of meetings between closing and receiving schools throughout spring of 2025. Regular building transition team meetings to support and guide school transition activities. development and sharing of metriculation plans for students in need of additional support and additional summer institute planning days for school-based transition teams to design and support transition activities, including a strong start family partnership plan. In addition to systems, schools have focused on the conditions students experience every day. By strengthening the conditions that matter most, schools are ensuring students feel seen, heard, and affirmed. This work does not compete with academics. It strengthens them. When students experience a strong sense of belonging, they are better positioned to become the learners described in our graduate profile. By intentionally creating these conditions, schools make meaningful learning possible and ensure they are getting it right by grounding their
022efforts in student voice. Finally, and most importantly, schools have elevated student voice as a key measure of success. Through the Panorama survey, which consistently has a high response rate of over 80%, schools are able to understand how students experience their school environment. This data helps schools assess climate, strengthen relationships, and identify opportunities to improve both systems and conditions. Most importantly, it allows schools to design with students, not just for them. And when educators listen closely to students, their message is clear. Belonging is shaped by daily classroom experiences. Students told us that belonging impacts whether they engage, take risks, and connect with others. One student shared, "I belong when I have friends, when I understand my classes, when teachers help me." And just as clearly, "I don't belong when I feel different, when I feel like
023I can't do anything right, when people ignore me." These voices reinforce that belonging is not separate from learning. It is a precondition for it. As student belonging has strengthened, early improvements are also beginning to emerge in the area of attendance. >> Now, we'd like to highlight the work of the attendance task force and where how we're strengthening attendance across the system. This was truly a collaborative effort bringing together district teams and school leaders to align our practices, identify barriers, and focus on what will make the greatest impact for students. The work was led by a crossf functional team that included district staff from attendance, MTSS, technology, special education, and behavior support along with school-based leaders such as principles and counselors. Together, through both in-person and virtual collaboration, a strong foundation was built for improving support
024for students, positioning us to make steady systemwide gains in attendance outcomes. I'd like to start by grounding us in a clear understanding of chronic absenteeism. In Colorado, a student is considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more of the school year, regardless of whether those absences are excused or unexcused. That equals about two days per month, which adds up quickly and has a significant impact on learning and connection to school. It's also important to recognize that attendance challenges are often not about motivation, but about barriers. Here in D51, we see factors such as transportation across large geographic areas, health and mental health needs, family responsibilities, and access to basic resources all play in a role. Understanding these root causes helps us shift from simply tracking attendance to actively addressing the conditions that impact whether
025students are able to consistently engage in school. Our new five-year strategic plan has a clear five-year goal to reduce chronic absenteeism by 20 percentage points from 37% down to 17%. When we look at the chronic absenteeism over the past four years, D51 has remained above the state average. In the 2022 2023 school year, the state was at 31.1% compared to D51 at 36.6%. In 2324, the state decreased to 27.7% and D51 also decreased to 35.2%. In 2425, the state increased slightly to 28.4% and D-51 followed that same pattern, increasing to 3 or 36.7%. So while our rates are higher, our trends mirror the state, suggesting that this is both a local and a broader challenge. For this current year, state data is not yet available, but D51 has decreased to 33.9% as of April 1st.
026While we're seeing early signs of improvement, this reinforces both the urgency of this work and the importance of continuing a focused systemwide effort to close that gap. In addition to reducing chronic absenteeism, clear expectations for overall attendance were set. Our five-year goal is to reach n 97% in elementary, 95% in middle, and 92% in high school. Current data shows we're approaching the high school target, but elementary and middle schools still have room for growth. This helps us focus our supports where they're needed, where they're most needed by level. This year, our strategic plan attendance task force focused on building stronger systems to support continuous improvement across the district. The work was organized into three key areas. First, data accuracy. Our data team worked to strengthen attendance data collection so schools can rely on consistent, accurate
027information to guide decisions and monitor progress. Second, school capacity and systems. We partnered with schools to assess their current practices, identify gaps, and refine systems to better support attendance improvement efforts. And third, student voice. Input was gathered directly from students to better understand their perceptions of the barriers impacting attendance as well as what motivates them to come to school. Together, this work allows us to better align our efforts around accurate data, stronger systems, and the lived experiences of our students. When we began to look taking a closer look at our attendance data, uh we saw clear opportunities to strengthen both consistency and accuracy with our systems and processes across the district. In many cases, staff were following established practices within their building. But those practices were not always consistent across buildings. In addition, we identified
028some areas where attendance procedures and class configurations within our student information system did not always align perfectly with school schedules. For example, differences between bell schedules and how courses were set up in our system sometimes created challenges in how attendance was reported. This wasn't about people doing things incorrectly. It was about making sure the system and processes were working together in a clear, consistent way. So, we focused on strengthening the foundation. We standardized attendance procedures across the district, provided um targeted training and support to staff and clarified expectations to ensure consistency in daily practices. At the same time, we reviewed and adjusted our system configurations to better align with school schedules and state reporting requirements. We also addressed operational challenges such as schedule changes to reduce misalignment moving forward. As a result, we are seeing
029improved consistency and greater confidence in our data. And that's important because improving attendance isn't about tracking numbers. It's about ensuring we have accurate, timely information so we can best make decisions to support every student. This slide represents a fun foundational foundational sorry foundational um shift for us moving from inconsistent data to a system that allows us to make informed timely decisions for kids. As we continued our work on attendance, one of the most important shifts we made was improving data consistency and visibility. Our goal was simple, to ensure every school is taking attendance consistently every day and using that data to monitor trends each week. Early on, we learned a critical lesson. If the data isn't accurate and timely, we can't effectively support students. So, we focused on strengthening the foundation. We provided ongoing training
030for our tenant secretaries, ensuring the people closest to the work had clear expectations and the right support. This wasn't just about um compliance. It was about building a system that we can trust as a result of that work. And all our schools now have access to an up-to-date attendance dashboard using real-time attendance data. To better understand how to support our schools, a readiness and needs assessment was conducted across the majority of our sites. This provided systemwide insight into school capacity, current practices, and areas of need. As a result, we strengthened coordination through an improved monthly meeting structure between school attendance teams and district staff and refined our support systems, ensuring attendance advocates are focused on strengthening family partnerships and tier 2 supports while attendance case managers coordinate more intensive wraparound services. Strategies such as home
031visits to re-engage disconnected students and families was implemented together. This work ensures our attendance approach is not a one-sizefits-all, but responsive to the unique needs of each school and students. Through the attendance task force work, we gathered direct input from students across multiple schools in the district. Before I share the key themes, I want to highlight that this feedback represents voices across all grade levels from kindergarten through 12th grade with the strongest representation coming from middle school students. While this is a smaller sample, only 192 students out of our over 19,000, it does include perspectives from across all levels. Several consistent themes emerged. First, student wellness and readiness. Many students shared that sleep fatigue and mental health challenges are directly impacting their ability to attend and engage in school. Second, student engagement. A number of
032students expressed that they don't always see the relevance of their learning, which affects their connection to school. Third, academic confidence. Students reported feeling behind and needing more structured support to catch up and stay on track. And finally, school climate and belonging. Peer conflict, bullying, and feelings of exclusion continue to influence attendance. In response, students also helped point us towards solutions. They emphasized the need to adjust schedules to better align with student readiness, to increase meaningful and relevant learning experiences, to expand supports like tutoring and flexible pacing, and to strengthen school climate through positive relationships and inclusive environments. This student centered data is helping guide how we design more responsive and effective attendance supports across the district. >> Elvis is good. Thanks, So, as we've looked at both belonging and attendance tonight, there's a clear there's
033clear progress to celebrate. In this slide above, we took the time to celebrate our schools and hand out some annual awards for schools hitting their expected growth targets from spring to spring and schools that hit double-digit growth from spring to spring at our principal level meetings two weeks ago. Our students are telling us they feel more connected and we're seeing that reflected in stronger attendance. This reinforces what we know. When students feel like they belong, they show up. While there's still work ahead, we're moving in the right direction and building a foundation that will carry us toward our 2030 goals. We'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Any questions? >> I have some, but I think Director Woods, do you have any? I would expect you to have I saw you writing,
034so I'll stand by. >> Yeah, I think just a few things to a couple of clarifications maybe on the elementary schools. I noticed the receiving schools had less indicators of belonging. Am I saying that right? the so I think just note taken that I I couldn't speak for the middle you know middle school obviously in high school but um I think it's just worth saying that >> but impressive how hard everyone's been working >> sure >> yeah I would just say is that accurate to to make that assign Yeah. So, that's actually something that we talked about at our last task force meeting was that exact thing. Um, there's only one receiving school who met their goal. Um, and that was Chatfield. When we talked about it, um, we're really comparing apples and oranges, unfortunately,
035because we're looking at spring of last year and spring of this year. And um like at Taylor we received about 80 students. So we have a different group of kids now uh which we knew um going into that. Uh and I think when you look at this specifically we are talking about a different group of kids. Um so I think that is important to note. Um however we wanted to also emphasize all of the work that went in prior to the transition. Um there was a lot of times where closing schools had time to meet with receiving schools admin multiple times throughout the year. Um which I think helps support a lot of that transition, but absolutely it's hard being in the buildings where you've received kids. It's really hard. I can I can add
036to that just a bit um because we actually noticed that obviously um at the beginning and so one of the things um that we really looked into is that while transitions certainly do matter um the data suggests that perhaps that wasn't the primary factor. So we looked closely at whether those incoming students would have impacted those belonging results in the in the receiving schools. And while those students did make up uh between 15 and 23% of the total survey responses, our analysis showed that even if they had responded at the same favorable rate as the existing students, some of those schools would not have met their growth target still. And so what we do see um and Megan and I were just talking about some of hers is that those schools did experience some growth
037within certain student groups. And so that tells us that progress is happening um but yet not yet at the scale um needed to meet their growth target. So this just helps us focus our um efforts on strengthening those tier one supports and ensuring um those consistent belonging practices for all schools. >> And just to clarify, and I know y'all said it already, but these percentages um are for students who responded quoteunquote favorably, right? So there's I think there's like five or six responses they can give on this. And so it I just want to clarify that because it's easy to look at a school and say well if only 52% responded this way then that means the other 40 something% don't belong at all. And there's actually an answer on this says I don't feel
038like I belong at all. And those are in like the four to 5%. So it doesn't it's still not I mean I want every student to say 100% I feel like I belong. But I just want to clarify, especially if the public's looking at this, our mind can automatically think that that just means that every other the rest of that percentage was saying, "I don't belong at all." And that's not the case. They just may have said, "I belong somewhat." I don't remember what the other answers are. So, um, just want to clarify that. You know, I think it also speaks to um we had lots of ta a couple of tables up there on percentages and remembering we want chronic absenteeism to go down, but every day attendance to increase and sometimes just our
039conversations we just have to remember. I and I just I have to say I I appreciated the slide on the comparison to the state. Um, but saying that we're trending the same as they are and and feeling positive about that, I I don't um and I I know no one does. Those are really that's really high numbers for chronic absenteeism. And if I have my head wrapped around this correctly, um, so and I get student attendance is really complicated and complex. There's so many variables, but I am gravely concerned. If I'm understanding numbers correctly, we have over 6,000 students missing 10 or more school dates a year. Is that an accurate statement? 10 or more school days or 10% of the existing days that are available. Yeah, we have a large number of kids that
040are sitting in that pool um that are considered chronically absent. Um I think an important piece and and for us and even within our schools in this work when we started the year is making sure that we understood the difference between chronic absenteeism and truency. They're they're they're two different pieces, right? Um obviously the truency is is is based on after an extreme amount of those unexcused absences accumulate. uh but knowing that it's 10% um so 90% being the expectation right of of students not missing seat time right it's based on a seat time factor um early in the year I think that's key uh early in the year there's only you know certain uh days that are adding up quickly and this you guys really really does within the first week or two of
041school it only takes one miss or two misses and you're already in a a 10% miss category of chronic absent. So I think yes, you're right. Um it's not acceptable where we're at right now. I think that's the power of the strategic task force and the work that we're doing is is really trying to get in and look at systems, uh look at data, the the things that we showed you tonight. Uh consistency and inconsistency is really um kind of where it has been with the data. Um and so we've still got a lot of work to do. Obviously, you're right. um it's not acceptable to be where it's at right now and so we expect to continue to dig in. >> I do appreciate sometimes we hear um reports about certain things and I
042just I very much appreciate when we say we have some work to do and this is where it's at. >> Yeah. >> Because that's the reality of it. So whether it's data or how we and and I do understand there's a lot of different schedules especially at the secondary I'm assuming at high schools maybe middle schools where you have um different buildings that have different schedules and they're counted present at one or not the other and but but we have to figure it out right this is important to because it does make a statement about the work that we're doing and I know we're doing good work. I know buildings are working hard. Um, but I just feel like that there's an urgency to get that corrected in a way that supports the school's work.
043You know, you talked about how the data matters when you're trying to put plans together for kids. So, um, yeah, I don't want to take the whole time up, so I'm gonna let >> Well, so defining the difference between truency and chronic absenteeism, I think was important. And one of the things that I think is how many of these numbers and I hate to say like students' numbers, but how many of these are actually um chronic truency or habitual truency that are falling into this category like because they kind of fit in, right? Like uh what is it? Um four unexcused days in a month or 10 within a year. And that would be habitual truency. And so how many of these are actual habitual truency that are being grouped in with our chronic absenteeism?
044Um I I um our attendance dashboard actually shows real time habitual truency numbers and so we can um pull it up by school and look at that. Um I don't have a combined um like total to give you but I will definitely send that to you. Would >> they just asking are those included in these numbers right now? they they can be right. >> And then um what was the other? Oh, so I would be super interested and seeing and I know it's not necessarily public information, but like just seeing how they're broken down by schools. The reason why I say that is because we had attended um a student meeting here where we sat down and some of the kids that attend some of our alternative schools are like, I wouldn't be where I'm
045at if it wasn't for this school. My freshman and sophomore year were absolute just poo poo shows, you know, like I could not make it to school. I when I was there, I couldn't do the things, you know, and so I just gave up. And so if it wasn't for programs like R5 or even the career center or the availability for concurrent enrollment once they get back into having, you know, the academics that they need to even be eligible for concurrent enrollment, a lot of these kids wouldn't need to be here. And you know, so that's like one of the prongs that kind of goes with this. And then hearing like the adjustment of schedules because we have kids that um like I ran into one of the kids that I worked at at Orchard
046Mesa and she should be graduating this year, but she dropped out two years ago and she's working because she has to have um this income for her family. And so when I hear kids here at R5 say like this school's working with me, you know, but we're full and we need more programs like this. So that's why I'm curious about like and looking at our high school belonging like R5 and the career center are the highest, right? Our alternative programs. And so when I see that there are these programs that are working to work with kids with what their needs are for their, you know, family, for their socioeconomical thing, and just seeing how kids from those schools are succeeding in such a way and they're showing up and they're involved, you know, even if
047it is their junior and senior year and they're cramming it in as as fast and as hard as they can to graduate, they're doing it and they're putting their money where their mouth is. And so I guess I'm kind of curious like where to see the numbers for those particular schools because I feel like and I'm not saying that our traditional schools aren't doing that because I'm sure that they are but we have kids that fit into different areas that need different resources. And so I'd love to see the numbers specific to each school. Um and then like just out of our out of our uh attendees like how many are registered, you know, how many are now making it happen? And then I'm curious for grade levels as well, you know, because we see
048kids that work well in the traditional program, but we have kids that are are five that are pushing through their junior junior and senior year and are they now showing up? And then even like individual stuff like what were they looking like before, but now that they have these alternative methods, is that what we need more of? Yeah, we can um so I wrote down we can get clarification on if that 33.96% included the chronically true and so we can figure that we can uh respond to the board with that uh date of high school. We can pull that together and share with the board and then even there's probably a way to break it out by grade level for the district um so we can kind of see where it's happening there and then
049it might even be good to um we can clarify um just for the the board in general the uh admission process for programs like R5 and and Grow. So, we can get all that to the board. >> And I think the only other thing that I wanted to ask for clarification purposes is um I know that Mr. Burke had stated that there's a lot of more like unformed process, if you will, that's now happening. And so, one of the things that I've just heard from um attendants or especially primary level um a lot of times there's a confusion about who's supposed to be making the phone calls. Is it the teacher? Is it the attendance secretary? Like who handles that? Have we made that a uniform process now across all levels or more specifically more
050unformed in the primary levels? Because that seems to where where the confusion is coming in more so than anywhere else. So um we uh are following the MTSS process for um making sure that we are paying attention to data and we have tier one processes in place at our schools for early outreach. So um anytime uh a school notices and and one of the things we did was we um at the very beginning of the year we trained our secretaries um and to make sure they they knew the expectation was for daily monitoring. So making sure that their attendance is accurate every day and then pulling reports every week and looking for trends. So as soon as we see any kind of a trends then it's outreach to the teachers and um it's a combination
051of teachers and secretaries that are calling and trying to connect. We always recommend the teachers outreach to parents because u we know that and as a parent I could tell you that um when a teacher reaches out to me and talks to me about my my kid I just know that they care right and so there's always a strong recommendation that teachers are doing it but we also understand that teachers have schedules and a limited amount of time they're able to do that outreach. So school teams um have a combination of using staff including secretaries and teachers and other staff to do the outreach for early um to to um that the goal is that parents know right away when um the schools are concerned about attendance patterns. So that's what I've heard that there's
052typically like some kind of shared responsibility as far as that that goes. But I think that there's been some miscommunication between the entities that are responsible for those things whether it be an attendant secretary or it's down to the teacher because and and you're right like it is I think that I would be more respect receptive to my child's teacher reaching out to me because they have that personal relationship with my child. You know, not saying that an attendant secretary doesn't because they deal with kids all the time and they know the majority of the kids in their school, but there's that one- on-one relationship with the with the child and the teacher. I just think that um just from what I'm her just like just a little bit of feedback just from what I've
053heard I think that there is uh I think that there's a little bit of a struggle in that system right now because the teachers are like well I thought they did it and then I thought I but then they thought I did it and then nobody actually reached out and then but we documented it but then was it in synergy and then so I think that it would be beneficial if we had um a super uniform way that we were doing that like even if we did go into synergy if there was a box that got checked off or if there was a notification that got sent that said, "Hey, yeah, I teacher did reach out to so you know there was contact made on this date at this time." So there's no question that
054somebody did it. That way if the teacher doesn't do it and the attendance secretary does and they look back into the system, there's no question that somebody did it. >> Letter automatic there. Yeah, Barb, there is a um an automatic process that's set up through synergy with the unexcused absence piece. with the absence piece that that does drive then the letters um the letters that go home to parents that that are setting up those meetings with principles or you know the counselor principal teams to bring in the parents to talk about some of those early absences um are there barriers um typically it's around those unexcused absences that get started in that process um so yeah I think just like in many of our systems uh tier one universal is about teacher right and and
055what is happening across the system and there is a responsibility ility for the teacher, right? Uh and then at a point though it does shift to more of a building process and that is where your MTSS team, your principal, uh your attendance team gets more involved with it and then as it becomes more chronic then uh a tier 2 response is is needed and um and that's where the attendance advocate is notified to come in. Um, so the district response then is coming in as an advocate to try to support, do a home visit, do some things that the school cannot do because they just don't have that capacity. Um, and then see if if we can get it under control at that point. Uh, then when it reaches a threshold of of 10 unexcused
056and and it's in in policy or procedure, then it does trigger the currency side of it. Um, then our case managers get involved with it. So along the way, yes, I think you're right. it could be messy between, you know, that tier one handoff and that tier two. So, um, yeah, certainly something to take a look at. >> Is our, um, because we have the new parent square now. >> So, is all of that kind of integrated together as well? >> Well, so for instance, if a if a teacher reaches out to a parent through parent squared, like, hey, like, where's your kid? What's going on? You know, because that's kind of our our communication platform now, right? and we're using it universally across the district. Is that tied into synergy in any way? Sorry,
057I'm taking >> It absolutely is. Cali can can probably talk about just the automatic mechanism, but I've already noticed as a parent um I'm getting I'm getting the messages through, you know, absentees and and absenteeism and miss classes through the parent square. But it's also doubled up. We're also seeing it through parent view as well. So, they're kind of getting uh kind of double notified, you know, but it has it's got a completely different notification system in it. And we're currently looking at what that could do for us that that arm of of parent square and is it a possibility to help out with early warning early notification to families? >> I am. That means I will let's talk about um no matter if you're an athlete or you miss for something, you're it's still
058an absence, right? So, it still fits in that 10% range. And that's that's the thing is you could have kids who are 85% to 90% and they're missing they're missing for really all the right reasons. And then of course their grades could be, you know, solid 4.0 students, but they still fit in that category of chronic absenteeism just because it's 10% of miss seat time throughout the school year. So, that's a number that we have to continue to work on with staff and for our community. Um, even when we had our our D-51 leadership group in here in January, that was a number that that group was like, "Whoa, I didn't realize that that 10%, it doesn't really matter what you miss for, it's still part of that that 10%." >> So, does the state
059take any of that into consideration? I mean, because we were pushing student athletes, but then we expect for them to leave early to travel for dates. And so is this is this something we need to reconsider the metrics with the state because how it it just seems like we're now penalizing ourselves with athletes that have to take a certain amount of time off um for travel or you know or or competition days and then it counts against us. So I mean is the state accounting for that? Well, what I what I've noticed um you can go from state to state. It's really a national chronic absenteeism. That 10% really sits nationally across, you know, the nation. So, um it is a number that the state, you know, utilizes. Um I think again there are abilities
060in coding and the way that absences are coded. Um there are school activity codes, there are unexcused codes. Um it all depends on and that's why the accuracy study was so important to see what is the human what what is the rate of human you know accuracy and error when it comes to how we're coding you know kids the excused the unexcused um communication from parents no communication from parents it it's it's pretty broad right so >> that was one question I had in um in kind of cleaning up the data was there one sort of epiphany um in any piece of that when you were kind of streamlining it. >> So, when we were looking at that, we would see inconsistencies, right? Where where someone would miss a whole day except for the third
061period they made, right? And we're like, that doesn't seem right. So, we'd go check um attendance and make sure we're we're finding them. I think one of the biggest problems that Dan and I both saw because we had students that were athletes and mine has a special case. She has Tourettes and sometimes she has seizures in schools and she'll go to the the school nurse and have a seizure. A lot of times I got to go excuse those because they counter absent from the, you know, the third hour and I I, you know, she's in a nurse's office. So, there's some things that that tipped us off right away, right? That where we like we've got to fix some of the procedures and processes that we have because we're noticing them just in our everyday
062life. So, um, that was something that tipped us off big time. The other one was the inconsistencies with being gone the whole day in one period. I I think uh director to your point I think it might be interesting for us as a district even said it might be interested to dis interesting to disagregate that data for us when we're looking at it like who are our student athletes or not even student athletes but like our A um PE our A students who go out you know uh business leaders of America you know like all of those different people who are leaving often um you know going to Carnegie Hall takes days right so Um, I wonder if there's a way that we can disagregate that so we can we can hone in on those
063kids that are truly not coming to school for whatever reason. Um, that might be really helpful for the work that you all are doing, the work that we are all doing. Um, if I may pivot for just a second. I'm sorry, uh, Director Woods. Um, I opened up my little strategic plan here to make sure I didn't miss anything. Um I think uh you had mentioned that some of our students who are absent have barriers um that and transportation and you know basic needs and some of those things. Um and I checked in here to make sure those strategies weren't listed in here. Do we have strategies for um looking at students who have a barrier of transportation or food or home life engagement? Do we have any of those strategies? >> Yeah, sure. So
064um our tiered support is the way to support our our kiddos. So when um you know we've done some universals at school and it's not working then the expectation is that um they we do like a root cause analysis and we identify what's going on and then we try to put some like evidence-based tier 2 in place to make sure we are um being helpful for the families and for the students. So a lot of times if we're if we're doing a root cause analysis correctly, we can identify that a barrier is transportation or you know food insecurity or whatever reason and then we work with the team to try to make sure that we're addressing those barriers and and we set like short-term goals and then we try to work with the family, make
065sure partner up with the family to see what we could do to um to get them back on track. Now, if that doesn't work, even with tier 2 support, that's when your district attendance teams come in um and your district uh case managers are um really coordinating more resource support in the community and wraparound supports. Now, those take longer, right? But um those are situations where we have case managers that are really coming in working directly with families to best understand barriers and to try to coordinate supports that exist within the community. Yeah, our reach program um is specifically for our students who lack of of fixed regular nighttime residence. And so with reach, we are able to help um with trans or with transportation under certain situations. So when a student be becomes eligible
066for um that program, then they have the right to stay at their school of origin. And if they happen to move to a different location that puts them out of the area of their school of origin then reach is able to provide transportation which is helpful. >> Okay. Just so I understand. So it sounds a little bit like it's a little more case by case basis. >> Case by case. Yeah. >> Okay. Is there like um I remember we were at the task force thing and I heard someone say that there was like an intervention library available to I think it was more in academics not in this. Is there something similar for our teachers and our schools to access when before attendance case manager comes in um for them to have some interventions around
067absent >> through our MTSS process? We are working um with um so we have MTSS specialists um who work directly with schools to come up with these intervention plans and and our MTSS specialists have been working with our attendance support teams as well to um come up with some uh like the same type of intervention library for attendance specific attendance needs. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> I don't I just don't want to miss an opportunity. We have folks from the school. So, anything that y'all want to share about the experience that y'all have with this or things that y'all do from the school perspective? I don't want to put you on the spot, but I am. >> Yes. So, at Grand Mesa, we did with this whole getting the data more in line and
068I am the admin in charge of the attendance letters and all of that and the outreach to the families. I know that getting that consistency of coding everything correctly. And so then when we do look at those the data daily and um so we reach out and make those calls and then our weekly and then we have we do more outreach and then also we have on in our weekly uh kid talks we look at absenteeism and we look at those kids and so whichever they're and because they have several different teachers during the day so at elementary I know they have the mostly the same but at secondary they have several different teachers. So whoever that student's advisory teacher is reaches out or whoever that child is named as their trusted adult we have
069the trusted adults. So we've done a lot of work with trusted make ensuring every student has a trusted adult. So, we do have those advisory teachers and trusted adults of our um absenteeism reach out to families often and we look at that data weekly. >> Thank you. That was really helpful. >> I don't have to talk. >> That's okay. Um uh in elementary at least, um the schools I have been at, our counselors are a huge part of our um attendance teams. uh they take a lot of um the time to intervene with students, do check-ins, um they do like an attended screener with them. So even before we hit um like a parent meeting, they're already talking to kids about what's going on. Um and so like I know we have work to do
070still. Um, I think like this year I felt the most supported I have with attendance with our BLC meetings and that's been um something that we've talked about before because I didn't know I've been an admin for three years now and I had no idea the difference between truent and chronically absent. So yeah, >> promise. Um, so yeah, I guess just I just have to say this in an open meeting like this, how important it is for us as a district to embrace collaboration with our community partners. Attendance is really beyond our doors oftent times. Um, and it does impact delinquency issues in the community among many other things. Um, so I just can't say enough how critical and important as a board member I I hope we garner those and I'm sure that you
071are. I'm sure you're at the table. Um, but we really can't tackle this without having those relationships in a way. And they're tricky for sure. Um, sharing information and all of those things that have to be paid attention to. But I just have found that this community, if asked, will wrap their arms around all of these things together if we ask and if we're at the table, and I'm sure that you are. But I I certainly value that. Um, and then lastly is just uh, you know, it's easy sometimes to do the blame game. You know, it's the families, it's the students, it's the school, it's the You can just go on and on and I hope that we don't do that because it doesn't bring us together to support kids in a way that
072um is needed. And sometimes it is it is a consequence and it's a firm one and it's a hard one, but I find those are fewer than um sometimes we think they need to be. So, thank you for all that you do. I know it's hard work and it's lots of phone calls and I think about teachers who have lots of little ones who it's hard to get on the phone. Um, but the importance of hitting this in elementary, we know the kids when they start kindergarten who may struggle and I just hope if we have a priority and I know finances are tough and you can't throw money at this, but um, boy, I'm sure a proponent of start We start early. Start early. >> Only question I have and if you want to
073send it to me, that' be fine. I just like to know what your strategy is to be able to raise because you have you're looking at raising the belonging like seven points. That's amazing. If you're able to do that, that's you're right. That goal is is rough. uh what's your strategy to be able to to raise that to be able to go up to seven points or even for the ones that are uh are having challenges and you want to raise it from one to two. What are your strategies to be able to get there? >> I think one really important um strategy and it just happened this last Friday is is an early release Friday in which our entire system from elementary, middle, and high school uh it was a a district Friday for
074all three levels. um in which we prepared our principles during that level meeting two weeks ago with their data to go in work with their teachers. Each of our uh grade levels, content levels in our schools have goals around belonging, have goals around attendance. Um and so they were able to unpack their data as principal teams in here, take it back into their buildings. Um I was able to get out to um Grand Junction High School in Chapido on Friday. I know many of us went out to to just listen to the conversations around their data. Some celebratory, some really scratching their head and it was great to see them dig in and look at the the target, look at the conditions, um what did they do in November? What were the action steps? What
075were the goals? Um what worked? What didn't? And I I think that to me is is is powerful, Joseé Luis, because then they're able to then call their neighbor because you can see there are schools that are hitting some of those performance measures. Um, and it draws them to those schools that are, you know, maybe doing something a little bit differently, right? We talked earlier there was an outlier up there in one of our elementary schools with Chatfield. Double digit growth out of all the receiving schools. um as leaders it it's an opportunity to get together with Chatfield and say what are some things that you were doing that maybe we could do differently even for the rest of the school year and and that was the plan is and I heard it many times
076in those meetings that I saw um we're going to let's come up with some things that we can do over the next eight weeks to finish strong and try to continue to increase and stay on this path. What are some things that we can do to change? And then obviously we'll get together in May in our leadership institute and get those schools back together so they can share what's working, what's not. First they had to identify what are the key conditions that are causing the positive gains and then look into all right what are some things that potentially aren't working and then bring them together so they can share their share their ideas. That for us over this last year has been extremely powerful. you tend to and in in our data over the past
077several years and it's it's correct with Panorama, you you tend to see a higher um belonging score in the fall and a dip in the spring. Um we were intentional back in November after uh the first survey was given to provide the same space for the principles to dig their data to take their data into their staff and really get down to the classroom level. Um, and we really feel like that was a a huge step in why we just buck the trend nationally to to see so many of our schools not take a dip, but not only not take a dip, but then double-digit growth. A 2% um uh increase is significantly statistically significantly with the norming and the number of students who take um these particular surveys. So when we see seven, eight,
07810, we saw 13. We had two schools hit 18% growth. Um those are that's huge and and that's what draws this work and the professional learning community that we've developed with our leaders and our schools together is to to not use it against each other. um even though there's friendly competition that goes on with our schools, but to be able to look at each other in in a room like this, share sometimes uncomfortable conversations in our data, but then be able to turn to a partner school or a leader across the room and say, "Hey, I'm really interested." So, I think that is the work to come as we finish out the year. And then we do need to identify and and I think schools are doing that like what are the things that you
079saw in some of those schools that kind of jump off the sheet and and um I think we'll see some great collaboration in May heading into setting those new performance targets for next year. And then we don't even know, we haven't even started to talk about how do we readjust now the high school that secondary number because they just blew right on past. And and that goal was set off trends from the last five years. So when we said a 2% increase for the next five years, that was like we really figured that's probably the pace at which we're going to do it. But for them to just jump all the way up to 58%, we were like, "Oh, we've we some great work that our schools are doing." And I encourage you as you
080get out and talk to your your schools, you know, talk to them about it, right? Because I know a lot of them were pretty proud um last Friday when they celebrated with their staffs. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you all. >> Yep. >> Next thing we have is business items. I'd like to know if it's okay to to vote on all policies together. We have one new policy, that's a KDP, and the removal of six old policies. Uh what are your thoughts? >> I'll make a motion to vote on policy KBP and then the motion to remove the policies 8B through 8H. >> Any second? It would be removal from 8B to 8G because 8H is a first reading. >> Oh, sorry. Yes, correction. Okay, I'll I'll amend my
081motion. So, I move to um approve policy 8A and remove and the removal of policies 8B through 8G. And we have the first reading of 8H. >> Second. Is that clear? >> That's clear. Thank you so much. >> Take a vote, please. >> No discussion. >> I I guess we could just say that the policy 8A is just our update to the um Freedom of Information Act that we have to update for boards. So, um I don't it's just what we have to do for the updates for everyone to have information. So, it's pretty self-explanatory. >> Okay. Mr. Chavis, >> approve. >> Mrs. Cole, >> yes. >> Mrs. Evansson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Heights, >> yes. Mrs. Woods, >> yes. >> So, we have our future meetings. Uh, April 21st, it's a board business meeting.
082And then May 5th, uh, we also have a work session here at in the Harry Butler's room. Uh we have an executive session pursuant to section 24-6-424B for revised statute for conference with legal counsel for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions specifically to discuss Orchard Mesa pool riverfront property the vacant prud middle school building and vacant land in gateway present executive sessions will be director Chavez director Woods director heights director Evson director Cole superintendent Dr. Hill, attorney Tammy Everett, and chief oper operation officer Clint Garcia. Do we have a motion in a second? >> Motion to enter into executive session. >> Second. >> Thank you all. We'll go executive session.