4/1/25 Board Meeting

001We actually don't need to call the meeting to order this evening because um the one business item we were putting on the agenda um no longer that we were going to vote on uh we don't need to uh actually we took off the agenda. So um so we can actually just we're just going into a work session this evening. So um so we have uh first thing on the list will be our ArabAmerican Heritage Month proclamation. So I have that here. So 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 ancestry, bringing them a rich bringing with them, excuse me, a rich, excuse me,

002a 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 learning environments where all students feel seen, respected, and empowered to learn alongside their peers. And therefore, it be it resolved that the Mesa County Valley School District Board of Education and Superintendent Hill proclaim April as ArabAmerican Heritage Month and invite the entire D-51 community to join us in recognizing and celebrating the meaningful impact ArabAmericans have made and continue to make within our schools, our community, and our country. All righty. Next up, we have our school finance project adequacy study update. All right. Um, Tracy, are you on? I am. Yes. Okay, great. We can hear

003you. And I've got the clicker. So, um, Tracy Rainey is with Colorado School Finance Project and a board. Of course, we talked before about the adequacy studies that were done, um, on K12 funding in Colorado. And so, uh, Tracy is a guru when it comes to school finance, uh, and budgets, and so he is, uh, graciously going to present to us this evening. So, I'm going to control the clicker. So, you just tell me, um, when you want me to click and I'll do that. Okay, Tracy, that sounds great. Thank you very much. And, um, as we go through this tonight, please feel free to um, ask questions. I know for um many this is going to be kind of the first time you've thought or heard a lot about this. So um please make

004sure that it it's helpful for you. So you can go to the next slide please. Um just who we are. Um I think most of you know that we're a nonprofit nonpartisan. We are supported by school district contributions and um we are trying to provide information to you in a very timely manner so that you have information that can be usable for you and with your community and um we have an array of data on our website over the years. So if you're looking for past history uh we usually can help you find something. Uh the next slide please. So the we're going to talk about adequacy studies and just a little background before we get into it. Most states do an adequacy study before they redo school finance. And what they are looking at

005doing then is finding out what are the resources needed in order for school districts to meet the expectations that a state has put in place um through accountability, through accreditation, uh through assessment and uh it outlines then um where resources need to be deployed. So the next uh next slide please. So, Colorado um required through statute that they wanted three approaches done and two different vendors to do those approaches. And one vendor to do what's called an input model and the other is to do an output. And in the inputbased approach, there were two recognized approaches, one being professional judgment and the other evidence-based that would look at um the costs associated for education. The other vendor was to do what's called an outputbased approach and that's more of a cost function analysis. Um but

006when both studies were asked to look at the same parameters, now how they went about that looked a little differently. The next slide please. So if you are so inclined to want to read the full reports which are fairly lengthy um you would find these chapters outlined in each of the reports. And so in the input they were obviously looking at um in both approaches looking at what an adequacy study does. um they were both asked to review the current formula and that meant um 1448 specifically um to reach out to stakeholders which they did and and were done a little differently. And then from there there was some variances looking at the input based on impacts of wealth and income. And the uh special education study was a deep dive analysis that the input

007model did and then a landscape analysis which is just kind of looking at the overall funding structures and how resources are deployed and then a cost of living adjustment. On the output side, um the equity study that they did was similar to what I'd say a landscape analysis and the impacts of wealth and income are student outcomes. Both um looked at were there trends that you could see for districts that had more resources um getting different student outcomes or were you seeing gaps in student outcomes based on the lack of resources? And then the efficiency and resource use and that also was looking at the um level of additional dollars that districts get and how those were are able to be deployed. The next slide please. And actually you can go to the slide after

008that. So we're going to start with the input model. And like I said there were two um different approaches done with that. But when you looked at the professional judgment, we looked at using six representative districts that mirrored the size of the type of districts in Colorado and then worked with the Department of Education to identify the educational standards that Colorado students, teachers, schools, and districts are expected to meet. And the standard itself is actually kind of an interesting thing. So, like I said, the report is fairly lengthy. we have them on our websites, but being able to look at that and see all of the requirements that a district is um having to meet in order to be in compliance with state statute. The next slide, please. And so the professional judgment panel um

009approach requires that you have educator panels and those panels were made up of experts who are educators from across Colorado representing all kinds of districts and um and in that they're then able to build what you would call school level panels first and those school level panels looked at by size the six different areas areas of size and elementary, middle school, and high school. Then there were two special needs panels, four district level panels, and so each of these dis each of these panels builds on the prior panel, and they're reviewing the work. None of these panels ever talk about money. They're always talking about people and programs that you want to have in place in order to allow students to be successful in meeting the academic expectations. One remoteness panel and one statewide panel.

010And the statewide panel is kind of overlooking everything to see are there consistencies? Do were there some things that needed to be adjusted because of panels looking at things differently? Um, and like I said, you're never talking about dollars. You're only talking about people and programs, you know, class size. What are the types of people that should be available in a school? You know, is that counselors? Is it nurses? Um, is it specialists? What does that look like? The next slide, please. And one of the things that was asked very specifically in both of the um RFPs was to look at the salary structure in Colorado. And um what we're able to do is to look at the statewide average salaries along with the adjusted benefits and then be able to compare that um not

011only to other types of industry within Colorado. So say uh somebody with a similar educational degree and you know our recommendation was for Colorado to do its own wage index. So therefore, you're really not only looking at what are your surrounding districts paying teachers, but what are the competing professions. So if a person has a similar degree and they're maybe a nurse or a CPA, what is their salary look like compared to what a teacher salary looks like in that same community? And being able to show where there needs to be improvement. Both studies, no, you know, no surprise, found that um wages were a major issue in Colorado. Then from that, you are also able to look at what are the types of adjustments you need to make for both student and district characteristics.

012And in that, you're able to use also evidence-based material. So you're looking at best practices, research, and at the same time keeping it in the Colorado context to make sure that what you're finding in the panels and what you find through research and evidence-based approaches lined up to be similar and they were very similar. The next slide, please. So, one of the other things, like I said, was to review the current 1448 formula and thinking about what are the strengths and what are some of the areas that maybe would be weaknesses or areas to make adjustments to um in the and this is important to remember in the context of what was passed last year, not what's being discussed currently. And so that is with the um with the declining enrollment 1448 was to always

013stay at a 4-year averaging. Um and they did talk about that the importance of that especially when you're using a single year count or a single day count um because of the timing of that and when districts are making decisions uh for hiring obviously doesn't align with the legislature. that's exactly the situation you're in right now. The removal of the multiplicative approach, the use of district size and local factors. Um there are some issues with the local factor, but the concept of looking at remoteness is an was an important com component. higher weights and inclusion of special education um as a weight in the formula in addition to categoricals and obviously the elimination of the budget stabilization factor. The next slide please. some of the weaknesses in the formula. Um, no rationale for the base

014cost, which we knew um back in 1994 was backed into um a recommendation to review the cost of living factor. unclear on what the impact is by using a cost of living factor, a size adjustment, and a local factor because the current local factor that's in place um one is really addressing size. it's not really addressing remoteness and um the NCES factor that or approach that was looked at in this NCES never anticipated that this would be used for a funding mechanism and because of that there are some flaws in it and an example would be that they assume there's no topography in Colorado and so when you are looking at districts and the distance or the how far apart districts are from one another It distorts the reality of when you actually have driving

015and roads and mountain passes and various weather conditions. And so that is something that was highlighted as a flaw in the current formula. The weights that have been put in um through 1448 are lower than the adequacy study recommendations. The inequities and local overrides obviously um create some some challenges and um many of these factors one being the um local factor for example have have cliffs and typically in a school finance formula you want to have something that's a it's more of a slant so that you don't move you know don't have one change in a student enrollment and go from one level of funding and really be penalized to to another level. The next slide, please. The survey and the outreach that was done to parents and community members um really had very consistent

016respondents. They said that teacher quality was the highest priority. School culture and academic performance also ranked high. um and teacher quality was um as I said probably the top priority that came forward but very close second was the school culture and academic performance course offerings and student mental health and I don't think any of that seems as a surprise to people as you as you know what you're dealing with in your communities. The next slide please. So, coming up after all of this information and coming up with a final recommendation, you're looking at um wanting to be able to identify resources, like I said, be able to um come up with a base level of funding and what are those adjustments? And obviously one of the things that was a finding in this that showed

017that the base level of funding need to be adjusted upward if you were trying to ensure that every student had the resources. If you're thinking around specialists or mental health or counselors that those things wouldn't be a grant you had to apply for that they would be available through funding for any district and then adjusted based upon your student populations. The next slide, please. Special education and the deep dive that was done on that really um suggested making adjustments in the type of students that you're addressing, but a much more um I guess a higher level of of focus around the amount of of resources needed for mild and moderate special education students. and then a full reimbursement for high-cost students that should be part of what the state um pays for. So moving to

018the output approach um the next slide please. And like I said that the overall goals were the same. Um how they how it was approached looks different but they same criteria wanting to ensure that all students have the resources needed to meet the educational goals of the state no matter where they attend. And um they they very much focused on the wealth neutrality of it. So that how much you could raise locally should not be dependent upon the type of resources that you have available and um and their their findings were very similar to what uh the input approach showed. The next slide please. So um when they are looking at doing a cost analysis of the system, it's much like a regression model. So what they're looking at is what is available currently. what

019do districts have and then show the differential in that based upon the type of district, the size of district, uh the level of funding differences and then being able to show how does per how is academic performance also looked at is relative to the type of funding. And so when they're doing this analysis, they begin to look at it in a um kind of what we've done in the past. And so it's much harder for them to break out and thinking about it in the types of uh specialists or class ratios in the same way that the input model does. One's not right, one's not wrong. They're just going to look at some things differently. The next slide, please. So, they're going to do a scan or they did a scan of the funding formula.

020They also looked at administrative data around student outcomes, equity, cost, function, adequacy, and then did their public survey and town hall meetings and what with the perception of the current system. And what they found in the perception of the current system was really no different than what was found in the other um uh survey that was done by the input and that teacher quality came out number one and mental health came out um almost as high with them in their findings. So we're now going to look at the kind of the comparison of the two approaches and so you can go to the next slide too please. So what you find is the output model has a lower base and higher weight amounts and the input model has a higher base and lower weights. And

021that's just a function of the how the approaches um do their modeling. The output recommends a cost of living adjustment along with a cost or a wage index. The input model really looked at the wage index and looked at making adjustments more around the size and um the cost of doing business. And that's what a wage index is going to focus on. both looked at adjustments for teacher teacher compensation. Um and it was but for as for a recommendation for what that compensation level should be. The output model is kind of unclear. The input model also focuses on a district size adjustment where the output model looks at school size and grades span adjustments. And again, part of that comes from uh other states and how they fund as they have um instead of a

022district being a K12 system, there are examples of states being just an elementary system or just a high school system. So, um given that they use a lot of national data to do back up some of their work, that's why you find some differences in uh outcome approaches. But some of the common themes that you found, the next slide, please. Um, both systems recommended that Colorado is billions below what is needed to adequately serve students. Teacher compensation is below what is needed. Higher need districts and schools have lower performance and lower resources available. And neither study recommends using a local factor for adjustment. And they both recommend that you adjustment should be made through a co a wage index. Um a size adjustment and then some kind of adjustment for um not necessarily uh local

023but remoteness and it probably would be done in a different manner than the localal factor. The next slide please. So, um, key differences really are the weight differences between the two approaches, and we'll look at that through a couple charts we have here in a minute. Um, the output model assumes that secondary is more expensive and the input model assumes elementary is more expensive. That again is um probably more an economy of scale issue and thinking about it where they're going to look at the fact that um they they did not differentiate between the different types of sizes of districts in the output model as the input model did. And as I told you, the input model looked at district size in the range of six different types of sizes based upon the number of

024districts in Colorado who kind of fit in those criteria. But the output does not look at that. They just assume one kind of an average size. Um the output model also includes a number of funding cliffs and the input has a very smooth transitions and again that's much more of a result of the cost function analysis as it comes out more in chunks I guess as in a regression analysis and it doesn't really address a smoothing factor. The next slide please. So this slide here really looks at what was asked which is a comparison between the out the input and the output and how it compares to 1448. And so you can see here the base level of funding then what the adjustment should be for at risk, what the adjustment should be for special

025education. And as you can see here in the output analysis, they made just one flat adjustment for special education where in the input there was as we said high cost would be paid by the state and then mild and moderate would have different weights. For the output uh model, they assumed um one weight for ELLL students and uh the input model really broke down them through the WEDA classification if they were a one two three four or a five six and then adjusted weights accordingly. The um next slide please. This looks at it um in full implementation with the different models that you can see here. And obviously um the categorical funding that you see down at the very bottom, that was left intact um primarily because of that being constitutionally required through amendment 23.

026And so additional dollars that would be going for special education or English language learners for example um could be a combination of dollars that come through the formula or through g categorical funding. And the next slide please. So this is looking at it um with the total program plus categorical for each of the implementations. And as you can see um the the input and output model had you know is about a $4 billion difference but um it's also about a $4 billion difference from the implementation of 1448. And if you think about that in comparison to other just, you know, where we are compared to the national average, we we sit between 2500 and $3,000 below the national average. And so you're going to get to a very similar figure of what's needed for funding.

027The next slide, please. Um, when looking at what the dollars would be into the uh additional dollars per pupil, you have a base amount and then you can look at the dollars associated, which sometimes is easier for people to look at. Um, so it would be the base plus the amount for at risk plus the amount for special education and then the combined weight depending upon which weight for ELLL learners and again for your special ed would be determined differently. And so you're you're looking at um different philosophies and so the recommendation obviously to the legislature is adopt one philosophy. Don't pick a little bit from this one and a little bit from that one because it really ruins the integrity and it really distorts what the outcome could be. And the last slide is

028just a percentage increase um based upon the outcomes of that. And then um the final slide that we have is uh giving you the opportunity through a QR code to look um specifically at your district um and being able to see that we have a fact sheet available for you as well as if you were interested in a specific presentation that was around this that could be easy for someone to use. um knowing that everybody's busy and hopefully this is helpful if you're trying to have something that you could share with community members or your district accountability um that could be helpful in the future. So, I tried to keep that down to the timeline and happy to answer any questions that you have. Or do you have any questions for Tracy? I know that's

029a lot of info and there are two really two really big studies so might take a little bit to digest and and please don't hesitate to reach out and ask more questions um about it because obviously um this is the first time Colorado's ever done a study like this and as we're talking about school finance and things that maybe need to looked at in 1448. Hopefully, this can help guide some of those conversations. Um, there's a push to have the legislature create an a uh interim committee um to be able to look at this and come up with a roadmap or a plan for uh the state to look at this over a period of time to implement. If you think back on that, Colorado does have a history of thinking about that with amendment

03023. That was a 10-year plan. Um, and so obviously we had the budget stabilization factor for 14 years. We don't want to do that direction, but um, we we do have something in place that kind of holds precedence for thinking about putting a plan in place and then how does that move forward in the future? Yeah, that that was going to be my question. If this was the legislature wanted this right through um House Bill 1325, was there a stipulation in there or any sort of timeline to say, "Okay, once we have these actual results, we're going to take x amount of time to do something so that this doesn't just sit on a shelf like we like to do sometimes." So, do you did they have anything like that in those discussions or have

031you heard anything about some sort of a timeline of what they would want to do with this information? They did have a stipulation that they wanted this reviewed every five years, but they didn't put a stipulation in for implementation. No. And so that's part of what the push for an interim committee is to be able to have the legislature over the course of the summer um be able to one determine which philosophy they would like to utilize and then second kind of prioritize out what do they see as the the first thing that they want to try to do and then kind of lay out a time frame and a timeline to get to an implementation. And so, um, hopefully that will materialize. Um, but as we all know, there's a lot of moving pieces

032in the legislature right now. All right. Well, if we think of any questions, we'll be sure to reach out. So, thank you so much for basically giving us the cliff notes on those two very robust studies. So, we appreciate your time, Tracy. Anytime. And please um feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Thank you. Thank you. The only thing I would add is that organization is great and if you haven't been on the community, if you haven't been on their website, they run tons of reports and have tons of data all around school finance and uh and budgets. So, we really rely on them a lot to help us. And they usually present I think they she usually presents to Yel's CASBY group too. Yeah, she pro yeah she presents to CASBY

033and um so we had already had a presentation on the two studies um back in our January meeting and so um they definitely pointed out that this was the first time that Colorado had invested in these two studies or even in two studies. So um to basically take the time to um investigate this. So really be prior to this it's been individual groups that have tried to collect this data. Um and so you know you try to take it to the state and tell them hey we're not funding education adequately. And so they're like well yeah that's your study. And so I think it meant a lot that the state finally ponyied up the money and decided to do the two studies and then they got the data back and now they have to sit

034on it and realize like okay yeah now we're we're really not funding education adequately because it's different when you have sort of a group coming to you and saying it. It's different when now you've paid the money and now you you own it. Um, and so I think it's um I think it was I mean I think it was obviously that they knew, but now I think um there's a sense of ownership for the state to um now really have to do something with it. So I agree with you, Dr. Hill. I hope they don't just put this on a shelf and don't do anything with it. So I mean it took him forever to finally put together a a group on finding a different funding formula. Um, and so not that 1448 is great,

035but it at least is something that at least gets us moving in a different direction. Um, there's going to be a lot of, um, adjusting we're going to have to do with that, you know, in years to come. But, um, we can't keep doing the same thing over and over. So, well, and and she gives updates throughout the year to, um, like at Western Slope Soups and at Case. So, I guess when there's something that like a ne next step that comes from this, it'd be great to have her maybe come back because I know I had today when I was at the excuse me, presenting to the PTA groups, I mentioned the 3.5 billion dollar shortfall and one of the questions was what can we do to advocate? So, it'd be good to know

036at what point should we start having the board and and maybe community members start advocating for something, but they need to do something with the actual study first before that happens. Yeah, I think if we can help our community, I mean, hopefully this information, if people are watching it, can I mean, she did a really good job of taking these two robust studies and digesting them down. I mean, you can they're online if you want to go look at the hundreds of pages of the studies and obviously there's the executive summary if you want to just look at those as well. Um, I did look at these links earlier um specific to our district and they're fantastic. um the um the last slide that she had up. So again, you can go to the Colorado

037School Finance Project website and you can look up um District 51. So well, and after you do, I mean, the bottom line is this happens with our legislature. So reach out. I mean, once you see Yeah. not just overall Colorado, how Colorado is under our district. Well, and I think we have been very fortunate that um our representative um Tagert is on the joint budget committee and he really did go to bat for us um this last week and he's been been going to bat for us um for a while um just saying that especially here on the Western Slope. I mean, are we still 173 out of 178 funded or we 174? I think we kind of where we're we moved up to 174. Oh, okay. Well, we we keep going back between well,

038we're we're still at the bottom. I mean, you know, as far as being funded out of, you know, there's 178 school districts in Colorado, and we teeter back and forth between the 173rd and 174th funded district. And so I think what this is really telling you is that I'm not very optimistic that the state is going to really get their act together in figuring out how to fund districts. And I'd much rather work with our local community on figuring out a way for us to um work with our local community on keeping our dollars local and um having our our local community support and fund our schools. So, um I'm not optimistic that our that our state is going to get this turned around anytime soon. So, I I just want to give our community

039that heads up because this is something that's not just going to turn around on a dime because with the funding formula and with the way the state's um budget is looking, not just for this year, but I think for many years to come, I think it's going to take a little bit of time to turn around. And I don't think all of a sudden education's going to be just fully funded and there's going to be lots of money there and we're going to be adequately funded and have all these things for, you know, special education students. And so I think the only way we fill those gaps is by asking our local communities to really help us in some of those ways. So yeah, this one was powerful. I think just the percentage of increase

040we should see if you just went with either one of the studies. So it's I mean take the lower one it's still 39% increase that we should see. So yeah I agree. I think local local community support and then also just you know I I know in the op-ed that Mel and I wrote we're you know really calling on the state to say what is your plan like like you said you you you asked for the study you got the information a $3.5 billion shortfall. So like I realize we're not going to get $3.5 billion all of a sudden. Um but what's the longterm plan for actually addressing this as a state? I think, you know, if people want to put their heads together, we can figure something out. So, we'll see if that happens.

041Yeah, I think it's a priority issue really coming from the state. Um I just I don't feel like from our our state legislature that and our governor that they're prioritizing education even though they say that. So, um I I think actions speak louder than words and the action has been that they're not prioritizing dollars for education. So they were we'd see dollars going towards education. So all right, next up um strategic plan update community resource allocation. Speaking of budgets, our team does a really good job doing budgets so with what we have so we're happy for them for us. Check. check. Good evening board. Good to see you all. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. Uh this presentation represents the final strategic plan update for the year. We're wrapping everything up. Uh we're proud

042to share the progress made across key resource allocation priorities, highlighting completed initiatives, ongoing work, uh and areas that remain on hold due to timing and funding constraints. Next slide. Oh no, back. Yep. Although we do not have our entire team here tonight, this work has been truly a team effort involving cross uh department collaboration and shared commitments to aligning our resources with the district's long-term goals. As we wrap up the year, we remain focused on transparency, impact, continuous improvement. So, let's just take a look at uh what we've done in the past. So, you'll remember a year and a half ago, we implemented Facilitron, right? and we started to use this to capture our work order uh data information that we didn't have prior to that. And so one of the things this is just

043one of the things that we're capturing is um total total work orders, completed work orders, uh pending work orders, and time of completion. And pulled some data just from the end of uh or the beginning of our fiscal year to current. We've uh received 11 just a little over 11,000 work orders. We've completed uh just a little over 10,000 of those. Um 392 of those are still pending. 92% completion and we've average about a 9-day turnaround time on our work orders. So they get to us and with usually within nine days we've completed all of those. All right. Next, you'll remember too, Keegan was up here sharing uh some really good news that uh he did some work on and that was some utility cost savings uh for a total of $452,523 for the 2223

044fiscal year. Uh that was a big deal and that work continues. We we achieved that through billet auditing, strategic scheduling of HVAC systems. That's something that we've also done through Facilitron. That was a big deal. And then uh we continue to find uh ways to to do savings in our utilities. Um we are getting ready to start um some work there also with lighting and some HVAC controls. And then you'll also remember we finished our um 25-year uh master plan and we went through 47 of our buildings looking at building condition, educational adequacy, and build building utilization. And that work has led us to um the bond work that we're working on right now. So current year's focus um one of the things that we started this year that um is a little bit of

045a milestone for our facilities department is we've put together a um capital budgeting process where um staff come to us, right? There's a clear there's a clear path and an application process. schools apply for funding from facilities for um on a set of criteria and deadlines. Uh there's a review of those requests for all the buildings. We go through that. There's a seven member team that evaluates the projects for uh safety, urgency, value. We have an annual timeline for awarding the projects. Every year we award those in October. Um we open the application sorry in October and award in January and then that's a cyclical process. that starts every year. And then this year's budget for that is about 230K. So we take all of those requests and we um work through each one of

046those requests taking life safety first and we use that 230K budget and uh get that work done over the summer. In January, um you'll remember that we introduced the digital budget book, um which was an exciting improvement for us and how we communicate our budget. Um the digital budget book is available on the district's transparency web page. Hopefully, folks are out there and looking at it and seeing what's available. Uh it's an interactive and userfriendly tool for accessing budget information. Being able to provide this resource to our community is in direct alignment with our strategic plan uh area of transparenc transparent resource allocation. The digital book is more visually engaging, accessible, and easily viewed on devices. Um as Clint mentioned, the Bondon milvy override, of course, that was a big celebration in no the November

047election. Um, we continue to be appreciative to our community for their approval of 4A and 4B. Without raising taxes, the continuation of the 2017 mill and the new bond resources are critical to the future successes of students in D51 and will ensure the momentum and results of this strategic plan continue. Through collaboration and communication, we worked in sync to demonstrate the benefits and needs to our community. The MI levby override continuation will ensure additional funding remains for instructional resources. Additional student contact days, technology support, and ongoing maintenance. With the bond funds, we'll be able to begin to address the needs that were identified in the facility master plan supporting students and staff and the environments in which they learn and teach. Could I hold Could I just hop in there real quick and make a

048clarification? Um, just recently I had someone still a little confused on the mill. They thought it was a tax increase and I just want to remind the community that that just we just took the sunset off the mill. Um, there was no tax increase on that mill. So that just extended it. Um, so that we have the same amount of dollars that we had asked for. Um, so I just just recently someone was still a little bit um unclear about what happened in November because they thought um with this financial discussion, they were like, "Wait a minute. Didn't we just give you all some extra money last November?" So I did, sorry to cut you off, but I just feel like this would be a perfect time just to clarify that point with our community

049in case they're watching. So, no, it's a good clarification and I I the timing of that was obviously perfect going into the financial challenges that we are right now to be able to know what we have and what we're working with rather than facing that impending sunset. And so, yeah, um on hold is our next section, I think, and going right into those some of those financial challenges and uncertainties. Um there were a couple of projects that we were looking to accomplish yet this spring. um that we've now put on hold. One of those was red redesigning the budget request process and the other one um was looking at the differentiation of school budget allocations to reflect student populations. So similar to the weighted averaging that that new formula would provide 241448 um where we

050weren't sure if that formula was going to be implemented or not. Um it definitely weighed on our decisions of the proper timing for these. Um so funding limitations will severely limit any new budget requests. So that affected that project. And then for school allocations, if there aren't new dollars available, we would simply be reshuffling the deck. Um rather than truly being able to make a difference. And so we still believe this is the right work. We still want to accomplish it. Um but we want to ensure these projects are implemented at a time when they can be successful. So, moving forward with what we are currently working on, um you'll remember back to the 2017 bond, we had a transparency page, uh specifically to track the utilization of those bond dollars by school and by

051project. And so, we're currently developing a transparency web page for the 2024 bonds that will do the exact same. um it'll be available to the public um ensuring that they'll be able to see by dollar where the investments are being made in each school and we look forward to launching this platform later this spring. So even as this strategic plan wraps up, our commitment to transparency around our finances and operations continues. We remain dedicated to using resources effectively and keeping our community informed both in navigating challenges and in celebrating successes together. Any questions? Let me provide a little more clarity too on the capital budgeting one. Um we talked about the budget that we have for that capital budgeting. That's something that we did not have before. And so the process if there was one

052was that buildings would just ask for funds throughout the year. We need this, we need a fence, we need uh a classroom. This puts a process in place that allocates a specific amount of money so we know exactly what we're spending. It just isn't a random ask throughout the year. Well, lots of random asks to lots of random people, right? Correct. Yeah. With almost 50 buildings, that's I think to be expected. But I love that now we have a set amount. We know what it is and that that's it's much better than to have just an open checkbook with no idea what's in the bank. So well hopefully it improves it for our users too that they aren't going to like maintenance department. If they get turned down there then they hit up safety department

053or then they hit up um their site directors. And so just that kind of that cycle of making more work for them as well is really something we wanted to streamline. they know immediately when it's approved that that work will be happening in the summertime and it's it's planned and executed over the summer and again that process starts again the follow questions board I'll just add a couple things one when we're talking about the budget shortfall at the state level and everything it's just really important that we've have great team members that have been really making sure that we're set up for success even in a time of potentially Well, even if we do increase it a little bit this this year and next year, we already know we're going to end up seeing a

054decline in state funding. And so, um, proud of the team for all the work that they're doing to try to make sure that we're utilizing every dollar we can in a wise way and being really transparent about that. So, I appreciate the work that y'all are doing. I I also just want to point out that I know Clint mentioned this, this is their final presentation. We do have one more presentation um on the current strategic plan next month. It'll be a professional learning will be the last group and then remember we have a final steering committee meeting on the 16th for the the new strategic plan. Um and then the uh CI folks will be bringing back things to the board in May and June for y'all to be able to vote on uh um

055the new strategic plan ideally before we go on summer break in June. So, still some work to do on the current um excuse me, still some work to do on the the new plan that we're creating and then we do have one more presentation next month on uh professional learning uh goals that we've set. Thanks. Thank you. Will the board get um on the new plan? We'll have some time to be able to give some feedback on the new plan, right? And yeah, I've talked to Alex about a couple different ways we can do it. one, I mean, he's obviously going to do um presentations at the board meetings, but um setting up time to to meet with y'all individually as well um and getting feedback on the things that they're looking at because at

056the end of the day, y'all are the ones that need to approve it. So, we need to make sure it um it meets the needs that y'all have as well. So, and we'll have some time to be able to do that, especially after this last meeting on the 16th, we'll have um time for you to set those up. Great. Thank you. Okay, next up we have our social studies fourth grade and presentation then e a 12th grade resource recommendation. Good evening board. Thank you for having us. It is my pleasure um that tonight, this evening, we have two recommendations for you. These recommendations, just a quick reminder of what that process looks like. I know that you have all had the opportunity to um be process observers in these um with this process. But just

057a reminder, we have our curriculum resource governance committee that I um facilitate and oversee. And that's the committee that monitors our mill dollars. And with that committee, they identify and that committee is made up of a composition of the entire district, all grade levels, district level, building level, um administrators and teachers. And they identify the needs of our district as a whole and where we want to spend that those mill dollars. And every year they um they hear different pitches or proposals from our content specialists based on the needs that we have in the district. And um CRGC determines what grade level and content we will spend dollars on next. And then that um then our content specialists create an IRS team, an instructional resource selection team. And that team takes anywhere from about six

058to seven or eight months. The team again is made up of teachers. All of this process, this entire process is done with teachers, not two or four. The IRS does all the work. They keep the CRGC updated on the work that's going on. And um just this last week, our two resource um our two instructional resource selection teams had two recommendations that they um proposed to CRGC. CRGC approved these recommendations and now we are moving forward to you. So, uh we are starting with fourth grade social studies. I will have Sean introduce himself. This is his first year as a content specialist um K12 social studies. So, this is his first opportunity to run an IRS and his first opportunity to be in front of you. And I don't think he's nervous. I think he's

059okay. But um I'm really excited for Sean now. Sean, take it away. Thank you. Hi, I'm Sean Seen. I'm the K12 social studies specialist for the school district. Um feel like I'm running the gauntlet. And if you don't know I'm nervous, then I'm doing something right, I think. Um but fourth grade social studies. Um the why I don't have a clicker. Yes, click. I don't I will click for you the Oh, Dr. Hill has it. Thank you. Perfect. Um, so why fourth grade? A lot of times you have an RSD that runs K5 for elementary. Um, and so really to think about it to start with, there was the adoption of the Colorado social study standards in 2022. Um, from 2020 to 2022, they got way more complex. There was a lot more depth across

060the five subdimensions of social studies. Um, as well as the CAMS test has reappeared since COVID for the first time, which means a third of our buildings are actually testing in fourth grade social studies CESS this year. um which adds some pressure on teachers. With that added pressure, teachers asked for more support. Hey, we need more resources in order to help leverage those ideas that are going to be tested in social studies for fourth grade. Um as well as supporting the D51 inquiry units that we use right now in those classrooms. Um also looking at our adopted resources as they sit right now, we have a rendevous with Colorado history from Sterling Ties publication that was published in 1999. um in the story of Colorado which was published in 1979. When those were purchased is

061a good guess somewhere between then and now. So about 30ish years or more. Um as well as really thinking if we're looking at the state academic standards for fourth grade, they're really specific to the state of Colorado um in every aspect across all of those subdimensions, which is really really important. If we want kids to reach mastery, we need a resource that supports mastery of Colorado themed social studies. Um, this is just a really quick introduction of this instructional resource selection team. We had six building representatives for teachers and then one special education representative as well. Um, they were an incredible team to work with. They were all very very passionate about getting a resource in the hands of our teachers across the district that will help support all of our students to reach mastery

062of social study standards which really is our task as teachers and really develop a good wholesome child um as they move their way to fifth grade. So our timeline to quote one of our members was really fast and furious but very indepth. Um we started right before the holiday break with a grounding in board policy and what are the roles and responsibilities of um and then started breaking down what are our roles and responsibilities in connection to our standards which then moved us into our first January meeting where we really looked at what is out there for resources. We're going to create a vision for what fourth grade social studies should look like, feel like, sound like. Um as well as development of our rubrics so we could select a good resource. We narrowed our

063process down to some vendors for presentations on February 19th. Um, and then came to a final consensus vote on February 26th. Um, as I said, we really wanted to think about our roles and responsibilities. So, we broke down the five subdimensions of social studies. So, history, geography, civics, economics, and personal financial literacy. And then really thought about what are our key takeaways. teachers really haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about what are my roles and responsibilities with these as well as what are students roles and responsibilities and building leaders and with that they really walked away with some big ideas we should be thinking about what standards have we identified that students should be know should know excuse me what should we be asking of our building leaders to support us within social

064studies um what do we have outside of our buildings to help us using museums and other individuals which we've all found very very important this then drove the idea of creating what we're looking for in a vision as well as being supported by the mission and vision of district 51. Um, and the vision that we came up with was the idea to cultivate curious, empathetic learners through multiensory learning experiences that engage, equip, and empower young citizens to see themselves as active participants in world's ongoing story. So really knowing that it's not just about being part of Colorado's ongoing story, but the world around us as well. So we created a selection rubric. There are four overarching categories. You have overarching considerations which addresses the standards, the district 51 teaching and learning framework. Um the mission

065ambition and the whole child development, fourth grade social studies which is really specific to the content itself through skills, inquiry, diverse learning experiences. Um through the five subdimensions of social studies, assessment, so addresses assessment of knowledge and literacy and content skills, feedback and self assessment opportunities were really important to our team. And then finally technology which supports alignment with physical resources, um, diverse English, diverse and English language learner supports, and then media and digital literacy as we continue to ingrain technology more into our daily lives. Um, so we looked at six resources in depth to start. Um, we did didn't have presentations to six. That would be a really long day of presentations. Um, and we actually used a continuum to think about who are we going to bring in to present to us. Um,

066so each sticky note represented a different dimension within the rubric. Um, and we settled, not settled, but we're really excited to bring in the top three choices, Discover Colorado, Colorado story third edition, and exploring Colorado social studies for presentations um on that February 19th presentation date. Um, so they came in and presented to us. We loved all three resources. They all afforded wonderful opportunities um for our district and our students to reach mastery of our standards. Um, but the resource that we really felt was the most all-encompassing for fourth grade, not only its digital platform, but also its physical resource in alignment to our standards was the Colorado story third edition. Um, from Gibbsmith Education, there was a very strong consensus vote to say, "Yes, we do recommend this resource. It really will support our

067system and what we're looking for for students in fourth grade social studies." So, some rationale, we took a very um detailed approach to rationale, wrote out a lot of paragraphs. I didn't think that probably was the best way to present that information to you. Um, so used AI to kind of support and break it down and to about 10 to 15 top bullet points that really supported why we're recommending this as our fourth grade resource. And they fell into three overarching categories. The first is student and teacher supports. So, it offers both digital and print options, giving teachers flexibility in content delivery and student multiple ways to engage in the materials. It aligns with the D-51's goals and mission while providing rigorous complex content that highlights multiple perspectives throughout Colorado's history and the other subdimensions.

068Um, supports differentiation through a dig in and dig deeper questions within the resource itself. It also highlights and reads text features for struggling readers and personalizes digital platform options for teachers as well. It offers a teacher friendly resource including a correlation guide that aligns to your standards, a pacing guide, hyperl navigation, and downloadable slideshows. Um, it enhances classroom communication through interactive features like virtual sticky notes that students can extend and use as exit tickets to send to their teachers directly. The next category is social studies content and skills. That's why we're here. It's an important thing to have. Um, it includes diverse assessment options. So, accommodated text, uh, document assessment, short answer and self assessments with strong I can statements. So, when a student opens the beginning of a lesson, they know what they should

069be walking away with. So, it's very clear and transparent. And for a fourth grader, that's a huge thing. Um, provides opportunities for students to engage with primary and secondary sources, enhancing critical thinking evaluation skills. Builds important social studies skills such as map reading, geography knowledge, and communication through discussion and other activities. includes engaging collaborative projects and inquiry based units. So then further supports our current UCIA in the district. Um it also sparks curiosity and student interests. Um combined with it combines, excuse me, with museum and other external partnerships to create a comprehensive highquality learning experience that extends beyond the textbook. They've worked with history channel.com, history of Colorado Museum and other representatives to support that. The last category was crosscurricular connections. So really thinking about the It features career connections that can be linked to

070the IAP and the steam career exploration at fourth grade level. Uh it integrates reading and writing communication standards from ELA and strengthens literacy skills including comprehension and critical thinking. Provides crosscurricular connections with correlation guide that maps Colorado social studies standards in a spiral design and aligning to each lesson. And then it follows a learning process similar to ELA. So the learning curve will be a little shorter for teachers which is always going to be great. and then students they won't have to figure it out quite as hard as well. So some PL and implementation needs at least ideas right now. um starting off summer institute with an orientation. So either the 27th and 28th or the 28th and 29th um to give a comprehensive overview of the physical and digital components hands-on exploration of with

071guided facilitation of the resource integration with existing fourth grade curriculum and alignment um to the standards and then an implementation plan for um some possible revision with our inquiry units where they sit right now. But really thinking about a strong start for our implementation um back to school resource orientation. back to school is going to be um a little chaotic this year, but it is every year, let's be honest. So, really thinking if possible to get some uh inservice leadership academy, something like that, and get this in the hands of as many teachers and building leaders as possible. Um focus on immediate implementation for first quarter and then distribution of a quick start guide to really help those teachers out. Um digital resource library and drive. So, as teachers are going through it and we're

072talking with Gibb Smith, um there's a plethora of resources that teachers can do more on demand training to support what they need. Um ongoing support structure, so looking at learning community sessions, getting into buildings and supporting LC's with fourth grade teams so they can focus on upcoming units, address implementation challenges so we can squash those as quickly as possible. um doing quarterly deep dives um half day release for teachers to really look at what is working well, what are some other resources they need from uh the current resource and in alignment with our UCIA to support them and start talking as teams about some differentiation and assessment and then district Fridays really thinking about some mini lessons and PD to support rotating topics based on feedback that has been observed by teachers and by myself

073um and other directors and then just p practical classroom application strategies. A resource is great, but if teachers don't feel it's practical, they're probably not going to use it. And that's not what we're looking for here. And that's part of my goal is to really support that. Wrong button. We hosted a community open house on March 3rd. The 4th is my wife's birthday, so had that on the brain. Um so we invited, shout out to my wife, uh we invited the community in for an open house um to review the Colorado Story third edition. Um, one of my favorite quotes is, "It looks like a middle school yearbook." Um, it's not my middle school yearbook. It's way too thick for that. But, um, gave them the opportunity to think about what does the physical copy

074look like? What does the digital platform look like? Also thinking about the correlation guide with standards alignment and how would that impact mastery of those standards. Um, we did receive some feedback. I was very busy that night. It was great. Um, some of the feedback we received is a reasonable amount of materials. This allows teachers to add and adjust their instruction. Excellent materials to support becoming a better reader. Goals, vocabulary, check-in, digging deeper, and revision. GSSE or Gibbsmith Education online supports for ELLL and special education students. Supports D51 curriculum well with detailed information in the chapters that are aligned with the standards. Colorado story will help mold good humans. Um, this individual is great. Brought in her daughter. mom was a little more focused on the resource than the daughter was, but um she could

075have sat there with me all evening and had a discussion about it. She was thrilled to see this as a possible recommended resource. A wonderful resource. If the teachers are able to impart the value and spirit embodied in this program, we will have wonderfully prepared adults. Um I like the reference of primary and secondary sources. This seems like a great resource. I like the diverse perspectives and modern history lessons in the resource. So to approximate cost of the Colorado resource, we haven't gone to the table yet seeing we had approval from CRGC last week. Um but the resource looking at about a six-year digital license with teachers and students and physical resources about $185,500. Um professional learning approximately $12,000 really negotiating for a PL package that helps with implementation like I was just addressing um

076and supports continued professional learning of our system. um looking around a total of about $200,000. So just to wrap up, the resource our team is recommending for adoption is the Colorado story third edition um from Gibbs Smith Education. The team valued the resources authentic learning experience and its alignment with our standards. The team also felt that this resource will support and grow students towards mastery of the standards with support of our current CIA. Any questions for me? No, I think you did really well for as obviously nervous as you are. Thank you. Shout out to your wife and everything in there. I think you covered all the bases. Um, I don't have any specific questions, but I would like to see this. You knew that was coming, didn't you? Oh, yes. We're ready to go.

077I think you are here. Perfect. Thank you. That's even better. Yeah, you will have access to the digital platform as well as the physical copies. Perfectation guide standards. They're all there for you. Wonderful. Thank you. And I I just want to clarify. So there is it's a there's a digital, but there is a a hard copy of this as well. So the middle school yearbook that I referenced, they're visually stunning. Okay. So if a teacher didn't want to use the digital one, they could use the the hard copy version. Okay. Any other questions on the fourth grade? Okay, thank you. It's really great. Sean, what did you do before or what did you do before this? Um, I was the eighth grade social studies teacher at Mount Garfield. Okay, thank you. I was wondering what

078your what your journey was uh to get to here. So, all education, right? Every minute of it. All right. Thank you. All right. I'll take No, I'll just move it over. It's my pleasure to introduce Kristen Gross. Kristen has been in front of you three times. I like to do it once a year and I I don't understand why. Why did we have Sean go first? We should have had you. But obviously it went well. So numbers. Yes. If that's right. Kristen, take it away. All right. All right. Well, I'm presenting to you tonight and I thank you for this opportunity. Um, this is the senior ELA credit. So, there are a number of ways that students can earn credit, but there's that half credit of our graduation requirements that are core ELA and then

079the other half is an English elective. So that was really the scope of the work of this adoption was to find a comprehensive English language arts resource that would support um reading and writing integration and and have some strong tier one supports for all learners. Um because that's one semester 12th grade core composition and literature course which was currently um most recently modern lit or British lit and comp. it in the past had also been world literature and American literature and composition but those kind of got absorbed by our 9th 10th and 11th grade courses. So these were the two that were left, but that serves about 60 to 70% of our 12th grade students. And as you can see on the bottom of this slide, the last adoption of resources for those, not quite

080the 30 years, but we know that those offerings have been existing within our our decade for or with our within our district for more than um a quarter of a century we've been offering those courses. Um and so in 2003, there was an elements of literature book for British and for world. Um and then another book that we can site that is equally as old is modern literature was taught using a book called adventures in modern literature which ironically is modern literature of 1970. Um so really teachers have done a really commendable job of working with what they had and um teaching this class for a number of years but it was a long time overdue. Uh but not only was the scope of this adoption to go after a resource of that nature, but

081we really wanted to look at, hey, if we've been doing the same thing for a quarter of a century with some slight changes just in courses going away, do we need to update that as well? So the first part of this work actually was to go in and look at our pathway and get clarity on it. Um exploring what existed and identifying what are some of our non-negotiables and what are the needs of our identified student populations that are served by this course. um as well as other courses that we have in our course catalog and deciding okay is it clear enough okay then we go to UCIA creation and go for an instructional resource to support any of those courses that don't have a UCIA um because some of our course offerings are of

082course driven by college board and AP courses um or do pathway revision of really looking at our course offerings and saying you know what this pathway is not as robust and aligned as we'd like it to be according to our strategic plan goals and looking at those pathway revision and then creating UCIA. So we divided the work into two pathways or two parts. So from November to January we had a team convene and really they grounded in what is the purpose of this work but also what is the vision? What is that D51 graduate profile and how do our courses serve that and what are the outcomes that we really want to prioritize in this course that does serve a big bulk of our population. Um so they really studied a lot of data. We

083looked at SAT, but we also looked at other um options on the menu of I mean it's got a long title. Colorado's menu of college and career readiness um measures if your SAT score doesn't meet the graduation requirements. And so we studied that and some others. We looked at course description ideas and we also looked at um teacher surveys. We had listening sessions prior to this work starting, but then we also sent surveys out and said these are and I'll show you that data later. Um, but really to identify what do teachers want to see as outcomes of these students in this courses as well. Um, so really the work in that part one timeline led us to look at the pathway and start revising it. Um, and so there was some drafting of different

084pathways and then ultimately we reached consensus on the pathway that you're going to see here in a moment. But I did want to show you also the voting members representation. It was really important in part one that not only did we have the expertise of ELA teachers and the supporting teachers of our, you know, CLD coaches um and our sped teachers who also support those populations in there. It was identified in a January fireside chat when I brought together modern literature teachers that we had very few co-taught 12th grade courses. Um, so that was a need that came out of that and actually led to reshaping of the course offerings just this year of making sure we were meeting those needs more. But because of the implications of the ELA pathway work, we also wanted

085to make sure that we had administrator stakeholders from our high school as well as counselors because there's big implications for making sure that kids are in the right classes and also that master schedules can be built and accommodate our pathways. So out of that work, we had really strong consensus reached by that final fourth meeting. Um, and you'll see that pathway in front of you. And this diagram, I do want to note that it doesn't have the arrows of like this is the way you go. It's this is the way you start because I tried to draw it with arrows, but when you start looking at all the pathway options there are, you couldn't possibly depict it. But the idea is is that top line shows if a student just started in compl 9 and

086stayed on that regular coursework path as opposed to a student who's in starts on that honors path and where they might go. But the beauty of it is is a student could leap from that regular coursework into some more advanced coursework or vice versa depending on where the rigor was for the to meet the needs of those students. So the biggest changes you'll see in this proposed pathway um is that we have AP seminar and AP research which have currently been offered within our district but were English elective credit but they are very rigorous courses. Um, and so we wanted, we had been asked previously for years, why are these only English elective courses? And so we studied those and looked at what they require to see if they were, um, could be crosswalked to

087meet the equivalent of any of these other courses. So you'll see those added in. Um, we also opened up those doors of where those could be offered, offering sophomores the opportunity at schools that can accommodate it within their master schedule of offering AP seminar. Um, there's been a lot of data coming out of College Board that says that students who take that are more prepared to take many AP courses, not just going into something like AP, Langanger, and ELA, but it actually helps them crosscurricularly with a lot of other content areas. Um, and so the other thing that you'll see reflected on here is that on the senior, you won't see modern lit nor British lit as individual courses anymore. we uh the work of this team was to combine those two courses and call

088it complate 12. Um and there's a couple of reasons for that. And so this raster now was presented to CRGC back in uh January uh before we moved forward with the second part of this. We wanted to explain why we expanded the options in the pathway. Real excitements about the idea that there are now much more opportunities to for robust options in ELA for learners in our district. also that schools have flexibility and autonomy in expanding the programming to best fit that school's vision, whether that be STEM or academy, um, AP programs at at lots of different schools or even in support. AP seminar could be a really great course to support my goals and DP goals in that IB program as well. So, it also creates some equity in expanding those ELA credit opportunities,

089and it gives students more voice and choice in really picking what's going to fit their post-graduation pursuits and passions. In terms of collapsing the modern lit and British literature course, um, we wanted to make sure that we could create a UCIA that offers teacher flexibility. We've been teaching this course for a long time without a plan for unified curriculum instruction and assessment mostly because we didn't have one assess one resource that all teachers had access to to ground that work. Um, but it also allows us to focus on relevant skills and experiences um for seniors and really kind of how can we make that course a little bit more tailored for that idea of this is your last half a credit before you head off into the world. It also allows for equity in college

090and career readiness for students who are not in that more rigorous path of really making sure we're meeting those outcomes. Um the available high-quality resources really offer teachers a wealth of grade level text to choose from. Um that we only get supported when we have a high quality resource adopted. It also affords clarity and equity and fidelity in our by having common assessments. So, we can be collaborating and thinking about what's working and what's not working for our learners and in meeting those um mastery of standards that we've named as priorities for this one. It also gives us better collaboration opportunities. Last year in January, calling together 12th grade teachers rarely happens. Almost every inservice we ground in 9, 10, and 11 because those are the ones that have these resources. And so when we

091had these fireside chats, it was like such a powerful opportunity and now we'll have that vein to continue forward. We'll all have one thing in common to be talking about as we're looking at this resource. Um it also gives us a better opportunity to help make things really transparent for our co-supporting teachers, for our fed students and our CLLD students. Um and then it gives us continuity which is obviously great may uh if any student might have the opportunity and has transfers between schools. So with that portion of the work done between January and March and you'll notice that date March 26th was the last time this team met and voted on our resource and then we turned around and presented it to CRGC. Was it the next day? Yes. So it's been a quick

092one. Um but really the grounding of this work was the team shifted a little bit. We no longer needed counselors or principles if they didn't have the time or capacity to serve because now this was really leaping to that expertise of our classroom teachers. Um, but from January to March, we focused on updating course descriptions. So, we I'll show you the new one for Complet 12. Um, and then they really we reviewed the priority data from teachers. What do teachers want to see as outcomes for students? Um, based on our CAST standards and then really starting to think about, okay, what resources are best going to support us in getting to those um, goals as well as what are the common assessments that we're going to create? And interestingly enough, we created common assessments prior

093to adopting a resource. So rather than leaning on the resource to name the assessments and and stealing from those, if you will, we really came up with a vision of what do we want to see students doing regardless of what resource we used to get there. Um, and then of course we had vendor presentations as well on our top two. And then on March 26, we came together and reached consensus and finalized the rest of our recommendation. Um and so now we would have potentially in on May 29th and 30th teachers come together for a summer summer institute. So this was the representation on that second portion of it. We kept some of the same teachers and we added in a couple new um we were really excited to add one who's actually leaving ELA

094and moving into sped. So she's like this great, you know, piece of thinking about what I taught and what I'm learning to teach now. um as well as another sped teacher and we um kept Lisa McCall in there for representation. So this team really at the beginning wrote up their best hopes for Complet 12. What would this course do? Um, and so they would hope that students who left this course finished with independent writing skills and an appreciation for various socioultural perspectives and really have an interest in a variety of media and literacy connections that they could be effective communicators, effective researchers, knowing fact versus crap, um, is one acronym that we always use in teaching that. but having those really critical thinking skills and be prepared regardless of their next steps, whether that be

095filling out applications, uh, reading books or manuals, but always evaluating source credibility and synthesizing and summarizing what they read. Um, and really having guidance on how to evaluateformational texts, but also reading plenty of thought-provoking literature and engaging in meaningful and respectful conversations and having choice in the literature that they read. And lastly, being empowered to reach into their futures with confidence and a sense of ability to communicate their thinking with a sense of their impact on the world. So, high hopes and we love that. Um, so this was a great vision to go into it. And then as we started writing the course description, we looked at past course descriptions and some interesting work came out of it that as we started drafting, one of the teachers said, you know, our course descriptions aren't studentfriendly.

096They're pretty generic. She's like, "What if we wrote course descriptions that got kids excited about the courses that they're going into?" Um, and so we really had a couple of goals. I'm not going to read the whole thing out loud to you, but that was the first most important piece was does this speak to students? Does it also give an overview of the work that they'll be doing? Um, but also was it flexible enough? because we have some really passionate teachers who've taught either modern literature which is you know World War I to postmodern like looking at that period of English literature as opposed to going all the way back to super passionate teachers who teach everything from Beaowolf forward. So we wanted it to still have that where teachers could still tap into their

097expertise and their passions and pass that on to students but still ground in those the the core common assessments that we're all going to have the same student outcomes. So, this course description speaks to that. It also led to revision of all of our other ELA core course descriptions um as well as our honors to really differentiate for students going into the course catalog. So, they were really excited about that work. So, with that in mind, we turned to that um we had 34 responses from teachers of English. We didn't just have it be senior teachers because they all are important on that K12 journey. So, in high school, we had all the 9, 10, 11, and 12th grade teachers um take this survey. And what you'll notice on the right, and sorry, the yellow

098highlighting didn't help on this lighting, but um those are the 10 grade level expectations. And so, in Colorado academic standards, those prepared graduate vertical progressions start at kindergarten. So, what would a kindergartener be doing on their path to achieving these things by 12th grade? And so, teachers, their voting results are over there. Prioritize the ability to I can't even read it from here. Um listen, evaluate and respond. Oh, Sean, that's that magic. No, I don't. Was it me or was it you? It's me. Okay. Um to also read and evaluate complex literature as well as read and evaluate complexformational texts, to write thoughtful and well-developed arguments, and then also to engage in synthesis and summary of multiple authoritative sources as they work on research projects, whatever those projects may be. So knowing that the team

099worked and came up with some common assessments that are really agnostic of any resource. These are projects that we would like teachers to go out and pilot next year and that first year and come back and collaborate around. Um but the first one is a researchbased argument project. And so we thought what better place than in an ELA classroom for students to think about what are their next fields and careers and opportunities and how does literacy matter especially in an age of AI. So there's there's opportunities for question for students to look from that lens as well as just from a real career specific lens of what type of writing and reading do I need to do and speaking in my field. Um and so that would be it's kind of envisioned that it could

100almost be a semesterl long capstone project where you introduce that kind of to launch the class and then read a lot of things throughout the course of the class but kids are continuously checking in along this project as they think about their own paths. And then the the middle option, the fiction or non-fiction panel discussion. We thought it'd be nice for students to participate in something you might see in any industry conference. So they read either a work of fiction that's a little bit longer or work of non-fiction that's longer and they come together. So if this in front of you were the panel, we're the experts. None of the rest of you in the room read this work of fiction. Um and so we would have a discussion while an audience listened and learned

101from and then had question and answer period. Um, and then the last one was a literary analysis project where students would pick a story and think about it across time. So even if I go all the way to back to Ba Wolf, why did that story matter in its context and why does it still matter to me in my day in my context? And so that was those were really the three that we thought broached those five GLE. So some of them will tap more than one at once. Even the research one has a speaking option within it. So, we're hitting both of those two um grade level expectations. So, with th that in mind, the team went in and and really studied and used the same. I didn't go over the rubric because ours

102is very similar. Obviously, our ELA specific category had be had different better sorry had look fors that spoke more specifically to reading, writing, and communication. But, um our recommend recommended resource is Savis My Perspectives, uh which you are probably familiar with. I pitched it for 6th through 8th last year after our our recommended resource, but it's also what 9, 10, and 11 have. Um, but the British and world lit is a very comprehensive. It's hefty and I have copies for you to take with you to peruse, but like I said, it's six units and it starts at the at Beaolf and ends current. Um, and there's current British and world and contemporary texts woven into every unit, even if you are studying early Anglo-Saxon literature. Um, and so this would be a hybrid model that's

103similar to what we already have in 9, 10, and 11 where we have classroom sets of hard cop copy textbooks and students can access the entire student edition um online on the platform and then we would adopt digital licenses that would have all the other robust supports that exist within um their SAVS realize platform. So highlights, I won't go into all of them. you have this document in front of you which has lots more bullets than you're even on the slide but it really met the vision that was set out at the beginning of our work to look at the strategic plan and our graduate profile and our TLF but the biggest highlight we see now is we will have 612 alignment of core resources for ELA um so we've never had a better opportunity

104to be really vertically aligned um and have PL learning opportunities that we could technically and if we had the space we could have 6 through 12 come together because the structures um are very much for gradual release of responsibility are are similar from 6 through 12. Is it going in? Okay. Um but it also helps us avoid redundancies. So there's not this like hey we read this in 8th grade sort of an aspect that's always kind of existed. It's laid out from 6 through 12. Um and then we also saw that this one's design it's because it's so comprehensive. It allows for systemata systematic and explicit instruction of reading, writing and language, but there's a lot of opportunities for speaking and listening, but veterans and novice teachers also get that ability to have some flexibility

105and teacher autonomy. So to keep that passion, but have the alignment and consistency and that really all of it's moving towards supporting mastery of our common district UCIA performance assessments and those student outcomes. Um and then we can also have a really effective and efficient implementation because all of our 910 and 11 12 910 and 11 teachers will already be familiar with the Savas Realize platform. So really a lot of our implementation will focus on refreshers and deeper dives um and can really focus on what are what is it going to look like as we implement these common assessments. Um they thought that it had student opportunity to ponder their own futures and cultures through that lens of literature. um not just having to study certain literature but really thinking about themselves. Um and then

106it engages adolescent learners and there's lots of avenues of study within all of those literary periods and that there's lots of incorporation of world and contemporary texts. So it doesn't feel like oh we just only study those ancient texts because to kids everything's ancient and Shakespeare doesn't speak real English. [Laughter] Um, and then there's a lot of tier one instructional personalization for inclusive and differentiated teaching and learning. And so that was another highlight. So again, with the board's approval, Jackie gets to move into negotiations on these costs. So these are um approximations. Um, so you'll notice that line, but the one thing I can say for shy is that the teacher resource materials are zero dollars. Um, and so we've asked that we can get up to 30 teacher editions. So, that will help us

107not only be the 12th grade teachers, but also to make sure we have them for SPED and CD as well. Um, but our student resource materials, we're looking for 550 hardcover student editions. That's kind of an estimate. We've really got to look at our enrollment numbers. It it's a blessing and a curse. If we opened up those pathways and we have more kids taking AP, then they wouldn't be tapping into these resources. So, we want to make sure we get that number right because I hate to see a bunch of them get dusty on a shelf. Um, but so that's an approximation there. And then we would want 750 total digital licenses because you need one of those for every student. Um, and those are six-year licenses. And then also within that, they offer us

108two novels per student edition license so we can beef up some of our classroom libraries and have opportunities for things like lit circles or book studies on top of um the shorter works that are going to exist within our textbook. Um, and then the shipping fees, those are always negotiable as well. Um, and then professional learning, that's really an approximation, not because I don't have exact costs, but what they typically offer, we've already had. So, they usually have what's called program activation and program implementation essentials are the first two that they roll out, but our teachers have that and are beyond that. So it would really be the vendors supporting us and us thinking creatively about how to relaunch curriculum and show some of the aspects that they might not show in those first couple

109of days as we think about summer institute and then inservice opportunities throughout the next year. So a currently unnegotiated 184,000 is what we're looking at. Nope. Oh, and so currently teachers um we hope to offer professional learning um and I'm really want to work as soon as we can get this approved and Jackie can work negotiation magic. I'm going to try and push the vendor to send us the teacher auditions ASAP because I want them to have those before they leave for summer and not like the day before they leave for summer. And then but they will have access to the reviewer page and access to the digital demo account which we will make sure you have as well. And I did bring books and they're hefty. We call it body by curriculum. Textbooks are

110heavy. So that is my last slide. If you have any questions, oh nope, lied. So PL needs and ideas for implementation. We really just kind of had teachers capture their best thinking knowing that we wouldn't just go straight with vendor, but what are some opportunities? And so they really like the idea of a digital refle refresher um of every teacher could engage in that. And a lot of our teachers don't just teach 12th grade, they teach 9, 10, and 11 as well. Um, but also that we could start backwards planning with some strategies modeled for a specific unit. Maybe the vendor could come in and help in that area. Um, but also familiarized with scaffolds and best practices and the use of those scaffolds. Um, and then really focusing on our vertical alignment and really

111thinking about, hey, now I look at 11th grade and what did they just do and how do I build upon that instead of sometimes as an English teacher, it's not remediation, but we just don't know what to cover until we put it in front of kids and go, "Oh, wait. They don't have that yet." or we put it in front of them, they go, "Oh, wait. They do have that. Let's move forward." So, this would help us with that. And then they could collaborate on a course opening or introduction that really thinks about that research project and almost as a capstone piece. And then just collaboration that celebrates and taps into their shared previous successes too. We don't want teachers to just throw out everything they've been doing that's worked for years, but really bring

112that in and think about how that can be supportive of the work going forward. That's the last line. I don't know if it is. There's nothing to hit. It is. It is. I just want to add a little bit of context. I'm I'm wondering if you're thinking, "Wow, 180 when in our life is $185,000." Not so much. These are two of the least expensive um resources that we've been that we've brought to you in the last couple years. If you remember our elementary um resource, it was it was $2.2 $2 million, but that was an entire system K5. So, while I do expect Jackie to use her negate ne negotiation uh skills and you will see hopefully some reduction in that price, these are two relatively as compared inexpensive and it's because it's one grade.

113It's fourth grade only and then it's 12th grade only where our seniors have additional or optional course classes to take. All of our fourth graders will take um Colorado history. So it's a pleasure and and kind of a awkward and a weird spot that we come to you for with such um low re um recommendations. Don't get used to it. So if I read it correctly though it's a sixyear so that amount if you split it over six years it's like 30 grand even less. So okay and so is the text. Okay and we will have enough we are getting hard cover again for this too. Okay which I only asked that because we're getting a lot of questions about not wanting kids on screens even for the books. So but having hard copies. Okay.

114Correct. And that actually was one of the reasons that teachers went for this resource over another. Um, one of them they we were in love with what was offered digitally, but it required students to be on a computer considerably and the textbook itself um just didn't have that appeal. Like to a student it actually was really intimidating of how much text there was even compared to like the ratio of even having visuals which we know how much that supports some of our special populations to have a visual to go with the text. Um, so really that was the benefit of this one is if I am a learner in a classroom and I just opened up the print edition, there's a lot of things I can work with and a lot of supports there for

115me just on that page without me having to go to a digital device. So I do have a question about so like looking at our graduation requirements uh level 12 literature is a half credit which is a semester correct? So it would be a half year. Is this something that's going to encompass um is this going to be a half a semester or a semester? So this would be half the year they would go all the way up till Christmas break and then would it encompass the English elective as well in the second half or is this just Okay, so this is just going to encompass the level 12 literature and it'll be half a year. So, we would potentially have, and I mean, I'm sure you guys are going to work out the numbers

116as far as how many we would have one semester and how many we would have a second semester. Um, but that those uh I have it in front of me. Let me scroll down a little bit. The permits essentially, the licenses. The licenses. Yeah. That's that's taking into consideration two semesters worth a year. Yes. Yeah, Jack. Oh, yeah. Do you want I Yeah, the digital licenses will be able to accommodate us across both semesters. And of the 25 credits that a student needs in district 51 to graduate, this really is most often the very last credit that students earn. So really, I have time. I have four years or more to earn those 25 credits. What course typically comes last. It truly this really is the last course that most students take. And so it's

117pretty important. It's been a long time coming as Kristen said to have a unified course, unified um course description and resource, common vision, common assessments. really powerful for students across our system to have a capstone course connected to credit and and just the whole idea of having that unified resource 6 through 12 is really I have to be honest I do like that it builds on when we've already approved the SAVIS because we have heard from students like when we've gone to like Whiteford's class they're like sometimes they get bored in their upper level classes because they're like I already either read this in 8th grade or I already did this, you know, and then they're like, why am I doing this again? And so, and I don't blame them, right? If you've um so

118either obviously we have to have a teacher pivot um or the student is bored and so um I like if we can have the resources work together and then it builds, you know, we have a longevity of building um through all those grades um to really help support the student because it's really kind of foundational, right? We're trying to build really just sort of this knowledge base um not just not just training the student but sort of a knowledge base of like you know classics and literature and you know learning about Colorado and then you know just and then the world and different you know things as they're kind of going through this journey between like the social studies and then the literacy and then all kind of complementing together. So, I like obviously one

119resource can do can weave that together better than trying to get a couple different ones together. So, that's just my perspective as far as thinking about approving something from, you know, and what the board wants to spend, you know, spend the districts or taxpayer dollars money on. So, I think Kristen really saw that same benefit, too. And we knew it was the team's decision to make a recommendation. And if had they selected the other to put forward, we'd of course support it. But it is quite nice that this is a core resource 612 for that very reason. And that's also why the novels weren't listed because we want to make sure that we select novels that increase what students have access to. We've got book rooms with lots of texts and so we don't want

120to be duplicating those. So we have time to make those purchases until we inventory all that text. and and maybe jumping ahead just a little bit as well. I you know I just want to thank Kristen and a number of our content specialists that the work that goes in before the actual resource resources are reviewed and selected that pathway work um excuse me later this later this evening we're going to have a first reading of our IKF graduation requirement um policy and it's be we're coming to you for to look at uh a renaming of that because so much of the work that has been done Thank you to our community for the mill dollars and we get to continue that work but so much pathway work needs to be completed. I don't have a

121problem with 1970 was the year I was born but maybe it is not it is not uh the best year for um a textbook. So because of that um we need some updating with our uh graduation policy and then we are going to come actually back to you later um probably sometime in the fall and we want to pull out the um explicit or the naming of we know that we are going to have those each credit for you know the four ELA the three math the three science and the three social studies but because standards change our um committees come together to identify what that path way looks like we would like to put that in regs. So, I don't know if you want to mention anything else, Jackie. So, you just have a

122little more context and background why we're coming and we're going to come back. And I think we've said that to them a couple of times. So, we've got to come back. You named it already. In graduation policy, it's called 12th level, level 12 literature. Uh, and so those course titles haven't changed in many years. And you'll see that under math and under science, the courses that are required for credit aren't listed. That's a big problem for students and for families and for our counselors or school administrators. So, we need a mechanism to keep that up to date. Uh it still says global studies, but you approved a resource adoption for world studies. Uh econ isn't listed as the required course. It's there's just an elective credit sitting there. And the rhythm for getting it approved

123in policy is frankly too slow to keep up with now that the mill dollars have moved to high school to keep up with the realignment of pathways. And we need one place to list all the courses so it's transparent to students and to families so that we can get our course codes right so you can map plan and a future. So by moving it to regulations we can actually provide more information more clarity and more regulates. And so tonight you won't see in policy uh you won't see it redlined where it reads does it read level 12 literature the course that you heard connected to this is we we are calling complate 12 and that's what it'll appear in synergy and that's what it'll appear on a transcript and so by the summer or by

124fall we would like the that course to be updated in regulations but instead of bringing each and everyone to you and waiting which becomes a real problem for getting transcripts accurate We have people in our tech department tonight who are waiting for this so they can update transcripts. Um we need we need it to move to REGG so we can be accurate. Yeah. Well, I will say we got a lot of use out of a 1970s textbook. So I mean well done. Familiar if you go through I mean that was we got a lot of use out of that. We had that was well spent. Yeah. Well done from board 197. We reindar got to the point where it's out of print. Well, couldn't even reorder it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good

125job So, um you guys will go home this evening, but we'll make sure that before you go home, you have both um sets or both of the resources, the texts. Will there also be a list of the um novels that are available or the the the books that are available to two that are purchased? Yes. Huge list. is we actually we actually postponed we didn't order any of that as part it's kind of like they have an IOU with us we don't order any of those in year one when implementation because until we know what's in the scope of just the unit itself within the textbook we really don't know where and then middle schools also still retain those previous classroom libraries they have a pretty rich classroom library so that's part of the work

126that's going to start conversations just right now as we end the year is like okay how could we envision using a novel. The the resource has more than a teacher could ever teach in the scope of a year anyway. Um and so really it's thinking about that. Um so there will be a huge catalog, but we will do a lot of thinking and get to select from that. But you'll notice when you take home the books to look through there, you're going to see unit aligned novels are named those are their thinking. But that doesn't mean that the two books they give us we have to pick from those. That's just what they would suggest. usually based on thematic connections. Yeah. So would a so if so if it's a unit um so if we

127already have classroom libraries then how is a teacher picking something uh I I think what Barb is looking for is how are we knowing what sort of novels you guys are going to be choosing for those those units can bring it back I think maybe I think we're looking for just maybe a general idea of like kind of what novels you guys are going to be recommending I'll send you the um it's a PDF. I asked for it myself. Um because some of the unit align novels also um we would look at what do we already own in our book rooms and high schools are different because they've um have budgets that they sometimes like might have not titles right within a building um and they are reluctant to let go of those. So there's

128there's lots of classics. Yeah. Um you're not going to buy any more Frank or something. Well, honestly, that might be a unit aligned title, might be something like a Frankenstein. And so, we might identify three out of four high schools don't have it. And we would want to make sure if we're going to say, okay, for 12th grade, this is an approved title. We want to pick that up for that fourth school who doesn't have it. Yeah. So, that would really be what we're looking at is looking at what we already have, what would we approve, and going through a process that way before we ever reached out to Savas and said, "Hey, we want to spend all that money." Um, because middle school it's it's it's a large number. I think it's like 8400

129books that we get. Um, gotch. Director Evansson, was that kind of what you were wondering is just maybe what resource or novels were? Yes. Well, I mean, I was kind of just looking at what the big picture was, like what we had to choose from, but you're saying it's a pretty extensive list. Um, but then also, you know, how would we determine So, you've kind of answered that as well. Yeah. and then like what the process would be in order to determine which books. So yeah, I mean at some point if we have a better idea of how that's going to look like we'd appreciate some clarity on that at some point. She would love to come back and share that process. Well, or if you just want to email the board like these are

130kind of some ideas we have. I that's I don't we don't need to make it really complicated. I think we're just kind of, you know, curious what texts, you know, they're going to be kind of reading throughout, you know, some ideas. And what I would love to do is support that. Gosh, told you I'm loud. Um, what I would love to do is support that work. Similarly, what we did with 9, 10, and 11 is we surveyed teachers. We looked at the unit aligned titles. One of them for the first adoption was actually a title that we would not have purchased as a district. And so, we kind of nixed. that had some really because they're often going to be something that is a more complex Lexile level and something that also has those themes

131that are like right here towards the end of our high school are very going to be very mature and there was one that we didn't feel would be like no teacher felt comfortable using it and so we nixed that. So we actually surveyed teachers and proposed some titles and then looked at those and so that's what you currently see in our um current scope and sequence for high school for those classes. And then we also did the same thing because we were doing that work at middle school with the classroom libraries. We created those parent info sheets too. So I would envision that the work going forward wouldn't be like these are required novels. It would be the lit circles piece again especially because if you look at those best hopes for that course, we

132want to have a lot of student choice. So that would be coupled with parents having that information of hey this is what your students picking. Um, is this a good option for your child because they're not yet an adult in the world yet? Perfect. That's great. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. That's really good information. Appreciate it. So, all right. So, next up we have our update on the school closure and hiring update. So, the board had wanted to uh get an update, you know, obviously with the um school consolidation process. We wanted to hear how things were going with um obviously the schools that were consolidated with the schools that were receiving and see how that process was going. So, we wanted to have HR and operations um come and give us an update.

133Are you ready? Hi. Hello. I'm back. Wait, I never I never left. So, this evening, we're going to give you an update on the transition process and the timeline for our that closure process for our closing and receiving schools. This evening, you're going to hear from the three of us, academics, operations, and HR. Um, you have heard from Mel already and I think we ever she's planned to come back later. So, she doesn't have any specific updates for all of us or you this evening. So, as a reminder of what the mission and purpose for these closure processes are, um, it's something that again that that my team we look at frequently and often. We are committed to addressing the adaptive challenges of school closure um process with empathy, collaboration, and student centered focus. By

134fostering unity and transparent communication, we will guide our community through the loss, learning, and reinvention necessary to ensure a transition that prioritizes what's best for our students. Here again is that our phases. We've got our four phases and how they line out um by our months. We went over phase one that was in January and February building that empathy and understanding of what needed to be done and then March and April April that is exactly where we're at that planning and implementation welcoming those three bullets underneath welcoming and culture building activities are continued. They identified some in the last phase but now they're really digging in positions. You'll hear more about that from HR um posted and the hiring and then those initial steps toward moving and organizing our physical spaces. Um so first, no,

135is it just me? Yeah, just a reminder um to support um both closing and receiving schools and manage complex change, the district has established a comprehensive and coordinated system of meetings. Initially, these included alternating weekly meetings with closing and receiving teams alongside district personnel. However, these meetings are now combined. So, we meet both with our closing and receiving. Um, they've done that twice already. We have another one tomorrow. Um, and then of course we have our weekly senior leadership team meetings focused on closure updates and logistics. our weekly collaboration between teaching and learning and student services to align instructional supports during ILT. Additionally, operations and the teaching and learning staff meet weekly every Thursday at 1:30 with Clint um to plan logistics and weekly meetings with site directors and building principles to ensure clear consistent

136communication and alignment across all levels. I'll now pass it on to Nikki. Great. Thank you. Um, so just an update from human resources. Um, we put this slide together as of Friday the 28th. So even since then and our numbers change pretty much on a daily basis, but as of last Friday, we had a 100 resignations and retirements across the system, which is pretty typical for this time of year. Um, we did post positions on the 18th of February. And you can see the breakdown by level. And then as of the 28th of March, and that's essentially five weeks of hiring because I'm not counting spring break when no interviews took place and and jobs weren't offered that week. So, we're five weeks into this. So, it's still very early on in our hiring process.

137Uh but the number of licensed opening as of last Friday were 21 at elementary, middle school was 16, high school was nine and alternative was four. Oh, did I go too far? No. Okay. Okay. Um so this slide just pertains to licensed staff. So from our three closing elementary schools, we've had five resignations or retirements. 41 from closing schools have has have accepted a position. Uh 21 are still seeking. Um the average number of interviews for staff, those licensed staff at closing schools has been an average of four interviews. And uh we've had 12 people from closing schools haven't applied for anything yet. So, for support staff, and I I I just want to remind everybody that the majority of our support staff positions typically post later in the school year. So, we have posted

138some after spring break. We did post a few in March, but we'll see more openings um just because we typically get those resignations and retirements a little bit later in the school year. So, uh, number of resignations and retirements of support staff from closing schools are three. Um, right now we have 27 that have accepted a position. Uh, 12 are still actively seeking a position. And then I also just wanted to note that custodians in nutritional services will be reassigned in their department. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Clint. Thanks, Nikki. As you can imagine, with all of the bond work that we have going on and the closures and the receiving schools, there are a lot of things to work out and and we're how we get teachers into the right

139classrooms and um with everything that's happening on the hiring and moving people around. So, um to support the upcoming school closures and transitions, several coordinated efforts have already are already underway. We've scheduled the delivery of nearly 12,000 packing boxes to all of our closure and receiving sites with a completion expected by the end of day on April 4th for them to have all those boxes to support efficient site clearances. 11 dumpsters have been placed across all the locations uh along with carts and plastics totes to assist staff with moving materials. Just to be clear, those um those 11 dumpsters are to get rid of any of the um trash in the buildings. We know that the dumpsters that we have there are not going to be adequate to take care of all of those buildings,

140especially when we're having to clear out some of those buildings completely for asbestos and abatement. So cross departmental uh support teams including warehouse facilities, IT purchasing and custodial have been working closely to align timelines to ensure smooth communication. In addition, our instructional and operational teams are meeting weekly to coordinate planning, address storage needs, and ensure transitions go as smoothly as possible. The work continues to be closely aligned with ongoing bond projects to ensure logistics between closure sites and receiving schools and that they're carefully managed. Next slide. All right. Key dates and logist logistics have been set to support staff and ensure smooth transitions. Staff will have their final work day on May 20th with um a dedicated packing day on May 22nd, allowing time to focus on closure duties to support storage needs during construction.

14146 ConX boxes have been allocated and scheduled for delivery to school sites. Already large-scale moves of furniture and curriculum will begin on May 23rd immediately following pack by packing. Additionally, purchasing will host a book giveaway on June 11 and 11th and 14th. And all of these efforts are aligned to minimize disruption and ensure schools are prepared and ready for the new school year. Then the next slide and not to be outdone by Amazon, we've come out with our own way of making sure that everything gets to where it needs to go. And so Jackie and her team have done a great job. We've all worked together to to put together a label that um our teachers can use to put on all of our boxes. That top left number is um a school code and

142that's a school code that the warehouse uses um normally. So that's aligned. Everybody knows what school it's going to. uh the destination room number, of course, the teacher's name, any notes that we need to add on there, that title box is if there's any title material or uh that's going to another school, they check that box and maybe add some notes on there as well. And then the conx box will have several different conxes at each building. Some that are labeled just for the materials at the site and then stuff that's coming from a different site and it goes in a different conic. So, uh, a little bit to think through there, but this box, this label is going to help us, uh, get through that hopefully without any, uh, hitches. It will, not for

143the lack of planning and trying. That's right. Okay. Um, the So, now academics. Um, the district is committed to supporting schools and maintaining high quality teaching and learning throughout the 2425 school year. Transition teams are meeting regularly at each site to guide and support school specific transition activities. Schools are also receiving assistance with inventory processes and the transfer of curriculum materials. Title one uh funded items and other classroom resources. Student support services is actively identifying planning for students with IEPs, ALPS, 504s, and multilingual learners supports to ensure that continuity of service. In addition, preparations are underway for the relocation and the reduction of classrooms and the overall moving process that Clint um just mentioned, closing and receiving schools. There's obviously a very tight um relationship between teaching and learning and um our operations side of

144the house. while they're moving all the stuff. Reminder, 90% of the stuff that is being moved is instructional. So, the teaching and learning department um has created a dashboard that monitors staff placement stats, furniture and technology and curriculum needs. These needs are being identified and addressed by two ways. We've done it both by move a staff moving meetings. So, entire um staff meetings showing them h how many boxes they're getting, identifying what goes in the box, what doesn't go in the box, what goes home, and what goes to the dumpster. What do they need to throw away, pile, pack, and take home? and they've been instructed to do that with a buddy so they know exactly what Jackie's been very good on what trash is and what needs to go where and what needs to

145go home. We recognize the deep emotional impact and the constant decision-making that staff in both closing and receiving schools are navigating. These transitions bring not only logistical challenges challenges but also personal and professional stress for teachers, students and families. That's why it is more important than ever that we approach this work with intentionality and care. And you just see a picture. It's small, but it's just sharing you an idea or a snapshot of what our that dashboard looks like. um monitoring and responding to round changes in all elementary schools. This is an example of some of the information being collected on the elementary closure draft um dashboard. We are collecting regarding school grade and the number of rounds or rounds are the number of classrooms. This slide is busy but what's mo most important are

146the colors. You can see the red arrow indicates um a decline in the number of rounds. A green arrow indicates the increase in the rounds and at that grade. And yellow, the yellow indicates no change in rounds at that grade level at all. And what's so important is when you see down, you know that that classroom has an entire um classroom full of resources. What do we do with those resources? And then you see the ones that are up. And so we know that there needs to be an additional classroom. The interesting thing is that we have from our closing schools, they may be coming from a second grade, but they're moving to a third grade. And so we need to make sure that that it's it's a brand new classroom maybe at Orchard Avenue,

147but they're coming from Nizzley. And so we have to ensure that they have all of the resources that they need. So it's there's a lot of logistics. Where is Windgate on this? I just took a snapshot of the top. Yeah, it would be long. We would have all of our schools and it'd be really small. I can give that to you if you don't mind. No, not at all. Yeah. Um, so as part of our district supported transition efforts, closing and receiving elementary school principles are participating in collaborative meetings focused on key topics to support a smooth student centered transitions. These sessions provide structured time to explore themes such as building empathy and understanding, fostering synergy with transition teams, their own building transition teams, and aligning on student placement protocols. Principles also engage in discussions

148around planning for belonging, role norming, and communication alignment, all with the goal of ensuring consistency and care across school communities. These meetings offer valuable time for collaboration, shared problem solving, and strengthening a collective approach to this important work in pursuit to meet the mission of our closure, the mission that I read to you at the beginning. So, our school-based transition teams transition planning is being driven by dedicated school-based teams that are meeting weekly or bi-weekly to guide the work at each site. There is a strong sense of collaboration and a very positive energy with these groups. Principles are working closely together in closing and receiving cohorts to ensure alignment across campuses to include family voice in the process. Um the CEI parent survey we are in um partnership with CI. They're helping us was administered

149to gather input with what families value most during the transition. Survey results have been shared with the schools and are being used to inform and coordinate their plans and activities, showing great alignment between family priorities and school-based efforts. Schoolbased transition teams continue to play a critical role in um guiding thoughtful sightspecific planning for both closing and receiving schools. for closing schools. Teams are checking in regularly on staff well-being um support and to support a strong finish to the school year and identify packing challenges um early to stay ahead of the process. How many boxes are each one of 40 boxes per teacher? Um they are also coordinating the end ofear events that honor their own school communities while planning for meaningful connections with their receiving schools. At receiving schools, transition teams are equally focused on

150finishing the year strong, anchoring their work and how they want all current and future families, students, and staff to feel as they move forward together. Teams are identifying activities and events to welcome new families and students, building a sense of belonging from the start. In both settings, planning is underway for future future transitions, including facility adjustments and preparations that ensure continued alignment in the sport to the support to the new year. This is something that's really exciting. Each of our receiving schools are recre are creating a family resource guide for their new and returning families. The purpose of the family resource guide for receiving schools is to provide clear, accessible, and supportive information to help families navigate the transition with confidence and ease. Specifically, these guides welcome families to their new school community and foster

151a sense of belonging. Answer common questions about logistics, programs, schedules, transportation, meals, before and after school um care, and certain points of contact. Introduce key staff and roles to families who who reach out and feel and then that helps them feel more connected. highlight school expectations and opportunities, maybe such as clubs, events, or family engagement activities, and provide tools and timelines to help families plan and stay informed throughout this transition. Ultimately, this guide is meant to reduce uncertainty, strengthen communication, and build trust by ensuring families feel informed, welcomed, and supported every step of the way. That is it. Question. What is on your parent surveys? What's your percentage of parents that actually filled out? Um, let me ask our family partner people. What was the percentage of student or families that filled out the survey?

152Come on up. That was for the survey. But did you guys not do um interviews? You called families and so we Yeah. So, um, receiving schools called families, most of the receiving schools called, um, most of the families to welcome them to their new school. Um, what we, what our department did was we had schools give us a list of families that were unable to contact to try to reach out and see if we can connect with them. So, we did not rely on the surveys alone. And so how did we end up or how have we where are we at at this point? Yeah. How many more were were you able to connect with and contact? So to fill out that survey? Well, so you said you did the survey, but then you've reached

153out beyond that. The receiving schools have reached out. Do we have any What was the purpose the survey? The purpose was to get feedback on the needs for the transitions. Right. Right. That's is that different than contacting families from the receiving schools to get them information for the welcoming? So, it's it's accomplishing two different goals. Okay, that's on. You got to get super close to it. So obviously you guys did all that you could to you know between Tracy's department to receiving schools to the survey to connecting families. So yeah, I've heard some great feedback from uh just different people in the communities about I guess feeling welcomed at the schools. So just kind of just in passing. So I I've I've heard some good feedback on how how they're feeling welcomed in. Yeah. In

154the last couple of weeks, I've I think as as um staff has gotten positions, they have that a little more secure feel. Um so I've heard from staff, but I've also heard from some families that they've been really pleased with the welcome. Yeah, I've heard from Orchard Avenue and from Windgate and Broadway, just different people I've bumped into. So, well, and to reiterate what Jen mentioned, this is not like an easy process. And so, you know, nobody wants to go through it, but um the team has gotten better. Unfortunately, we've had to do this multiple times. Y'all know this, but has gotten better with that process. And so, um you know, a lot of these things that were presented tonight weren't in place when we closed a school three years ago. So, um really appreciate

155the team for taking feedback every time this happens and saying, "Okay, how can we get better at it?" um knowing it won't ever be perfect, but this is a lot better than what we had a few years ago. So, appreciative to the team for all their work. I I really want to give a um I have a deep appreciation for all of our teachers obviously, right? But our our closing teachers really making sure that they are ending this year strong with their our students are only going to have one third grade year, one fifth grade year and ensuring that our students are receiving that highquality education that they all know that they deserve. And um I say that their their um lanes or they their highway has gotten bigger. making sure that that that handoff

156to the next school that their students know and understand where and their families know where they're going, what they're going to um expect. And that family re those family resource guides that um has been and in collaboration with our communications department, I think is going to be um an added bonus as well. And frankly, we hope that every one of our schools, not this year, but um in the next coming years, we'll have one of those source um one of those resource books for each one of the schools. That's great. So, I know the board will likely get another update from HR as I know that more and more positions will obviously be opening up. Like you said, dayto-day it's it's ever changing. So, thank you for those updates as we'll um hopefully just see

157getting people placed. So, board, any other questions for the team here? Okay. Thank you everybody for the update. Appreciate it. All right. Um so, board, you do have we have the first reading of policy IKF. Um my understanding is these are um changes we needed to make per state adjustments, right? So we redlined these per just some wording from the state on graduation requirements. So there's a little bit of redlinining here for what we needed to change from, you know, global studies to world studies and Yeah. And it's some of the course offerings that we have. Course offerings. Yeah. So it's nothing I mean earth shaking. So, I mean, I just want our community to kind of know what we're looking at. Um, and board just again, you have from now till our next meeting

158if you have any questions. Um, but again, these were more the course offerings and kind of some changes to the wording for those courses um because of what's coming from from the state. So, um, if you have any questions on those, just make sure you talk with Jackie or get with Tammy. um for those red lines for this policy. So, first reading for that. So, we have nothing to vote on. Um and so, open board discussion. Anything any questions? Got the board coffee coming up on Saturday. Yep. We have the board coffee on Saturday at P Park. Um and then Guess we have a few more things. Did So, are we just bumping You just wanted to bump the early release to next meeting. We just needed to work a few more things out before

159you bring that forward. Okay. Great. Thanks. I just wanted I've had a lot of people ask me questions about it lately. So, um that's Yeah, we just want to make sure all of our What is it? Eyes are dotted and te are crossed. Okay, great. That's that's fine. I'm sure people are going to ask if there was a vote tonight. So, um just to make sure that they know um that it still will be an agenda item down the road. So, okay. Um All right. Anything anything else? Okay. All right. Thank you everybody for your time this evening. So, stay warm. So, I think the next few days are supposed to be still a little chilly. So, all right. Thank you everybody.