3/4/25 Board Meeting

001All right. Well, good evening everyone. We'll go ahead and get started. We'll um go ahead and call the meeting to order. And uh Director Evansson, would you like to kick us off with the pledge? So, all right. If you can stand with us, please. We'll do the pledge. To the flag of America to the standy. All right. Thank you. All right, Amy, we can go ahead and we'll take roll call. Mr. Chavez, here. Mrs. Evansson here. Mrs. Heights here. Mr. Jones here. Miss Lima here. All right. So, um the reason we're doing uh we're kind of doing a business session tonight is because we do have a few business items at the end of the meeting. So, um first up, we do have our new strategic plan update. So, Dr. Hill, you want to take

002that on? Thank you, President Heights. Uh we have I think uh Dr. Carter, are you online? Uh I'm here. I can't see you guys. Oh, that's probably best. Um that's okay. Uh, and then I don't know if you have uh if you have slides, if you want to present, if not, if you're just chatting, we can see you now. So, I'll um just kick it off by saying thanks to um Alex for being here. Alex is with CI. Uh they ran the process for our current strategic plan three years ago and they are now helping us create our next five-year strategic plan. And so, the board had asked for an update and um so, Alex is here to uh present an update on where we are in the process and where we're headed. I'll I'll

003kick it over to you. Great. Hi board. Good to see you. Um excited to present to you today because we've we're about halfway through our strategic plan design with uh with D51. It's pretty exciting where we're at. This is my team at CI. Uh Paul Beck uh you've probably seen. He's been leading a lot of the meetings. Alicia Roberts has also been a big part of it. And finally, Jiren Smith is our data scientist. she zooms in and helps us think about um what what what D-51 might do next in the strategic plan. I love this picture. Dr. Hill shared it at the first uh um steering committee meeting. This is actually a picture from the uh the steering committee way back in 2021. You can see we're all wearing masks. It was during COVID.

004You can actually see in the back there, that's Dr. Ciro in the back. This is when Dr. Hill was our assistant superintendent. Um, and and I want you to remember this group that we used to brag all over the state about the um the amount of interest we saw in uh Mesa Valley to help build the strategic plan. Um, and uh it's really kind of um exciting to see this picture to remember we had like 4550 people involved in the creation of the three-year strategic plan that we're just finishing up in D51. Um, and that uh strategic plan produced some really cool stuff. This is your graduate profile where you say that you want all all D-51 students to graduate engaged, equipped, and empowered. They're creative problem solvers. They're culturally connected and they're ready for

005career in life. And that's the northstar. That's not going to change. This is such a great graduate profile. In fact, when we saw some of the feedback, especially from uh teachers and principles, they're like, "We love the graduate profile. Keep that as our northstar." And that's been really refreshing to hear. And then we had um the three focus areas and nine strategic priorities, which you guys are probably sick of hearing about. I hope not actually because it's really it's actually a really great opportunity for you to constantly be testing the district. Are you moving forward on your strategic priorities? Um, so that was the 22 to 25 plan. Um, and and I want you to remember that this is all based in a theory of action. This is Jim Carter. Jim Carter is a professor

006at Harvard and this is his change management. He says any big change, any good changes probably follow a a change management process like this one where you start with a a sense of urgency. You build a guiding coalition. You form that strategic vision. Then you enlist a volunteer army. enable action by removing barriers, generate those first wins. That was really the first year like 2022 2023 of uh implementation of the last strategic plan. Then you sustain acceleration. You institute the changes that are needed and and hopefully that's what you're getting to at the end of a strategic plan. And what that does is it brings you back to the beginning because now you've got a new a new set of challenges. And that's where we're at now. Strategic planning are the first three steps in

007the Carter model. um the sense of urgency. We're doing great, but we want to do even better. Can we get people together to help us form the next vision for our district? That's the guiding coalition. And then you use that guiding coalition to help form your strategic vision. That's where we're at right now. And we're building the 2025 to 2030, a five-year strategic plan. And I have a big question mark there because we have no idea what that plan's going to have in it. We we know that it's probably not going to be a giant departure because that's what we're hearing from all the input we're getting from all over the community is let's stay the course. We're excited about the progress we're making and we're not done yet. But there are definitely going to

008be some changes because we've also heard that that there's some different focus areas that we want or different like priorities that some of the people in the community want us to think about. So, we're in the middle of creating this plan. We'll see how it comes out in about two months, but we're excited about it because this process that we're investing in is one that um uh people are are really resonating with and a lot of people are involved. Remember um this is like I this is the worst graphic. I made this graphic like four years ago and I I have to remake it, but it it's I like it because it's kind of like a a funnel, right? You're funneling the input from the community through the steering committee where the steering committee is

009like making sense of it and and putting ideas out there. It goes to that core design team. Those are your educational professionals led by Dr. Hill that senior staff principles, the people that are really expert in education and then it comes to you board for revision, for input, and for um uh approval. You you notice that these are these are two-way arrows. we it's not just coming to you board. You also have to say, "Hey, what about this? We'd like to see this." So, that's a that the flow goes back and forth and and we're gonna hopefully have lots of opportunities. It's been great to see so many board members um attending these meetings. Um, one of the things I want you to know about is who's been involved in putting their voice into this

010plan. And it's really impressive. Um, first of all, um, we put out a a leadership survey back in December, um, and, uh, January. We asked school leaders and district leaders in D51, hey, what do you what do you want to see in a new strategic plan? We had 86 respondents. So, that's a good that's a really that's probably half of your administrators are giving us great input back. We've got uh I think uh 15 elementary principles and about 25 secondary principles and assistant principles. Uh 25 or so um central office leaders and then other um uh district leaders from around the district. So lots of input from your leadership team. Um Dr. Hill's been traveling around um uh Grand Junction uh and and Mesa Valley talking to um student advisory groups from all the high

011schools. He did this five times. met with groups of you know seven to 10 students. So I said 40 plus but lots of student voice informing this process as well. Um we yesterday actually met with um the superintendent's principal advisory council and this is actually a screenshot from the data that we asked them what must be in the strategic plan. What are would you be excited about? What would you be annoyed about if it was in there? And they're like we would be annoyed if there were major changes to the current plan. So um they gave great feedback. my colleague Paul Beck actually this was yesterday too March 3rd met with the teacher advisory group getting their input on what do they want to see in the plan and then we um harnessed the power

012of the community asked people would you be willing to come together be that guiding coalition to help form and create the uh strategic plan um for the next five years and it's pretty amazing this year remember I said you had about 45 and we were bragging about it now people can't believe we we had to move the meeting up to Grand Junction High School because so many people were interested in participating. We have 68. There's something else about that number 68. Um the um in the when we looked at the if I brought that other picture back up and you actually leaned in and really looked at who was there, about 30 to 35 of the 45 people were district leaders were like school people. Um and about 10 to 12 community members. This group

013is like flopped. It's like 30 or 25 or 30 school D-51 employees and tons of community members who are there expressing like their opinions and their voice and and pushing the um um the district forward. So, it's a really exciting process. What have what have those steering committee members been doing? Well, the first thing they did is they went out and they talk to the community. Um that we train them up in a uh interview process. Uh it's not a survey. They go out and physically meet with people and ask them questions and record them in this Google form. And what we've gotten is over 210 voices have been captured in their input um through parents and community voices uh in that process. Also that um steering committee went many of them went and uh

014participated in school walkthroughs because we thought you know these people aren't school people. Maybe they haven't been in school for much time other than maybe to see their their kids' teacher, but during school, watch instruction, watch what feel what school feels like, and they visited high schools in January and elementary schools in February. So, we got lots of school visits uh and walkthroughs. And also we've done some deep data study which we're going to continue at our next meeting where we're looking at student achievement and post-secondary workforce readiness, student well-being, staff growth and support, family and community collaboration, finances, facilities, community input, staff input, student input. So they're getting all this data and from that data they're going to be setting priorities. That's where we are right now in the process. I don't know what

015the priorities are yet because that's where we are. The community hasn't spoken yet. So, here's a timeline. This is my last slide. Here's a timeline. We started in January with the steering committee launch. I could have pushed that timeline back because we did lots of prep work, data study, data collection before that, but I just want to stay in the where we're at right now. Started with the steering committee, steering committee, data study, and priorities. That's session two and three. Um, session three is next week. So, we're right in the what I call the hard work or the meat of the strategic planning process. This is where we're processing through the data, identifying and prioritizing what we should do next and then pushing the work forward. Then the core team does its work. So all

016that input comes to the core team, the educators who are going to be responsible for executing the plan and they get to shape the plan and say these are the things we think that the community is telling us and here's how we would frame it. Here's what the strategic priority is. here's the data that we would want to collect to see if we're making progress to set those goals and metrics. And then we go back to in April that final uh steering committee meeting where the steering committee gets their last like we call this kicking the tires meeting where they're they're reading giving input on the um priorities and then we we do a broad consensus. We're trying to build consensus around is this the plan? Is your voice in there? Do you feel comfortable

017that this plan will help the district move forward in the next five years? So, um, and then, uh, it says here, final draft is then sent to the board of education for, I should have said, iteration, approval, and adoption, um, in the May and June time frame. So, we'll be bringing it back to you. You'll be able to give more input on it and then a final draft will come back hopefully for adoption in June so that you can launch the school year in July. um because that's when administrators start the school year is like mid July and then teachers come back at the end of July, early August, kids come back back second week of August and we're off to the races with the new strategic plan. So, um that's all I've got to

018share with you today board, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Does anybody have any questions? I think that was a really good overview. I was able to make the first meeting. Director Lima, you've been able to make the first two, right? And then Chavez was at the first meeting as well. So, um I think they've been really great. It's been great to see just the amount of participation. So, yeah. one one of your district leaders said, um, you know, Alex, this is amazing because we see some people that we would expect to see at this meeting, but we're seeing a lot of faces that are new energy coming to give their input and pushes to the district, which is really kind of exciting as well. Yeah, I think that's um I

019would feel the same way. Um, a lot of times we get this u the same people to participate, which is great. Um, I think it's been great that we've been able to broaden our um, I would say our tent pegs, so to speak, and that we've been able to bring some other people into the district uh, to get that additional um, input and also maybe that broaden broaden that um, maybe our reach, right? to to to let people know what we're doing and to hear their voice and then also let them know um kind of what we're doing in the district and they can take that back to their communities and their spheres um and be able to explain and share that. So I'm I'm pretty excited about that. So which is what makes us

020a great community. So I I love seeing those new faces. Um so it's been pretty awesome. Yeah. And I I just want to say I I do appreciate the work that y'all are doing. this is it is a lot of work and it would be really taxing to have to throw this process on to you know current staff. Um so we appreciate CI and then the other thing that I appreciate is CI does so much work in our district that it you y you'all almost feel like you're you're part of the team. It's not like we're bringing in just some random people from the outside and y'all also always give us um I mean everybody I'm sure at CI is great but we always get really great staff. So I between Alex and Paul but

021also Alicia and Jiren um being involved is I I know we're going to have a really great plan in the end. So, I appreciate the work you all are doing and and look forward to the to the next meeting with the steering committee. That's great. If I could say one more thing, board, I just want you to know the commitment that this board has made to not just like supporting the plan, but saying, you know what, you're going to report to us. We're going to hold the district accountable for making progress. There's no question in anyone's mind in this district that the board knows what the district's doing and what's important and is keeping the main thing the main thing. So, it's not true everywhere I work. I commend you for saying um this is

022what we want to see happen and holding um that guy uh Dr. Hill responsible and his team responsible for making the the work u move forward. So, thank you for being a great school board. Thank you. It's been a team effort and we're glad he brings it to the board to present. I was going to say that that picture you put up over there on the bus was year one and I looked real happy in that picture like beat down. Thanks, Alex. We appreciate your time. Thanks, guys. I'll see you. I'll be there next week, so I'll see you soon. Sounds good. See you then. All right. Up next, we have our bond presentation and the Grand High School construction update. So, good evening everybody. Good evening. We wanted to get started just to share

023um you know back in November the community said yes to our bond and um we wanted to just give you an update on where we're at. There's been a lot of work in the background over the last few months and so Micah just wants to share a little bit of that good news. Yep. All right. Is this on? Uh once again, Micah Adams with Dynamic Program Management. It's good seeing all of you. Um up here I've got Clint Garcia with me. You guys know him well. I believe Colleen Caneda is online as well. Um so starting off uh just to recap once again 100 million $190 million bond uh really uh focused on three big um buckets or chunks. Uh the first being Central High School improvements. Uh second being Fra Monument High School improvements.

024And then uh priority improvement projects are what we're calling PIPS throughout the district um ranging in anything from you know installing fire suppression uh sprinklers in schools uh to asbestous abatement to um educational adequacy items. So we'll dive into that a little bit further um here later on. Couple procurement updates we have for you since seeing you last time. um a surveyor was hired uh to perform surveys at all the um priority improvement projects and at Central High School. It looks like the formatting got thrown off a little bit in the transition of these slides. Uh so I apologize about that. Um since then we've got the surveys for most of those schools. Uh I believe Central and um some additional surveys are underway at the moment. um abstract title was hired to do a

025title report there at Central High School um Grand Mesa Middle School um just to to accompany that survey and taking a look at especially the northeast corner of that site um where they're uh really looking at um potential tennis court relocation to that area. So just making sure that uh we're all good up there. Um then also uh geotechnical and construction material testing um firms were hired. So Huddleston Barry uh letters of intent actually just uh went out but Huddleberry was awarded work for the priority improvement projects and then ground engineering was awarded work on Central High School and um Fruta Monument High School. And so, uh, those are are now under contract negotiation. Um, and then also we we just got proposals, uh, from four different abatement contractors. Um, there are five different schools

026that have some amount of asbestous abatement to happen this summer. Um, and two of those are are on the smaller side. And so we lumped those two together. And um it looks like uh all of those bids came in where we were able to um the district was able to look at awarding one of those projects to each of the abatement contractors and they're all reputable contractors that the district has worked with before. Um so uh little bit of a deeper dive into what's happening here this summer and the priority improvement projects. Uh total budget uh is about 32 million um including soft costs. Uh so everything from design to abatement to um you know engineering testing stuff like that. Uh there's a total of eight schools that will be getting priority improvement projects here

027this summer and you can see those up there on the screen. Primarily elementary schools starting on the east side of the valley moving west. Um Palisade High School has some improvements as well. as I mentioned as speces abatement at five schools. Um and so Orchard Avenue and Central High School are the two that I I mentioned are smaller scopes of work uh that are being packaged together. Um and those two schools don't have priority improvement projects happening at them this summer. Uh but the idea is to get some abatement done on them this summer to to be ready for coming summers. Other uh priority improvement projects include safety and security improvements. Uh ballards, security vestibules alike. Um sa safety life safety improvements include you know fire suppression systems, fire alarm systems. Um, and then priority

028maintenance improvements, uh, you know, really kind of handle anything from door hardware, uh, that needs to be replaced, mechanical units. Um, and then you've got the educational adequacy improvements. And this is really trying to address needs within the the classroom spaces for um whether it's changing uh sped needs or uh number of students in the school everything like that. So an update on the design process um design documents for all the priority improvement projects. um design documents were issued here this last week and so the contractors are taking a look over those right now updating uh some pricing as needed. We're expecting construction documents for all of those um here by the end of March. Um fire supplier fire suppression systems, we actually broke the design for those out as it's their own bid package.

029Um, so those construction drawings were issued, I want to say two two or three weeks ago now, and we're procuring the fire suppression contractors early um here hopefully in the next week or two uh because they have quite a bit of work to be done here um before uh this summer just as far as shop drawings and permitting goes. So, we're trying to get them going right away. Yes. So, you know, I have a question. You could feel it, right? Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Um, so is the design done? Is it set? Is it is what what's the process of that after working on after coming in kind of at the tail end of all of those decisions um with Grand Junction High School. I just want to make sure that we have some involvement

030with that from the beginning so that we do things like, you know, reduce really expensive fencing that that we had some different options were and so that some members of the board are at least aware of of what's what's how the money is being spent. Bottom line, um, what what level of involvement would you prefer? We do have Micah, you know me. level of involvement are you every meeting like I mean I I think I think it would be prudent for us just to have a board member and I'll hold my hand up um just to be involved in because we did see some things right I mean in doing Grand Junction High School we spotted some things that were like wait we're spending what and we're able to adjust those things and and end

031up coming in on time and under budget. So there is um so there are some meetings here with principles next week to kind of give an update on where those designs are uh have come out. Um and I I think that you would be welcome to join those if if you would like. We can send you some invites. Are you guys all good with that? If I put that on my plate. You good with that, Mr. Chavez? Actually, I think the timing would be perfect. We've already met. I I would like to do that and then I can report back to the rest of the board. Yeah, I think that was super beneficial when you came in at the end well with Grandjen High School because there was well as inflationary costs were going up

032and not that that has really changed since that time. Um it really helped us make those dollars go further and to answer to the to the community. Exactly. and and our goal was really to be able to get that project to come in under budget which I think really helped us pass this last bond and and hopefully any future bonds because again we're only able to address a couple of the first phases on this one which means we still have we're still we still have needs to do. So again, I think it's just good to have a different a second pair of eyes on this from the board standpoint because we are the elected officials for those fiduci fiduciary funds, you know, or that responsibility, excuse me. So yeah, I think it's I think it's

033good just that you could report back just like you had with Grand Junction High School. So So and just out of curiosity, so the with Junction, we have those OAC meetings that are happening as the work's happening. So I know that that's a opportunity as well to Yeah. And I did be involved three years of those every week. Right. So I just I want to make sure that to do it. I just want to make sure the public understands the difference between like what's happening here around design and then there's going to be plenty of steps that happen after this that we'll have opportunities to also look at maybe we need to cut that thing out or maybe we need to reduce the cost here. So, um, the design, you're right, the design aspect for

034junction that was strategic with the the bond was to try to go out and actually get the design ahead of time so that when we went out and presented to folks, they could see this is actually what it's supposed to look like and and I'm going to put and that one was a tax increase. So, it's like this is what I want my dollars to go through or go to this time around. The design's happening kind of after the fact. Um, and so there will be opportunity for input here, but really that when those OAC meetings start, that's also going to be a great opportunity like you've been able to do with being in those to look at the actual It really was. I I think it was beneficial and we we do we I

035mean we caught a lot of things before it ended up costing us a lot more money or we ever shot some things. So that I think it was a a good use of time. To Micah's point, I think we're we're at a good spot right now for you to join those principal meetings for the priority improvement projects. Okay, those will be helpful for you to to sit down on. The ones that might not be so exciting are the fire sprinklers. Yeah, I'm I'm good. You guys might not be as fun, but that kind of is what it is, right? I mean, whatever the sprinklers cost are what it's going to cost. When we're talking about design, that's where it starts with how much money are we spending on each item. So, yeah. And so I

036will say, you know, a majority of the the money is for like fire suppression systems and fire alarm and um things like that. There are there are some things that we uh are maybe more design features, but there's not uh a lot of it. Um it would make me so happy if I just went gosh this this seems totally reasonable and a great use of the funds all the way from again from the board perspective. And you know, we're the ones that get the emails saying you spent money on what and why does it look that way and what you know. So if we can justify and have some of those answers, I think it'd be director Lima, you are welcome to all meetings you want to join. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. And and

037so maybe on the email invites and I'll be there. A good opportunity too to maybe talk a little bit about um week to week, you know, what things are looking like. We uh got a lot of meetings going on right now. You're you're welcome to to come to any one you would like. Um we have design advisory group meetings for central and frud. Those are happening every other week. Those are um offset from each other. We've got about three OAC's um every other week with the three different contractors. Um we've got uh meetings with the architect, you know, separate meetings with the architect uh once a week. Um and then we've been squeezing in a lot of walkthroughs of the the schools and meetings with principles. Um I think met with each of the principles

038two or three times uh by this point really trying to dial in that scope and we have dialed the scope down a lot. Yep. Um, and so that there has been um a a lot of work put into trying to to make sure that nothing is over the top. Um, but certainly worth uh taking a look at and seeing what you think as well. Great. I really appreciate that. Um, Clint, will you just absolutely send me what you what you think? I sure will. Is what I need to be part of and anything that you relevant meetings, I will send them to you. Anything to do with sprinkling systems, I'm good. No asbestous meetings. Asbestous and sprinkling systems, I'm good. Thank you. I I appreciate you guys. It really was a pleasure working on Grand

039Junction High School. It was a heavy lift. It was a lot, but um the team was amazing. Um and now with a little bit of experience, I think would things will go even even more smoothly. Agree. And I I look forward to it. Well, and and to that point, not only coming in under budget, we had heard from the community that, you know, we wanted extra tennis courts and some other things. And so, again, just team effort and just us being able to hear some of those things from the community. Again, I think some people thought we we went over budget like with the, you know, again, there was some dispute over the clinic and things like that, which we didn't go over on the clinic. Marilac built that out on their own dime. Um,

040none of that was over budget. Um, the whole project is is coming in really well and we've been able to add some other things on. So, again, based off of how that project has worked and the team and the team effort, I that should still play out with all of these projects as well. So, um, I don't see how that would be any different. So, I think this board is obviously interested in that and making those dollars go further. That means that any of those other projects down on the list can also still get done, which is I know what you guys are all interested in. Obviously, operations is interested in, our our teachers and students are interested in, our families are interested in. So, um yeah, based on results, we I think we can

041get those things done. So, absolutely. And I I just throw another plug in. I we have a couple months left and we are still on time and under budget, so we're good. Love it. Yep. See some good progress going on. Oh, definitely. And you mentioned Grand Junction High School is a big lift. Um, these priority improvement projects will be a big lift as well. There's about $25 million worth of hard cost work that to be done in about eight weeks this summer. Um, which is I mean more than there was at Grand Junction in in the span of a month. I think the peak was around eight million dollars there in a month. So, I mean, it's a a lot of people involved, a lot of contractors, a lot's going to be happening. A lot

042of logistics for sure. Yeah. Um, and it, you know, just the the timing of it too with the bond passing in November to get all the design done um and ready, permits, everything by this uh summer is pretty quick. you know, the coming summers we'll have more time to to go through the design process very thoroughly. Um, contractor selection, pricing. Um, this is this one's going to be uh a rush to really get everything done. Well, another thing, it may be in y'all's presentation, but um just being mindful of the impact it'll have on um you know, teachers and staff in the buildings as well. So I um Clint's been and his team and working with Jen and all the other folks really keeping us updated at senior leadership on the progress and the plans,

043but also how do we accommodate um for folks that are in those buildings. And so that's why we've had conversations around having to um maybe let out early at some of these buildings because they need to be able to pack up and then having conversations now about are there going to be uh situations where maybe they need to start a day later because they're going to have to actually then come in and unpack all those things. So, we're having those conversations now, but we definitely want to keep in mind the um folks in the school buildings, the teachers and the staff um so that we can be accommodating to them as well. And Jen and her team have just been amazing working with us to try to make all of this happen. There's there's a

044lot of moving parts and they've been really helpful. How will this affect our summer school programs? Um summer school's still going to happen. We still got we have buildings that are that are set up for summer school that won't impact the work that we're doing on the uh east end of the valley. So, we're we're good. We've worked through that. Um and along with what you know Brian was mentioning there it is a lot of work to be done this summer and there are some things like the fire suppression piping that uh we need to you know we're working with our contractors right now and phasing and sequencing plans and schedules to identify are there areas of the building where we uh you know might need to do some weekend or evening work um here,

045you know, after students get back into into school. Um obviously, you know, not disrupting learning, but stuff that can be hap happening during the school semester. um contractor progress as I mentioned you know we've got four different cont general contractors on board and um several OAC meetings uh right now those PIP OAC meetings are happening every other week but those will likely um change to weekly here soon as things continue to pick Um, and then as I mentioned, we're working with them on phasing plans, schedules, really diving into the details of all the logistics for the summer. Um, so coming up, as we mentioned earlier, we've got uh meetings with the principles here this next week, uh, dialing in those educational adequacy scopes of work, uh, continued divine design advisory groups, um, shop drawings for

046the fire suppression systems starting hopefully in the next two weeks. Survey is ongoing. Um commissioning agent is somebody we're looking at work towards bringing on board here soon. Probably have an RFQP for that uh here in the the coming future. Um furniture. This is one area where um you know we're looking at trying to reuse some furniture within the district where possible, identifying some good furniture that can be reused if there are furniture needs. So there's not a lot of that right now. Um but one area where the district might be able to save some costs. Um and then as I mentioned earlier, asbesus abatement contractors hoping hoping to get um you know those letters of intent sent out here soon. Done a lot of walkthroughs with the movers here over the last couple weeks.

047Uh going room by room in each of the schools. uh they're tallying up approximate weights and everything so they start to know manpower um schedules costs everything like that. Uh and then I think I've me mentioned just about everything else up there. Um, you know, I I should mention uh I I didn't have slides specifically for Central or Fruit of Monument High School, but those design processes are going along well. Those do have more time for the design than all these priority improvement projects. Um, so that the plan is to have, I believe, those construction documents here. I want to say late um late fall or um early 2026. So, we we've got some time and are going through really good process there. Um I know Jen's been out at meetings for Central High School.

048Um getting really good teacher participation. Um some some good community input as well. Anything else you want to add, Clint? I'd say the only thing the only other thing I'd want to add is just Eddie and his team. just thanks for the work that they're doing. They're really working hard to to make this happen as well. Um and remind me again the um conjunction the Tiger Community Gym um when is that completely? So I know it's had some use because we had to use it for some things but yeah when that's going to be completely done. it is completely finished and we've already um community has already started to use that gym and so we're working towards um getting a communication now just letting the community know that we're that building is finished and and

049ready for use. Yeah, we talked about maybe doing something and have well obviously invite the board but something a little bit bigger to announce that because remember that's the gym that we salvaged um because it wasn't I think it's maybe 12 to 15 years old and um the idea is to have a third gym there. so that that can also be used by the community. So, I'm excited about that. And then also just Clint and his team working on the scheduling piece with that to school use, but also community use of the extra gym. So, that'll be That's a great idea. We need to let the community see it and and absolutely know a little strong more strongly about it. That'd be great. Yeah, that's a good segue, Brian, into the Grand Junction High School

050updates. No, it's okay. I don't mind it. U so we do have our Grand Junction High School slides as well. This slide should look familiar. Um you know we're getting close to that project being wrapped up. Um the plan as of right now I believe is end of May um beginning of uh June. Everything should should all be taken care of. Um budget is still looking good as mentioned earlier. Uh you can see some total expended uh versus local expenditures up there on the screen. I want to say that's about twothirds. So about twothirds of the bond money have been spent locally. Um which is pretty fantastic. Uh so some things that have been recently completed is the ' 06 gym as as Brian mentioned. Um it looks really nice. if you guys uh want

051to take a drive by in the Tiger Community Gym. It it looks nice out there. Um the tennis court concrete has been poured and uh those fence post put in place. Um and they are prepping the earthwork for the athletic fields. So, as you can see here on the screen, um they're getting the football field ready for athletic turf. Uh the baseball field is is ready for the athletic turf on on the infield as well. I believe all of the athletic turf will be installed over the month of April. Um they're currently building the dugouts here at the baseball field and a lot of site concrete is underway. Um, and let's see, upcoming stuff. You can see a picture there of the Tiger Community Gym in the background. Um, lots of landscaping to happen. Um,

052those turf fields or, you know, the the natural grass fields, all that sod will be installed here later this spring. Um along with uh you know some finalization of the building of the parking lot there at the 700 building and uh concessions uh build out there in the 700 building. Got some construction metrics here for you. Um don't have to read through them all but another cool picture of the the sites. Uh once again, we don't have any fun videos with the flyovers and and music. Uh we'll look we'll have to bring those back for a grand finale or something. [Laughter] Um but it's it's really cool looking at the south side of the site when you're out there. um and just seeing what the the little sports uh complex area is going to look

053like. It it'll get a lot of great use. Did you say at the beginning that 2/3 was lo of the dollars have been spent locally? I believe so. I looks like 91 of the 138s. Any questions on Grand Junction High School? Be excited about the turf on that football field. Should be really nice to have year round grass. Y All right. Well, thank you everyone. All right. Next up, we have our strategic plan update with robust options. So, and as the team's coming up, as Alex mentioned on the his presentation, this is this has been part of the process with the current strategic plan is having updates. And so we definitely want this to continue with the new strategic plan as well as ways to keep the board updated um along the way. So um

054oh Jen needs her own mic. Well, I think with any good organization when you set goals or you and many do set a strategic plan, you have to continue to bring it up anytime you have meetings. And so I think it's been really pivotal to continue to go over this and um it actually even came up this week when Dr. Hill and I were in a meeting. And so it was actually beneficial for us to actually be able to talk about it right off the top of our heads. And so it was actually very beneficial. So I I I I hope it's something that we do in D51 for years to come. So are you going to introduce us? This is Jen. Go ahead, Jen. Good evening, board. It's my pleasure to be here with

055you and it's also my pleasure um to be sitting with this group. We've got some really exciting information and news to share with you regarding our strategic priority. Uh, can't put me in charge of anything. Apparently not. Um, uh, robust and aligned options. District 51 students are equipped to pursue career, postsecary, or military options upon graduation. And um, we're going to give you some more details on what we've been doing this year. our update for what this team has been doing to update on robust and aligned options. Okay. The robust options component of our strategic plan brings to life key attributes of the D51 learner profile. It fosters creativity and innovation, encouraging students to build on personal experience, to specify a challenging problem to investigate. It promotes self-awareness, helping students to assess personal strengths and

056limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and growth mindset. Most importantly, career a career awareness is at the heart of robust options, inspiring students to engage in exploration initiated by personal interest in careers and other life pursuits. The objective is to ensure that D-51 students are equipped to pursue career postsecary or military options upon graduation and the development of the graduual graduate profile attributes is a critical part of equipping students to pursue their interests. So now I will introduce Sherry Taylor to tell you more about how this focus area supports the graduate profile and the specific goals of the task force. Good evening board. Thank you for having us. Um as you know this is year three for our strategic plan with the robust and aligned options. Um, as a reminder, first year we

057went through and we identified and mapped what we currently have for our students um to help them with their individual career and academic plans, otherwise known as IAPS. Um, our second year, we went ahead and we created a menu and we really worked with kids to access that menu so that they were aware of what opportunities they had, what coursework, what electives would lead them to the pathway that they were wanting to pursue. And now year three, um, we've really worked to engage our students in this personalized pathway. Um, and we wanted to meet their needs as well as the needs of our community because this is our future workforce. So, we're we're really um engaged in making sure that we meet both of those needs. I didn't touch it. I only touched it once.

058I don't know why I skipped twice. Um so as you know we had the EDC committee the um the um elementary declining enrollment committee and that has given that gave us five opportunities to look at our declining enrollment. One of those opportunities was to promote increased and robust and aligned opportunities for our students. Um this committee has worked really hard to address both the needs of the EDC committee as well as our strategic plan. As you can see, we have a variety of members on our task force. We really have appreciated everybody's time. We have some building um building personnel. We have some district level people. We have some higher education. We have some community business members. We have special populations. We've had a really good variety of um members on our committee and we

059really have appreciated all the time and commitment that they've made working um towards this for our students. I just want to review um some of the programs and opportunities that we currently have for our students. Um we do have middle years program that is at Mount Garfield Middle School and Palisade High School. We have STEM at Central High School and STEAM currently at New Emerson Pomona and Taupe elementary schools. We have dual immersion academy at Dia Elementary and at Bookcliffe Middle School. We have opportunities for all of our students to attend the career center, to be involved in the KP program, or attend Valley Prep for some of their coursework. We also have advanced coursework opportunities. We have the diploma program at Palisade High School, challenge program at Orchard Mesa Middle School, and then at

060all of our high schools, we have advanced placement, ascent program, and concurrent enrollment opportunities for our students. I'm telling you, you saw I just did it once. So, we also have career readiness. We have a junior reserve officers training corps at Central High School. We have PEK at Grand Junction High School and Central High School. We have a teacher readiness program at all of our high schools. Um, CMU Tech, all of our students are have the opportunity to attend CMU Tech with transportation provided. And we have this one highlighted because it just kind of goes to show we when we wrote this slide, we had 44 career technical education programs. We currently through the hard work of our teachers, we have 50 certified teachers that are offering career technical education courses at all of our

061high schools for students to take. Yes, Angela. So that that seems like a lot of programs to me. Can we get a breakdown of how many students are in say each of those programs? I'd like to see that and I'd also like to see the cost of the program to to compare that with how many students are actually taking advantage of that many programs. Absolutely. Yes, I can get that to you this week. Wow. Thanks. Oh, yeah. We have that data so we can get it to you. I figured you probably did. Thank you. He's showing off. Supposed to say it take a couple weeks. Uh six o'clock. A couple weeks and then when you get it to a week, it's looks really good. Uh the um just I know folks up here already know

062this, but just for folks that are tuning in, will you explain real quick ascent and PEK just so people know what that is? So ascent is an opportunity for students to attend college in what we call their 13th year, their year after high school graduation. And um the district pays for that. They have to have had nine concurrent enrollment or advanced placement classes prior to graduation. So, they complete all of their high school graduation requirements. Within those requirements, they've taken nine either AP classes or concurrent enrollment. And then they their freshman year of college, they are um tuition is paid for by the district. PEK is a pathway in um technology, early college, high school, and that allows students, it depending upon their field, it allows them to get two years of their college paid

063for, their tuition paid for from the district. Trep is the newest one, which is on the next slide. Um and that is the teacher readiness pathway. And so that just like PEK for students who want to become um elementary teachers, secondary teachers, early childhood teachers, any sort of the teaching field that they want to go into um they receive two years of their tuition paid for. We currently partner with CMU for our PEK and for our TREP um ascent. We students can go anywhere in the state of Colorado to any public university or college in the state of Colorado. Thank Thanks. I I just know I know we have a lot on there and people usually know what IB is and and those are great programs, but most folks may not know what those were.

064So, thanks for doing that. And all of those programs are um what we call reimburseable programs. So, we receive money from the state and then we use that money to pay for the students tuition. So, it's a little bit different than our concurrent enrollment with our 9th through 12th grade kids that are also ours. Um but that's how that TREP, PEK, and Ascent programs work for our students. have a question. Yes. Senor Heights and I were able to talk to speak with some students today. Uh they talked about uh taking uh advanced placement classes. Uh difficulties that they were having was that they don't necessarily get credit for college for taking the AP classes even if they take the test. Uh so one is why uh and then how do we resolve that issue? So

065advanced placement um we have two opportunities for students to get college credit. We have advanced placement and we have concurrent enrollment. Um the diff the difference is is in concurrent enrollment if you take the class and pass the class then you get the credit. Advanced placement is you take the class you pass the class which is awesome. you get the high school credit, but to receive the college credit, you must take the exam and you must get it depends upon the university, but typically you need a three or higher on the exam to demonstrate proficiency in that content area to receive the college credit. So, advanced placement is a national program that we participate in. Um, concurrent enrollment is more of a local of a Colorado. Um they both can transfer out of state but

066advanced placement transfers easier out of state. Conc concurrent enrollment is guaranteed to transfer instate. AP is assessment driven where concurrent is course work driven and the coursework is local through our local college or university. And and that's what the students were speaking about and they were saying even they take the test they score high enough they still don't get the credit except they could possibly get elective credits but not yes quite as what they want to get into. So they were concerned about then why are they putting themselves through all that stress when they're not really getting the credit that they were looking for because some colleges does not accept their credit. So one, I would always encourage students to challenge themselves and um take these classes, this coursework. Um but you are correct, Jose,

067and the students are correct that it is up to the university or college as to what they accept and what they accept it for. And often that depends upon the diploma that you're the degree that you're working towards. So, if I'm doing an engineering degree, my math 113 or my advanced placement calculus class may or may not count as a math credit towards that degree program. That's up to every university and college in the country can set their own um standards depending upon the degree pathway and the university they decide that. Yeah, I'll jump in real quick. Uh, just because I had taught like AP computer science A, which is a very difficult course, and I had the opportunity to teach that. Um, Colorado School of Minds pretty much takes absolutely no AP credits and

068that's a diff but I will say that also puts the students at an advantage to get in. Um, so they and also universities dictate whether or not they want to have them because they also want to teach them in their own way. So a lot of times they'll make them retake that course because they want them to learn that specific way of that that school may but it is advantageous. I think like Sher's saying that they also get a leg up on other students because they are taking challenging courses. We have no control whether a college takes that or not. In some schools it'll you can get in Mesa for instance with some of our English class classes we have for AP you get credit for getting a three on the test. Other schools require

069you to get a four or five on that test. So it's very it's college dependent. We don't have any control over that. But the students know about that. Yeah. And it's very or they sign up to do AP classes. It's easy accessible. Well, so I oversee our AP testing at Pal State and that's something I go over. I say, "Look at the college list. Look at what they take. Look what you need to get on this test because if you only need a three, maybe go focus more energy on this other class where you need to get a four or five." So, it's something all of our AP coordinators definitely prepare our students for. And also, we don't want to overpromise something and underdel where a student's not going to get all that credit. But,

070it does help prepare them. And ultimately, like I say, you're going to walk in with 60 college credits all the time either. Okay. And then um we also have some alternative options for all students. Uh Grand River Academy and R5 High School. Okay. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Zeb Hayward um who's a member of our committee and the assistant principal at Palisate High School. Thanks, Sher. Thank you, board. Uh I think so what Sherry did initially talked about our first step in this is to us to take inventory of everything we do offer within the district. And I think it was surprising and eye opening to us how much we truly do offer at all the schools and how many opportunities we have throughout the district. But one thing we

071realized is the biggest voice we needed to have in this process of where we felt short was within our community. So we launched a process and with the spring 2024 survey uh to gather parent insights and guide the development of our robust robust and aligned options. So we end up getting about,00 responses and we're extremely pleased because of obviously we know the amount of surveys we kind of inundate our community with. Um so you see here we were able to get about 195 responses or 175 in English and then another 20 in Spanish from our responses. But the survey explored key factors that influences families decisions to stay or leave or return to D51, their satisfaction with current options we have and their awareness of our available programs. but also provided insight and additional opportunities

072families would like to see for our students. This input highlighted the importance of maintaining strong existing existing programs while addressing gaps in our offerings. So, it also emphasized the need to enhance communication is a big thing that we saw opportunities and the accessibility for our programs. So, here were the big takeaways uh from the feedback we received. So, our team carefully reviewed the responses to fully understand our community's wishes, which were both ambitious and insightful. The feedback highlighted several key areas of focus for us like expanding learning opportunities, strengthening academic rigor with the emphasis on career readiness, fostering personalized learning paths, improving access and opportunity, and enhancing program accessibility and communication. We recognize that these goals would require significant effort, but we are excited to take on the challenge of meeting these high expectations for

073our students and community. Understanding these priorities helped us narrow our focus. So from reviewing the feedback, our key takeaways, we identified three main areas of need clear that there was much focus on um so from this we were able to determine our top priorities for the year. First, we decided to develop a process for accountability in our programming. And then we included clear processes and protocols for establishing new options. So, schools now have to go through this process before they go and start to want to add something new at their schools. So, which something we hadn't had before, which was a key gap that we hadn't seen in in the past. Um, and we also wanted to make sure that they were of high quality and robust. So second, we focused on completing our partial

074pathways, which was a big thing that we saw for a community that was starting within STEM IB. And a big one we heard was language from K through 12. So finally, we aim to build more options and ensure that they're of high quality so that more learners have access to these valuable opportunities. We feel we've made great progress, but there's definitely still more to do. So now Carrie's going to speak to and share some of our tremendous celebrations that came from this work. Hello. Uh, we have so much to celebrate this year. D51 is making incredible strides in ensuring every student has access to highquality options that support passions and future goals. One of our biggest accomplishments is the new application process for schools. As Zeb mentioned, uh we continue to consider and develop our

075steps toward a comprehensive review process for all existing programs and to strengthen career focused rigor. We've expanded um career and technical education, forming new community partnerships, and we have developed exciting opportunities like the teacher cadet program, AI, and an arts pathway at the high school level. We're also celebrating progress in IAP alignment. We have four elementary schools now integrating IAP for fourth and fifth graders. Additionally, we've established clear guidelines for D51 STEM programming. The momentum doesn't stop there. Several schools have successfully applied for new programming through our streamlined process and we are thrilled to welcome and on board Mesa View Elementary as a new steam school, Taylor Elementary as PYP for primary years program and Grand Junction High School and Palisade High School are now offering a pathway for biiteracy. Oh, and with the addition

076of these four schools and programs, we are excited to announced that D51 now has two complete pathways in language and IB, a significant step forward in expanding seamless opportunities for students. Our next priority is to close the remaining gap in STEM by adding a middle school option. adding that would create coherence for all three pathways as K5 option. This progress reflects a commitment to thoughtful strategic growth and we look forward to building on this momentum. While we are excited for about this progress, we also recognize that our work is only beginning. For the 2526 school year, our committee will focus on refining and building upon the initiatives we started at the beginning. We'll continue expanding options to better serve the divi diverse needs of all learners and work to ensure that our K through2 pathways

077are aligned and robust. Additionally, we will strengthen accountability for these programs and deepen career connections, ensuring that students are equipped with skills necessary for future success. In conclusion, we will continue to refine our process, our focus, and our goals for the 2526 school year. And that will include ways that we can continue to level up. First, we plan to improve access and availability across all of our programs. This includes ensuring that learners have access to options and identifying ways to expand this. Secondly, we're focusing on ensuring that our options have the necessary resources and that these are distributed. Additionally, we will explore ways to communicate more effectively with our families. They need to be able to navigate what we have to offer um for specialized options and we want to address any barriers that might

078exist. Um thank you for your time and attention this evening. The robust and aligned task force looks forward to continuing this important work. Do you have any questions? I was just wondering when you look at the options for students have considered about doing honors class for middle school for all middle schools to have honor classes. Just a question. I know I'm like I can answer but I would say that that's a discussion that happens um at the middle schools and we continue to have those conversations. Right now we do have it in math um and so our students have the opportunity to continue on or do higher but we don't with ELA right now. So you guys had a great response. You had 95 responses but only 20 Spanish speaking. Are we concerned about the

079other ones that aren't responding or how we reach out to them to figure out why if it's just a language barrier? we don't understand the question or yes I I mean yeah we had hoped to have more responses um and we had really pushed and and tried hard to get those responses um some of them are conversations with families um you know we have we continue to meet with several of our DIA families um which are Spanish speaking and they help us to to guide us to where where we need to go for all of our students but yeah that was a concern to have formally only 20 Spanish speaking um surveys returned. Yeah. Thank you. I don't know if this fits in with all that, but um I think at Palisade the um there's

080a construction program happening right now too, right? And I've he I've heard some uh really great things from the community about that. Um I think especially for for students who have interest in that and that's um not necessarily maybe collegebound but just an interest in kind of reviving their interest in school attending school and maybe something as a career pathway for them. So I don't know if that fits in with this but um I've heard some really great things coming out of that. Yeah. So I can speak to that Andrea. It's and honestly it's pretty exciting because I think all the other three high schools are going to be jumping on board as well with that early success. We were fortunate enough because of our we brought somebody in to kind of running our career

081pathways and I think where she made that connection with CIC and through and through that support and now we have support from our local home homebuilders association. So I think all three high schools are jumping on board formally. We're getting ready to go through the presentation, but I think where we're at with our trades is like getting that accessibility and making those connections with the community. And it I think we were surprised with how much community support we've already had. And I think there's obviously it's going to continue to grow. And I think within that program, it's not just construction. We're looking at bringing in the electrical component and uh you know, I think we're looking at uh anything from carpentry to also plumbing. And so there's a lot of different trade opportunities that we're

082going to be able to offer within the high schools. Now, we're not trying to say that cuts out CMU Tech or anything else, but we know that a big thing is we want to keep our students on our campus as well as much as possible. A lot of times, it's offering opportunities for students who have struggled early in their high school career so they can stay on campus and also still maintain some of those recovery classes that they may need within the school. So, we're reaching a different demographic that we hadn't before, which is really exciting. Well, I it was funny because I had actually had a conversation with um somebody I know who had said if I had had something like that when I was in high school, it probably would have helped me

083stay interested in high school because he had said that sports kind of kept him interested. But if you know he kind of just like I I kind of got by in my classes just because I wanted to play basketball. But if I had had something else that, you know, I could have learned a trade or just learn to even just do something with my hands like woodworking, which could come in handy in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it's the springboard that could could get you to CMU Tech or or maybe something else that would have just kept him interested and maybe he would have shown up for class maybe a little bit more. It was just a really interesting conversation that I had and so there was just a lot of excitement behind that.

084And so I just I I really just appreciate that because I I think there is something to be said about our students who just they're maybe not interested in leaving campus, but they want to do something a little bit different and and I think they they are looking for something that gives them some pride of work. And I think it's something that that could give them some ability to at least go and do something at least at least after school that can get them at least on their feet, right? So yeah, I think a little bit speak to Will's point of parents we had that did respond and thinking about our silent majority of parents that aren't responding. They're the ones who typically are our students, the ones that we need to try to reach.

085I think opportunities like that are going to reach those students where we've kind of fallen short before and I think that's some of the creativity we have with and it really starts with our teachers and the programs that we're beginning to offer. Andre, I appreciate you bringing up the careers in construction in Colorado. I think that's just a perfect example of the community support. So, the homebuilders association is who has helped support that both financially as well as just training for our staff. Um, our our career technical education teachers come from the industry, but some of them haven't been in the industry for years. So, it is just amazing when our community steps up the way they they have. They're going to provide opportunities for our students to do internships with them. It's just it's

086just one example, but we have many in our community of our of our businesses and and community members stepping up to help our students. I think that's great. I think it for me it just seems like it just it checks off a lot of boxes, right? It keeps kids in school. It gives them some purpose. Um you know, it just it there's a lot of things that I think just it it really helps um in a lot of ways. So I I'm super excited about that. just another avenue to help our kids in our community. Thank you. That was great. So, I'm curious about the task force members. Yes. I I just noticed that um Curtis Inglehart is the only with GJ. Yes. Is the only sort of outside the district besides CMU Tech. Um

087everybody else seems to be inside the district. Would it be advantageous to have a couple more community members on that employers or even um you know somebody from an employment agency, somebody that's got their pulse on what what jobs are available. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are definitely groups that we work very very closely with, but um I think to bring some of them on to this committee would be a great idea. This is just seems a little bit too inclusive just just us and it needs to be a a collaboration with the community and what's needed out there. It's it's good feedback and we obviously would always want more people on there. I just reminder this is the group that's meeting pretty regularly and really getting into the weeds on how do we actually implement

088the strategic plan. So I I agree with what you're saying and I know like and their team um they get feedback from those different groups in different ways but um some of this comes down to like time commitment as well of getting people in here. So even having Curtis on there, I we appreciate him being there. But um yeah, that that becomes a a time commitment thing as well. So but that's a we always want feedback from the may not be necessary then in that particular committee just in in just a surface look at it look like maybe we could use some people from the employment. So Angela at a micro level though we do have within all the CTE fields within the schools they have advisory boards and they do bring in community members

089to see like which courses we should add and that's kind of where we start like the CICC piece. So do you have pretty good there's pretty good involvement. I know and we do it as a collective like with all the business teachers within the district. They have an advisory board that they bring in business partners within the community and so there there is that but it's very much on the micro level within each of the within each of each of the specialties in CT. Good. Thank you. That helps. I had a question informing Latino families about all the programs that are out there. Did I hear you correctly that you're going through DIA? I don't know if I heard that right or Oh, no. We worked closely with Tyler Mclofflin, the principal, to get some

090of the responses from the survey. Um, and so we've worked with principles, you know, because they know the families and the families trust them and so hopefully they um are comfortable answering for the for the principal. Um, we do have offer everything that we do in Spanish and in English. Um, you know, we meet quite often indivi a lot of it is individually with families and kids to help them understand. It's when it's when most of the hard work gets done and people can really understand what we have to offer. And so um we do that as much as possible. Um we do tours. We um our English language learners go on actually within their own classes. They go on tours to both the career center and CMU. What we have found by doing it

091that way and anybody else is welcome to go but it's typically our English language English language learning teachers that take the kids those kids are comfortable with each other their friends and that's an age that if she's going to do it I'm I'm probably going to try it with her and so that has been a great success um really with smaller groups trying to take them and show them some of the opportunities that they have when you do the surveys uh instead of just going to dia you look at the migrant program or do you look at Yeah, I I think to to because I know what answer you're talking about from one of the questions earlier. So these these surveys were pushed out by every single school principal to all of their families in

092multiple languages. So in that response around DIA, that wasn't the only opportunity to try to um capture voices from our um second language learner families or students of uh families of students. And so principles did push those out through their newsletters in different ways and we do have them in different languages. Um and so the other thing too is I know um Trey in Australia do the um no change informativas and um the family nights and so they've had opportunities to try to share about some of these programs there as well. But yeah, we definitely want to get as many voices as we can um in these surveys and so we can always do do better with making sure it's diverse. I just want to make sure that they did on that loop. So thank

093you Any other questions? Great. Thank you for the updates. Appreciate it. Appreciate your time this evening. Thank you guys for coming out. All right. So, up next, um so a couple weeks ago, we had a lot of public comment on um obviously stuff about immigration. And so we the board had asked um our safety and security team to come and give us an update on immigration procedures. So we have Andy Means, our new head of safety and security. Uh so he is going to give us um a presentation this evening on that. So Will's only giving me five minutes. Oh, or is he giving you a high five? I don't know what he's doing. So Oh, good. Okay. So, well, thank you Andy for being here. First, I've got a bit of a head cold,

094so if you have trouble hearing me or my start squeaking. That's why. Do you need water? You good? Okay. I should be okay for now. All right. Well, you have a microphone, so you don't necessarily have to project too much. You're good to go. So, all right. So, my hope is that this um presentation sheds some light on our policies and procedures and kind of gives a better understanding for everybody in the room and who's watching online. A little bit. Is that better? Okay, I don't want to get too loud. I've been told like Okay. Um, first I want to go over visitors to our schools. Schools must follow our board policy, which is KI. Um, this policy provides clear guidance to each school on how they how folks can enter our buildings, where they

095can go um within our schools. Access to our schools is restricted to main entrances only and folks have to check in at the office. So there is policy in place already on who can come to our schools and where they can go. Part of this policy also reserves the right for us to ask folks to leave. Um and when they don't by law it would be considered trespassing. And now we can get other law enforcement agencies involved if they weren't to leave. um if they're there without a court order or a warrant. This policy ki helps protect our students, helps protect our schools. It provides a secure place for people within our schools. One thing Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were going to be setting up here with me to do this, Tammy, but

096you left me. Um, I know, I know, I know. Thank you for reminding me though. Um, some of the warrants I was asked to go over, judicial and administrative. Okay, judicial warrants, there's two types. Uh, there's a arrest warrants, which are for people, and then search warrants, which are usually for locations such as a residence, buildings, um, and then items within those places, right? Um, so arrest warrants. This is a template that I used to use when I was at the Mesa County Sheriff's Office. It's very specific on to who the person is that I'm there to arrest. These warrants go through a process um that law enforcement has to write an affidavit. It has to go in front of a judge. A judge has to approve that there is probable cause in that affidavit.

097And then that judge would sign the warrant for that person's arrest. um the deputy or officer or whoever it is has to go in front of the judge and swear that this the information in that affidavit is true. Then in search warrants, um search warrants again are specific warrants for residences, businesses, different locations, and specific to what you're searching for. For example, that's drugs, stolen items. It can even be for a person that you're searching for with inside a building. Um, these warrants also go through the affidavit process. Again, law enforcement officer has to type up an affidavit, go in front of a judge. Judge has to prove that's a probable cause in that warrant and then they would sign that warrant for you to go execute. Thank you. Uh let's talk a little bit

098about administrative warrants. Now this is new to me because I did not use these type of warrants in within my scope as a deputy. Um these are federal administrative warrants. Um this information I got actually specifically from our local HSI and ICE agents. Um these warrants can be signed by an ICE agent or a federal immigration judge. They do allow for the arrest of a person, but it doesn't give them the authority to just go into somebody's residence or or our buildings or any location, right? Um that's that is still protected under the fourth amendment. But it still does allow for them to come in and arrest a person. I already said that about spoke twice. Um so let's go over a little bit of what ICE shared with me in their standard op standard

099operating procedures. Um, we we created this as a district is that we will skip. This doesn't have anything to do with this, but I can go over if you like since it's still in there. Illegal entry into the United States still is a criminal offense. Um, it is a misdemeanor charge. If you come over illegally, it's a felony charge after you have been deported and then you reenter the country. Um, what ICE explained to me, the reason why they don't go on criminal charges, they usually do it administratively because of cost to do it through the judicial process. It costs way more to do a federal criminal process than it does in a civil process. Okay, now I'm back to where back on track. So this is the process and protocol standard operating procedure we

100created. It doesn't matter what law enforcement agency comes to our school. Um they have to provide the proper documentation. um they have to provide their identification. If they have a subpoena or assigned warrant, our schools, our staff have to contact Tammy or myself immediately. Um again, the immediate action is for them to call me. Um I would respond to a school. If something were to impact one of our schools and a student was contacted, then we would contact parents immediately. Starting mid January, I had reached out to our local ICE agents um their supervisors with a clear understanding and expectation of how we would handle these investigations if they were to come to our schools. Um we discussed they would call me if they had to come to our school or even be near our

101schools. They also explained um even though the order was was rescended, they're not going to be coming to our schools. Um, they explained if they had an active investigation that led them to one of our schools. Again, they would call me, let me know they were in the area, but they would take away a target away from our schools to affect an arrest. They wouldn't do it outside in front of our schools. So, I think with that, I'd like to just point out, I think we're not seeing this across the country. I think if we were having this issue across the country at schools, then we would be seeing this in the news. I think we're I don't believe we're going to have that issue here. And if we do have them come to our

102schools again, they're going to be contacts. Sorry, that was a little longer than five minutes. Will Thank you. I appreciate that. I like the part I like that you did this. I think it's important for our families and our students to understand and hear all that. Uh I like the difference between uh administrative warrant versus judicial warrant. Administrative warrant. They have the only way they could enter is by consent. Correct. Have the consent they can. I think that's really important that our families understand that. So I really do appreciate that you took the time to go through all that. So thank you. You're welcome. I think one of the things that has just been brought to my attention personally is, you know, people are questioning, you know, other action like if this does happen outside

103of our school and I've tried to explain there are other policies and procedures that are in place um such as shelter in place procedures and things like that. So, anytime that we have any kind of law enforcement activity that's occurring outside of any of our schools um because it's an unknown situation, we would shelter anyway. And so that's a way of protecting our students to begin with. Do you have anything that you want to add to that? No, I think you covered it pretty well. Okay. And and if we did have and we've had law enforcement in our schools. We've had to go into shelter in place in our schools because we've had law enforcement activity in there. Um I don't want to say it's not new, but it's it's standard operating procedure for us

104already. I guess that's what I would um I guess to to summarize it is we already have this in place. And so I think when the community is asking us to do something, I I don't I I don't think there's anything we need to do because we're already doing it. We already have policy that you you pointed out like policy in K KI that says it who can access our buildings, who they who they are, and what qualifications they need to have in order to access the buildings. I also would say that we do everything we can to minimize disruptions throughout the school day. We we want our teachers and staff to focus on educating our kids while they're there during the day. We also know that there's a lot of things that happen during

105the school day. Like you said, there's law enforcement for a variety of reasons um on our school campuses and we you do you guys take care of that and our local law enforcement do that discreetly um to minimize distractions so that it doesn't become I don't know a Tik Tok um or or something. one to to to um protect those kids' privacy um for a lot of reasons, right? And and again, not to disrupt the school day. So, these are things that that are not new to you all and not new to our staff. And I would say that when you obviously brought this before the board, I took great comfort in knowing that you have talked already to DHS um local ICE that said, "Hey, if if there's something that's going to come up,

106we're going to come and talk to you first." And I also appreciate that we don't need to put additional um uh stressors on our staff by making them have to understand what the different warrants are. Um they just need to call you or they need to call Tammy. Um they don't need to understand a new a new warrant or anything else. maybe they need to brush up on the the policies that we already have in place, which are board policies, which was what was in the letter that was sent out. Um, and again, if there's any questions, they can call you. They can call Tammy on what those policies are. And and I think that was all that was was mentioned in the letter. And again, as far as I think what was also questioned

107as far as the board, as far as maybe our ethical duty is we don't turn any student away as far as who um we educate and we also don't ask what their immigration status is. We actually can't per FOYA. Um so we educate any and every student um that walks into our school buildings. We don't ask them what their immigration status is. We welcome them into our buildings. We educate them. We've asked our families to make sure that we have robust contact um in case anything happens because once those students leave our buildings, we there's not a whole lot we can do. Um, and so, you know, again, we're trying to just make sure that when the kids are on campus, we're we're educating them. We're taking care of them. Obviously, from the safety and

108security standpoint, we're protecting them while they're on campus. And if something comes up, obvious and like you said, Andy, we would probably be surprised if anything does happen and we're not even really hearing too much about it. Um, and if something does come up, they're obviously going to contact you first and then take care of it um, in an appropriate way, right? So, and I do appreciate you sharing their standard operating procedure, too, because I mean, we many probably don't know what that looks like. So, right. So, um, and and what our our operating procedure is. So, so again, I would just I would just again summarize. We already have policy in place. We're doing our duty ethically by educating the kids. We're protecting the kids. We're we're we're not infringing on asking them what

109their status is. Um we're taking care of them while they're on our campus and we're asking families to provide robust contact. Um so that if something if those kids return back to campus, we have we have more than one or two family members to be able to contact so that we so that our responsibility is we know who we can release them to who we have permission to release them to in case we can't get hold of mom or dad or whoever those those um people are that we're allowed to um release them to. So, um, I I feel like we've answered everything that the community has asked of us. So, thank you for presenting all that information. Yeah. And I I piggyback on that and I appreciate um the work that y'all are doing

110as well. I I think um and we all know the like schools are a microcosm of what's going on in our community. And so, you know, if there's fear in the community, then people want to know what's the what is the school district doing as well? And so, you know, if there was any miscommunication on our part or if we weren't clear enough with what was sent out to families, hopefully this does help with um clarifying, you know, what we what we do in our schools. And I'm glad that you mentioned that, President Heights. We we educate every student that comes into our schools. That's the beauty of public education. And so, we just want to make sure that we have safe and supportive environments in our schools just like we always do. And so,

111hopefully, if there are families listening to this that they're hearing that loud and clear that we want to continue to do that. You know, Andy has made it very clear. We don't want disruptions to our schools. Um we don't want disruptions to our learning environment. Um and so we want to continue to create that space for our our students or families because there is fear obviously in the community and then if families don't want to send their kids to school because they're fearful. Um you know I I I hear that and and we want to um try to dispel that as much as we can that fear. So again I appreciate you what you are doing. I hope folks hear loud and clear that our schools are safe spaces for our students and um and

112we welcome all students into our buildings and we do have those policies and procedures in place and that's why we practice these things and that's why we um we try to communicate as much as possible. Um but our schools are places for our kids to be and we want our kids there and so we hope families will send their kids to our schools um so that we can educate them and care for them. So again, hopefully this um dispels any rumors or misinformation that might be out there um that that's been circulating. So for our families out there that are listening, something that I experienced when I worked in the district is um hypothetically like a family member would have uh an adverse situation with the district and then they would block the district. And

113so a lot of our emails and phone calls come from a phone bank. And so if you block one number or one email, then it starts to block the whole system. So if we're sending out communication to advise you of something that's upcoming or what we are doing in order specifically for this situation, you know, some of you aren't receiving those emails. So, I ask maybe uh just vet your phone calls and and I mean because at least you'll get the voicemails or at least you'll get the text messages or at least you'll get the emails and then whatever you don't want to listen to you can delete. But if you're blocking everything, you're not going to get any of the communication that's coming from the district. Um and to kind of caveat off President

114Heights's comment about ensuring that you have documentation in your student records. I mean, anything that you can have in there, you know, emergency contacts and then just a bit of personal advice from also working in the district. A lot of parents will have um uh a power of attorney that they will leave with their emergency contact so that if something does happen and the parents not available, then that emergency contact can show up and they have the power of attorney in their hand. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the student record, but that emergency contact is there which allows us to contact that and they then they can show up and do what they need to do. So, just a couple of ideas out there, but please, if you've blocked the district and you

115need to have the communication, unblock, just vet your emails, text messages, phone calls if you don't want to hear from us. But there are important things coming out that we really need to make sure you and I want it to be known, too, that I've I've had a couple incidents already here with ICE with one at Grand Junction High School with a parent outside of the school, but it was impacting the and then one at one of our elementaryaries and ICE contacted me both times. They were able I was able to work through a process with them. Um, one was actually taken off of a hold because he's they're both single dads. Um, so they're not they're willing to work with me, work with the district. It's not they're just going to deport anybody and

116everybody. So, they're willing to work with us and keep everybody in the schools as safe as possible and keep them comfortable. Well, and I and I think that makes a good point, Andy. I my concern, too, is there's there's good men and women that are in law enforcement, and I I really worry that we we vilify people and and I'm not saying that there's bad apples in any industry, right? But we need to be careful about vilifying ICE, you know. Um these people are just they're doing their job. And I and I worry with especially sort of this national um sort of um narrative around that that it just worries me um again what you've said locally they're they're trying to work with you and what you just said is they're actually trying to work.

117We're a small community. I mean we probably run into each other unbeknownsted right at the grocery store and they're obviously trying to work with some of these families. Um, again, I'm I'm not saying that that everyone's, you know, that there's not not bad apples out there, but but we need to be careful of how we speak about our neighbors because there are people out there that are good and they're trying to do their job. And so, I I just I would caution that sometimes we should just slow down and maybe think about the words that we're using about the people that might be living next door. Um and that goes also for you know our friends and neighbors that are you know immigrants too um just that are our neighbors as well. So the only

118I want to clarify because that was what uh we got feedback on was in the first letter we sent out that when we had a line in there that said um to the tune of like working with and there was mis um understanding around that as if we were trying to help get folks into the schools. And so, um, I just want to be clear when we say we're working with, it's not an attempt to try to welcome outside agencies in the school. It's more around comming open lines of communication so we're actually aware of what's going on so that we can hopefully continue to support having, you know, safe schools and and and our learning environments aren't disrupted. So, I just don't want to when they when folks are hearing the words working with,

119that's what's been uh misinterpreted and I don't want that to be misinterpreted moving forward as well. We're not working with folks to try to bring them into the buildings. It's around trying to understand what the directives they've been given and how that might impact how um operations happen at our school. So, yeah, thank you. Thank good. All right. All right. Well, next we're going into our business items. So, uh board, you have on your um well, right there the there's a contract for Coats Creek Schoolhouse, which is the little schoolhouse up on uh Glade Park. So, Clint, we just need approval for this, right? Okay. Um, so, uh, do I have a motion to approve the contract for Coats Creek Schoolhouse, the sale of that? Motion to approve. Second. Any discussion? So, this is basically

120um, well, we can kind of summarize it. It's just a sale back to they they're property owners, right, Clint? if I remember. Um, for a whopping $10,000. Um, so originally the family kind of owned this. We're no longer using it up on Glade Park. The community will still be able to utilize it up there as well, right? If I Okay, I'm trying to remember all the just reading through all the notes. So, um, so the Glade Park community will still be able to use it. Um, so a minimal sale back to um the uh King family who originally actually uh I think donated it to the school district, right? Um Okay. Okay. I think I'm summarizing it correctly. Great. All right. Just just so our community understands kind of what this is. And then um

121property that they that they have owned owned for years is is surrounding it. It's a very odd little piece of property that just kind of got carved out um in the middle of of their ranch or or surrounded by their ranch land. So, um selling it back to them, selling back to them what they donated in the first place. Um and still giving the community access to use and and they'll maintain it like they have. Correct. There was a sale originally. Good. In 1938, there was originally a sale property. Okay. Thank you. And we are selling it back. Great. Okay. Thank you. Was I don't think anybody in this room? No, nobody in this room was here during that sale. Okay. Thank you. Well, I You look at me. I'm gonna start taking offense. You

122look right. I look right at me. I spann the room. I span. Just kidding. Great. All right. Just a little discussion so we can give some background on what we're voting on. So, all right. Any further discussion? No. Okay. Seeing none, we can go ahead and take the vote for the approval of the sale. Mr. Chavis, approved. Mrs. Evansson? Yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Miss Lima. Yes. All right, that passes 5. All right. Um All right. Is there any open board? Um just a couple things actually. Um I kind of want to give my condolences. We lost another community member. Um Miss Ricky Howey, who would like to attend our meetings and everything, uh passed away. Um even though, you know, we kind of but ahead, she's still a person and had some

123great ideas and a lot of words. So, condolences to her family and to the young lady, young lady that passed away yesterday morning at Central High School. Um, it's a very sad situation, but uh I want to say that uh Central did a great job with the reunification process and getting those kids back to their parents and keeping the kids safe and with all the services they had yesterday. It was great to see the district out there and such big forces to help those kids and um like I said, just we want to I want to give my condolences to them. So, great. There was uh in the public comment last week or two weeks ago, in our last meeting, there was uh Mr. Worth spoke and I just uh was reading what he talked

124about out of curiosity and it was uh so I read 11.7.4 uh to see what it said exactly because I haven't read the contract and so I was just I took apart and I just read it. I would advise you guys to take a look at it and see what it says. Um, it seems to me that what he said was true. So, um, if there's that we're not doing something, I would just like to get more clarification on the reasons why or something like that because I just I don't quite understand it myself. When I read it, it seemed like what he was saying that teachers get to be interviewed first that are displaced. It's clearly states that in the contract. So just don't understand why there's argument there. I guess that's my concern

125and I just like to know the reasons why and I don't know if anybody else has read that part of it or not. Um I recently went to uh Denver for the uh CASBY legislative winter session and uh couple of good things came out of that that session. a lot of stuff being talked about finances and different things and they put some things on hold and uh they ranted and raved about uh Melanie and our finance uh finance area. I got to meet Mr. Tagert and uh got to sit on the floor and see the actual stuff in action and all that fun stuff. And I was recognized and I didn't realize this, but I am one of one of four black male so schoolboard guys in the in the state of Colorado. So, it

126was kind of nice to be I mean I didn't realize that but um so it was nice though but it was good stuff and good to be talked about down there and um Mason County is being talked about a lot between the form policies and and everything else. So there's definitely District 51 was definitely talked about a lot this weekend. So well thanks for representing. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Well, Jose, maybe we can get some clarity on uh that section. So, we'll see if we can some clarity there. And then Will, thanks for representing. And Dr. Hill's obviously making some waves with our white paper and the cell phone uh policy and uh his public uh comment for uh the House bill that's uh been presented this legislative session. So, that's all good. I was

127told to tell him, "Hook them horns." Hook them. Yes. So, yeah. Um, any other open board discussion? No, but if you um get home at 7 o'clock, Fruit of Monument High School boys are playing in the Sweet 16 right at 7 o'clock. So, you can watch it online. The basketball team's playing tonight at 7. So, go Wildcats. Good to know. All right. Um, well, director uh Chavez and I got to do the student advisory group at Fruit of Monument. So that if you recall that was one of the board goals was for us to go out and meet with uh the different student advisory groups. So um we got to meet today and um we have in the next couple of weeks I know the board members are meeting with those student groups. So all

128right um upcoming meetings we have March 25th. Um so with spring break we obviously are bumping a week. Um, so our board business meeting will be March 25th and then um, so we we kind of spaced out board coffees because we were have not having minimal attendance. So we're kind of doing those a little bit quarterly. So we do have a board coffee coming up April 5th. Um, so that'll be at Pair Park Elementary um, on the morning of April 5th. So if you'd like to join us um, we'll have a couple board members there that morning. Um, and I think that is all. So, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. All right.