001All right, good evening everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started. Thank you all for being here this evening. We'll go ahead and get started. Um, just a quick housekeeping. Um, make sure schools that you all stay together through the recognitions because then Calie would like to do your photos out in the lobby area. So, please don't leave because we want to make sure we get a picture of um the respective schools together. So, um, we'll, uh, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. We'll do a, uh, the pledge of allegiance and then we have a moment of silence. So, um, call the meeting to order here at 5:06. And Director Jones, you want to do the pledge of allegiance. So, please stand with us and we'll do the pledgece to the
002flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, do I have a motion to approve the agenda for this evening? Motion to approve the agenda. Second, Mr. Chavez, approve. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Miss Lima? Yes. All right. Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes from November 19th, 2024 board business meeting and November 22nd, 2024 board special meeting? Motion to approve the meeting minutes. Second. Mr. Chavez. Yes. Mrs. Evansson. Yes. Mrs. Heights. Yes. Mr. Jones. Yes. Miss Lima. Yes. All right. So, we will jump into our recognitions this evening. Um, so various board members will be helping with the recognitions. So, first up, we have
003our Southwest League Volleyball Awards. Yep. Will Addie Ritterbrush and Coach Wendy McCascal please join us at the front of the room. [Applause] Addie, a senior at Palisate High School, and PHS volleyball coach Wendy McKascal have been named the Southwest League 2024 Player of the Year and Coach of the Year for the second consecutive year. An incredible achievement. Addie, the Bulldogs team captain and senior at Palisade High School, has an outstanding high school volleyball career. Over her tenure as a PHS Bulldog, she has recorded 1,5 kills, 864 digs, 29 total blocks, 170 assists, and 96 service aces. Wow, that's impressive. In the 2024 season alone, Addie maintained a 371 hitting percentage, ranked her 16th in Colorado and fourth in division 4A. Her exceptional performance has been crucial in leading the Bulldogs to multiple state tournament appearances.
004Beyond her impressive statistics, Addie has been an outstanding leader on the team, known for her dedication and excellence both on and off the court. She recently committed to continuing her volleyball career at Colorado Mesa University, but leaves behind a lasting legacy that will be deeply missed by her PHS Bulldog family. Coach McKascal, Palisad Volleyball's head coach since 2007, led the Bulldogs in a 225 record this year, including an undefeated season in the Southwest League, a regional championship, and their fifth straight straight state tournament appearance. With her unwavering leadership and focus on resilience, flexibility, and teamwork, the PHS girls volleyball team continues to overcome challenges, grow together, and achieve incredible success. In addition to onc court achievements, Coach McKascal's program raised nearly $9,000 this October for breast cancer awareness, bringing her total throughout her lifetime on
005the program to over $48,000. Every dollar stays local and supports women in the Grand Valley through all stages of their breast cancer journey. The board of education and superintendent, Dr. Hill, are proud to honor Addie and Coach McKascal for these accomplishments and thank them for all they have done for our D51 athletic community. Congratulations to you both on your well-deserved recognition. And Addie, good luck to your next endeavor. [Applause] Well [Applause] done. Next up, we have the Southwest League boys soccer player and coach of the year. Hello with uh Luis Menddees Castillo and Jonathan Pandong. Please come up your coach here. Luis Mendes, a junior at Grand Junction High School, played as a forward for the Tigers varsity soccer team. Luis has been a standout player, undoubtly undoubtly contributing to the team success during the
0062024 season. Luis showcased exceptional goalc scoring abilities. Through the first 11 games, he netted 28 of the team's 37 goals, averaging over 2.5 goals per game. His per his performance was instrumental in leading the Tigers to a 1231 overall record and securing the Southwest League title. Combined agility and skills to excel as a forward. Luis outstanding play not only earned him the Southwest League player of the year, but also honorable mention in the class 5 allstate boys soccer teams for the 2024 season. Congratulations. Since 2016, coach Jonathan Pendo has led the Grand Junction High School boys soccer to remarkable achievements, including a state quarterfinal run in 2017. In 2024, he guided the Tigers to a stellar 1231 record as a Southwest League title during their debut season at the 5A level. The coach emphasized team
007chemistry and collective goals, credit crediting the players strong connection and unified teamwork as a foundation of their success. His coaching style fostered a cohesive, motivated team environment, helping the Tigers excel at the highest level of competition. The board of education and superintendent Dr. Hill would like to contra both both Luis Mendes and the coach as being named Southwest League player and coach of the year respectfully. You both have left indentible marks on the Grand Junction soccer team and we eagerly anticipate watching your continued success during next year's season. [Applause] All right, next up we have the league football or excuse me, the dinosaur ridge science quiz bowl winners. Will the follow so good? I'm messing it up already, guys. Will the following people please join me at the front of the room? Coach Cody Shawcraft
008and the Grand Junction High School academic A team led by Eric Turllo along with Carter Reynolds, Neil Scott, Sean Pregi, Prestagen. Prestigian Prestigian say Pagan like it and Brendan [Applause] Schwarz. The Grand Junction High School academic team has a distinguished history of success in state competitions. As of this year, they secured their 26th state championship title title, marking their second consecutive win. 24 teams from across Colorado high schools competed in the Dinosaur Ridge State Science Quiz Bowl competition, answering multiple rounds of quiz questions regarding geology, paleontology, anatomy, and general science. The top three teams advanced to the final round and and in the finals, Grand Junction High School pulled off the win in a thrilling fashion after two rounds decided by, this sounds legit, sudden death tiebreers. This achievement highlights the students talent, determination, and
009dedication made possible through countless hours of practice and preparation lid by Coach Shakraftoft. The team also credits the supportive staff and teachers at Grand Junction High School for helping to lay the foundation for their success. It's a true reflection of hard work, teamwork, and the strength of Grand Junction High School community. The board of education and superintendent Dr. Hill want to recognize these students and coach Shaw for this accomplishment. We see the hard work you pour into your academics and your extracurricular activities and this is very welld deserved. Congratulations. We look forward to seeing your success next year. [Applause] All right. Next up, we have the I25 League Football Awards and then after that, Western Slope League football awards that Director Jones will The board of education would like to invite Grand Junction High School
010football coach Landon McKe and football players Will Appleagay, Xavier Chavez, and Jaden Owens to the front of the room. [Applause] The Grand Jackson High football team had an outstanding season, finishing with a 9-1 regular season record, securing their first playoff win since 2013, and demonstrating remarkable growth and determination under coach Landon McKe's leadership. Since taking over in 2016, Coach McKe has transformed the Tigers football program. Under his leadership, they have achieved remarkable 9-1 regular season record in 2024, their best in 14 years, and secured their first playoff victory since 2013. His dedication and effective coaching strategies have earned him a well-deserved title of coach of the year. A pivotal force on both offense and defense, senior quarterback and linebacker Will Appate led the Tigers to with total 17 total touchdowns to a 9-1 regular season
011record and their first playoff appearance in five years. His exceptional performance throughout the season earned him league's most valuable player MVP. Jaden Owens, the Tigers senior offensive guard, has been the has been the cornerstone of the offensive line, providing crucial protection and support for the team's offensive plays. Owens anchored the offensive line continuously contributing to the team's rushing that led led to multiple victories. His outstanding performance has earned him the title of lineman of the year. and Xavier Chavez, a senior quarterback, has an in was instrumental in Tigers defensive success, contributing significantly to the team's strong defensive record. A key component of the defense that allowed only 14.2 points per game during the season. His exceptional play has earned him the title of defensive co- MVP. These individuals embody the excellence and dedication of GH
012GJHS athletic program. The board of education and superintendent Dr. Hill are proud to celebrate the accomplishments and proud of these positive impacts they've made continue to make. Congratulations to Coach McKe, Will Appleagate, Jaden Owens, and Xavier Chavez. To our graduating Tigers, best wishes on your next chapter. For those returning next year, we can't wait to see your future achievements. [Applause] That's it. [Applause] The board of education would like to invite Palisade High School football coach Joe Romano and Palisade football players Ethan Embry and Vincent Johnston to the front of the room. [Applause] Greg, do you want to come up and accept for for Joe? Palisade High School Bulldogs finished the 2024 football season with a 8-3 record, going undefeated in league play to win the 3A Western Slope Championship with standout performances from players like
013Eastston Embry and Vinnie Johnston. The team showed great grit determination throughout the season, including a six-game winning streak. Their defensive efforts, allowing just 12.7 points per game, helped them reach the playoffs, where they narrowly fell to Severance High School in a hard-fought game. Senior wide receiver and defensive back Eastern Embry was named the 2024 offensive player of the year, delivering outstanding performances throughout the season. East rushed for a career-high 196 yards and two touchdowns on just seven carries in a 43 to zero victory over Eagle Valley. His versatility and athleticism were pivotal to the Bulldog's offensive success. Senior offensive lineman and defensive tackle Vinnie Vincent Vinnie Johnston anchored both offensive and defensive lines. His leadership and experience played a key role in the team success strengthening the Bulldogs line and helping and helping them have
014a great season which earned him lineman of the year. Coach Romano, well earned and well-deserved title Western Slope League league coach of the year, helped guide the Bulldogs in tackling a tough schedule this season. Building the team with both resilience and competitiveness. His focus on teamwork and experience showed that the players worked hard and stayed determined through every challenge. The board of education and superintendent Dr. Hill would like to congratulate Ean Embry, Benny Johnston, and Coach Romano on their astounding achievements. These three exemplify the dedication and passion that define Paliside High School athletic program, inspiring their teammates and community through their leadership and hard work. Well done, [Applause] All right. Uh, could we have uh Curtis Angelhart and Karen Troster join me at the front? All right. So, um, Curtis and Karen were our co-chairs
015for the bond and mill that we just passed. and we want to thank our community so very much for that. So the board of education is proud to recognize the exceptional leadership of our 2024 bond and mil levy override campaign co-chairs Karen Troster and Curtis Angelhart serving as campaign co-chairs. These engaged and supportive community partners were instrumental in guiding this campaign to success. From engaging the community and advocating for our schools to calling donors and rallying support, their tireless efforts and strong leadership was pivotal in securing these resources for our students, staff, and schools. Their ability to connect with stakeholders, build trust, and overcome challenges made them the perfect choice to lead this effort, and we are deeply grateful uh for their dedication to K12 public education. We also want to thank the entire campaign
016committee for their hard work and dedication. Their teamwork has helped create lasting opportunities for D-51 students, schools, and families, and we appreciate everything that everyone has done on the campaign to make it a success. The accomplishment of passing the 2024 bond and mil levy override initiatives reflect the power of teamwork and a shared vision for better opportunities for every student in D51. On behalf of the board of education and superintendent Dr. Hill, the entire D-51 community, we extend our deepest gratitude and c congratulations to the campaign committee and especially to our co-chairs for their steadfast efforts in leading this us to success. Thank you for everything that you've done. [Applause] All right, this is a long list. I'm going to put glasses on for this one. Okay. Would the administration from the following schools please
017stand and stay standing when your school is called? Appleton Elementary, Corey Hayy, Broadway Elementary, Brittany Westbrook. Go ahead. Chatfield Elementary, Dave McCall, Chapita Elementary, Jamie Chairo, Dual Immersion Academy, Tyler Mclofflin, Fruit of Monument High School, N. Clousmire, Independence Academy. Lisa Gonzalez Gonzalez, Juniper Ridge Community School, Marie Carris, LMA Elementary, Nicole Whimsat, Mesa Valley Community School, Laura Gene DS, Mesa View Elementary, Stacy Cohen, Monument Ridge Elementary, Emily Larson, Mount Garfield Middle School, Danielle Bagwell, New Emerson, Aubrey Hoffman, Orchard Avenue Elementary, Teal Maxwell Richards, Orchard Mesa Middle School, Danny Medv, Palisade High School, Dan Bowlinger, Pear Park Elementary, Zachary Moore, Pomona Elementary, Bill Fafendorf, R5 High School, Nick Steinmets, Redlands Middle School, Scott Davis, Rimrock Elementary, Patrice Clark representing Sally Huddle, Scenic Elementary, Chris Scott, Shelody Elementary, Cammy Kidd, Taylor Elementary, Shaun Wilson, Tupe Elementary, Summer Kennedy,
018and her predecessor, Carrie Bolinger, and Windgate Elementary, Amy Schrader. Every school in D51 works tirelessly to provide students with the tools and opportunities they need to succeed. Each year, the Colorado Department of Education evaluates each evaluates schools across the state and through school performance framework. This evaluation like a report card for a school measures academic achievement, growth, and post-secary workforce readiness for high schools. Schools then you use these results to build plans that either sustain their success or address areas for improvement. For the 2023 24 school year, district 51 had twothirds of our schools earn the top rating of performance school, a testament to the hard work and dedication of our students, staff, and families. We'd like to take a moment to recognize the staff members from these schools. If you are here, please stand.
019You are standing to be acknowledged alongside your school administrators. Anybody else here with their administrators? Thank you for all that you do to help our students thrive. The board of education and superintendent Dr. Hill proudly recognize these schools and their incredible staff for admin and administration for their dedication to academic excellence and their commitment to our vision to engage, equip, and empower each and every student each and every day. Your impact goes far beyond the walls of your school buildings, shaping well-rounded students who will become valuable contributors to our communities in the future. Congratulations on this well-earned recognition, and thank you for all that you do to support and uplift our D-51 [Applause] community. And real quick, because I always I like stats. So, um, we had 27 performance schools this year, which is awesome.
020Um, and that is twothirds of our schools, as Secretary Lima said, 90% of our schools at the top two levels in the state, which is was our strategic plan year 2 goal, which is awesome as well. Um, I did want to highlight a couple things. So, we had performance schools that earned double digit gains on their SPF, which is remarkable. Um, so we had uh two schools that earned that grew by 13 points, uh, Rimrock uh, Elementary and Taupe Elementary. if we can give them a round of applause. Um, two schools that uh grew by 14 percentage points, that's Orchard Avenue Elementary and Pear Park Elementary. Give them a round of applause. Um, and then, uh, one school that grew 19 points was New Emerson. We give them a round of applause. And did I
021mention Taylor? Oh, I skipped them. Sorry. 15 points was Taylor Elementary. Let's give them a round of applause. And then two of our performance schools that grew the most um this past year were by 22 points was Orchard Mesa Middle School and LMA Elementary. If we can give them a round of applause. And then we had some schools that that jumped levels um because there are four levels that a school can earn. And so um one of our schools went from impro improvement to performance and that was Pear Park Elementary. if we can give them a round of applause. And then one of our schools that jumped two levels from priority improvement all the way to performance was Orchard Mesa Middle School. If we can give them a round of applause. And then two other
022things I'll mention. One, uh D51 uh earned we jumped a level as well as a district um to the accredited level and that's the first time we've been at that level in the last eight years, which is great for our school district. And then I really just want to shout out um R5 High School, our alternative high school. They earned the highest rating in the state as a performance school and that's the first time that that's happened in in seven years. And so if we can give R5 a huge round of applause as well. And so I just, you know, we we obviously our goal is to get to 100% but we need to celebrate our schools and the work that they've done. And so thank you all for your leadership. I know your staff
023that are here as well are watching online. Thank you to everybody who supports our students. And this is a great celebration for our school district. So if we can give them one more big round of applause tonight. Okay. So, I know you're all chomping at the bit to just stay for the rest of the meeting, but we'll give you several minutes to go ahead and make your way out. So, Callie, you'll be out in the lobby, right? So, make sure you get with her so she can get some. So, thank you all and drive home safely. that's staying. Uh please go ahead and uh you're welcome to have a seat. You can even move to the front if you want. So, um, also, if you're new to our board meetings, we do have the public
024comment sheet, um, over here to my left, your right, um, under the television there for you to sign up for three minute comment. So, uh, please be sure to sign up for that prior to our public comment time. We'll just give everybody a few more minutes to file out here. That's what I'm talking about. Oh, no problem. Sorry. there. Okay. All right. Thank you everyone. So there plenty of seats now available. All right. We will now move on with our meetings. So now we have board reports. So uh board um any good things that you want to share from this last week or two? I'll just share that I'm thankful for the uh bond and mill campaign that our community voted on and that we just recognized the co-chairs for and um and several people
025in this room I know worked really hard on that. So, we're very we're very thankful for that. Those dollars are um going to be well spent in um our buildings and uh for our students. So, I have something. Go ahead, Jose. The Sunday I was able to participate at Junction High School with Miss Adams and Mr. Re uh the CLLD teachers at Grand Junction High School. They had a winter wonderful winter wonder night for all of their students. There was approximately about 150 families that were there. 150 individuals and 12 different type 12 different people from different countries that were also there. Uh the food was really amazing, especially the desserts. I got to give that up. Uh it was really good. But you could see the interactions of when they had to not only
026when they were providing the food but they were also uh had to build gingerbread houses and there was generationals. It was the grandparents the parents and their children there and they're all building and they're amazing how well that they built the houses and uh some of them built once once one age group built one of the family and the other one built the other one and then they put them together. So there was a really huge house that they put together. Totally amazing. Uh just Miss Adams is just and Miss Reyes are just wonderful people to put that on. And I think this was their first year that they ever did it. They were fearful about that. But like most things when you're new, you don't know if it's going to come through or not,
027but it came through and everybody seemed to be having a really wonderful time. Those gifts and those book those books that were given away, they were all taken. So it was wonderful. I have a public service announcement. Some of the kids that I used to work with at Orchard Mesa Middle School have notified me that they have obtained their driver's permits and their license. Um so, uh look out there on the road. Um wear your seat belts. Uh I'd like to just mention that we all all five of us plus Dr. Hill were able to attend the CASBY convention this last weekend in Colorado Springs. uh it was some great presentations and some wonderful networking with other uh school board directors, superintendents from across the state. So it was very valuable and well spent time
028to do that. one and um was able to what President Heis presented on a session and then I was able to present on um our AI pilot that we're a part of um with the rest of the state and then also attend a uh session on the smartphone policy and um if you haven't seen yet CI put out a a case study on the work that we've done in the district and so they were able to launch that at at CASBY as well which is great because other school districts were that are looking to move in that direction now they have sort of a roadmap so yeah it was good to be able to present and share some of the things that happen in the district and also to have President Heights um presenting as
029well and representing district and then also our award winner um being recognized as well for the McGuffy Award. So, it was good. It was good. The the cell phone policy room was actually completely packed with people wanting information about that. So, uh, I stood outside the room, spoke with quite a few, um, different board members and couple of superintendents just about the success that we've had with our policy and and, um, shared some information so that they can hopefully have a success with that as well. All right, thank you everybody. Um, do we have any committee updates? Nothing real pressing. Okay. You know, well, you'll see the policy committee along with our legal council has been very busy. So, um, all right, we are ready for D51 happenings and celebrations. Hello board. Um, I'm Sierra
030Coulson, marketing and communication specialist for D51 schools, here to share with you the District 51 happenings and celebrations. Starting with our golden apple, Damon Gilmore, aka Coach D, was nominated for his unwavering dedication to coaching football and his genuine care for his students at Palisade High School. His commitment extends beyond the field as he consistently goes the extra mile to support students well-being and success. Coaching is not just a job for Coach D. It's his purpose. He strives to be a role model and guide for his players, inspiring them to excel both on and off the field. The assembly at PHS where this award was presented highlights the incredible impact Coach D has as a coach and leader. Thank you, Coach D, for being one of a kind. D51 Lego League teams made their way
031to Denver to compete in the first Lego League Challenge state tournament. Congratulations to Mesa View, Dual Immersion Academy, Friddle Middle, and Broadway Elementary for your hard work and for representing D51. A special shout out to the chicken hawks from Mesa View Elementary for earning second place in core values and dual immersion academy for receiving the judges award for inclusivity. Grandparents day is traditionally celebrated in September, but here at D51, we give our grandparents an extra day of recognition. We celebrate this special occasion the Thursday before Thanksgiving break, creating a heartfelt tradition. While many D-51 schools observe this tradition, Pomona has proudly been carrying it on for over 50 years. Grandparents are invited to enjoy a festive turkey and gravy lunch lovingly prepared by our dedicated nutrition services team. Even D51 school board members join in
032to serve delicious pumpkin pie. A huge thank you to Pomona and all D-51 schools for nurturing and preserving this meaningful tradition, one that has been and will continue to be tre treasured for years to come. On National Special, excuse me, on National Special Education Day, School District 51 honored the individuals who have made a lasting impact on the lives of students with disabilities. This day commemorated the signing of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, which paved the way for inclusive education and equal opportunities for students with disabilities. On this day, we celebrate our incredible students, dedicated educators, and supportive families who make a difference every day. Together, we build an inclusive environment where every student can reach their fullest potential. Many of our D51 schools are kicking off the holiday season with
033the Toys for Tots Hog Run. Pair Park Elementary, Rimrock Elementary, and Thunder Mountain Elementary all collected toys for families in need. Hog motorcycle Hog motorcycle riders arrived at each school dressed in festive attire. Santa and the Grinch even made an appearance, singing carols and spreading the spirit of giving. The riders then loaded their trailers and sorted the toys for distribution to children across the Grand Valley. A heartfelt thank you to our community, our schools, and the Western Slope chapter, Grand Junction Hogs, for continuing to host this wonderful and meaningful event. We've all had our fair share of bad hair days, but none quite like this with a great cause behind it. Brut Monument High School principal Nuke Klmeer shaved his head after students reached their goal of donating over 5,000 cans to the Food Bank
034of the Rockies, helping provide more than 1,000 meals for families in need this holiday season. A huge shout out to FMHS for demon demonstrating the true power of teamwork and generosity. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this amazing effort. This week marks computer science education week, an annual event in early December dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of computer science and inspiring students to explore this exciting field. The events highlights the importance of computer science in shaping the future and encourages students to engage in computer science related learning opportunities. To celebrate, D51 schools are joining the global hour of code initiative. Throughout the week, students in special classes will spend an hour engaging in coding activities, tutorials, and games designed to introduce them to basic coding concepts, sparking creativity, and inspiring the next
035generation of STEM and STEAM learners. And finally, Grand Junction High School recently hosted a vibrant celebration banquet for our culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. A heartfelt thank you to Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Reyes and retired elementary CLLD teacher Susan Kempell for their hard work in organizing this memorable event. Over 150 people representing a variety of ethnic groups gathered to share delicious homemade dishes from their unique cultures, celebrating the rich diversity within the Grand Junction High School community. It was a beautiful reminder of the strength and unity found in our shared experiences and diverse backgrounds. That's all we have for December happenings and celebrations. Be sure to keep up with all the latest D51 happenings by following us on social media at D51 schools and wishing you all happy holidays. See you next year.
036[Applause] Those are the pictures that Jose was talking about. You're in there. So that looks great. All right. Next up, um we have our superintendence report. So Dr. Um, so I'll go ahead and have Mel come up. So we have our We'll start with our audit report. Melon friends. Okay. We need numbers, right? We have to make sure the microphones are on. Anybody online? Right. Thank you. Okay. So, thank good evening. So, here we're together we present a new comprehensive financial report or audit uh for fiscal year ended June 30, 2024. So just give everybody a little bit background about what is effort. So effort stands for annual comprehensive financial report. Effort is a set of a financial statement. It must be audited by an independent external auditor. The foremost for purpose of the effort
037is to provide financial transparency and accountability. So who are the user of the report? So that including pretty much everybody internal users, external users including the other governmental agencies, financial institutions, grantors, reading agencies and communities. Uh perfect example is when we issue that or we try to get a grant and that that's the the the one major documentation they require. Um so not every single acter created equally. Uh so the district try to deliver the best quality information to the public. Uh district always participate it's called the GFOA certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting. Uh so recently you probably remember that we just received the 30th consecutive award. That is a a huge achievement and I can tell uh it was only probably 16 school district uh ever receive that long award. Yeah.
038Consecutively. Yeah. Um I didn't do all this 30 years by the way. Started when you were five, right? Um so this year we are still wrapping up the aer so finance department will submit 2024 aer in December probably within the next couple weeks. Um so the now I'm going to touch on the the the timeline why it take us so long because we're still talking about 2024 fiscal year. It literally took almost seven months. So it start from um preliminary planning phase is normally start in May or June that by touching base with our external auditors and talk about uh what's the field work which means auditor come to the school district go over all the documentation required documentation so that's the two phases the interimm audit field work and the final audit field work
039so would normally happen in June July final one normally happen in September and from after September we move forward to a prepared financial statement. But still the communications never stop. We continue talk to each other. Make sure every number in the report which is 162 pages this year that that have a solid backup. Every single number have a back backup. And then um when we move to December which is now we start wrap up and do the presentation to the board and the file with all the agency require CDE MSRB all those agency that's required and then post audit phase will be sometime in January we touch base and see how can we make the whole process more smooth next year and what's what improvement we can make as a management. So uh Mel already
040introduced Jim which is our external audit auditor and this is his second year so I I will hand over to him. Yes my name Okay. Yes. My name is Jim Hinkle with Helen Company CPAs and we are the external auditors and we audited the annual financial statements of June 30, 2024. We start our audit by updating our understanding of the district's internal accounting controls, policies, and procedures around cash receipts, cash dispersements, treasury management, and payroll. What we're looking for primarily is a segregation of duties that uh transaction that typically takes three steps. The initiation, the approval, and the recording of that transactions in the books and records. And we do not want one person handling all three of those steps. uh we look for those internal controls to determine whether there are any significant deficiencies
041or material weaknesses in the internal control structure. Those are terms of art for us. A significant deficiency is defined as a design flaw in the system of internal accounting controls that would allow an error to go undetected in the ordinary course of business. And a material weakness would be a significant deficiency that could result in a material misstatement to the financial statements. And based upon our analysis and our review of the internal control structure as well as all of our testing throughout the audit process, we did not find any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in the internal control structure. That's the answer that you want to hear. We also use all that work for us to assess the audit risks and in our design of audit procedures and then we move into the actual audit
042of the financial statement that occurs during the final fieldwork that Ashley described. We use primarily test of details which is pretty much what it sounds like. We drill down into account balances and we look at the underlining transactions and then we compare those back to source documents like invoices, cash receipts, contracts, agreements, etc. to determine whether or not those transactions are accounted for correctly. We also use a lot of analytic review where we compare this year to last year, this year to budget and we're looking for relationships that we either didn't expect or can't explain. And if we have any of those, we do more test of details with the accounts that are addressing those analytic reviews. The end result of all of that is our audit opinion on the financial statements. Your opinion is
043what's referred to as an unmodified opinion. In layman's term, that is a clean opinion. Basically states that the financial statements are prepared in accordance with general accepted accounting principles. That's the answer that you want to hear as well. You all receive federal funds. So, we are required to do what's referred to as a single audit. In other words, you're going to have one audit over the financial statements as well as compliance with federal award uh agreements and requirements. Uh we issue two opinions with respect to the federal programs. The first is referred to as in compliance with government auditing standards and and it primarily focuses on looking at the district as a whole and asks the question, does the district have the internal controls in place to identify what federal programs it participates in and
044what the compliance requirements are for all of those federal com grant programs. Well, that sounds kind of easy in some respects. A lot of federal dollars are passed through the state and other organizations and they kind of it's hard to follow necessarily what the character is. And based upon our analysis of the internal control structure, we believe that the uh district does have the internal controls in place and our opinion on that is also an unmodified or clean opinion. Finally, the third audit report that we issue is under uniform guidance where under federal regulations, we're required to test specific programs and we drill down into those programs and we look at those programs and the compliance with federal standards for dispersements for eligibility for reporting and all of the 12 uh compliance standards that are
045required by most federal programs. And then we do detailed testing on those. This year we tested the ESR1 program, the special ed program, the child nutrition program, and the title one program. And our audit report with respect to that testing is also a clean opinion that there was uh internal control procedures allowed on all four of those programs. And throughout our detailed testing, we did not find any findings or question costs or compliance errors. So all in all, all three audit reports are clean opinions and all three are is exactly what you would expect. We also issue a required communication letter at the end of the audit and that is where we are required to communicate in writing if certain events occur during the course of an audit and we have nothing negative to report
046in that letter. We did not have any disagreements with management. We did not have any difficulties in the course of the audit. We did not have any uh audit or errors where we found the books and records were in error and needed adjustments. Those are called audit adjustments. Nor did we have any uncorrected errors where we found small errors in the books and records that the uh adjustments would be immaterial to the financial statements in a whole. So we do not have any of those either. All in all that report is a clean letter as well. Finally, and I think this is probably the most important comment that I can make tonight is we as the external auditors felt as though we had open transparency. Everything that we asked for, we received in a timely
047fashion and we were never denied access or other information when we requested it. So we as the external auditors felt like we could ask for and receive whatever information we felt necessary to complete an external audit in compliance with our professional standards. So that transparency is very important and I think you all need to know that that transparency was there. Thank you very much. Did you guys have any questions for Jim while he's here? He was kind enough to drive here to give this presentation in person. So we appreciate that. It's fun to give a presentation when everything was perfect. It is. Yes, it it is. We like boring audit presentations always happen. Good. Like you don't want it to be too eventful, right? That's right. All right. Well, thank you all. Thank you, Jim.
048Thank you. Thank you everybody. Appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, you have one more slide. I'm sorry. Go for it. We had one more slide. You're good. Go for it. I almost got out of here. Sorry. As long as you guys clap for me at the end, too. No. Um, so our acter is currently in draft form and we will send a final version to the board by the 29th of December. And then we also have a number of required filings that we will be submitting on time with no extensions. And these include our yearly filings with CDE, the state auditor, the municipal securities rulemaking board, and the federal audit clearing house. And then once the report is finalized, it will be available to the public through our financial transparency page on the district's website. Awesome.
049Thank you. Thank you all for your time this evening. All right. Now it's just Mel with no friends. So the next item in our packets is the Milbby certification here. All right. So the MIL levy certification is an annual process. Every year we come to the board about this time of year in order to certify the amounts for property taxes to be levied and collected in the next tax year. Um uh this is based on assessed valuations that the Mesa County Assessor's Office provides us for the 2024 tax year. And there's usually a really tight turnaround on that, but just shout out to the assessor's office that they actually had until today to get us those values, but they provided us to them I think even before Thanksgiving. And so that's why we didn't need
050to have a special meeting or anything tonight and we were able to pull everything together. Um then we take those certified um levies. They need to be certified in a normal year by December 15th. This year that is on a Sunday I believe. So our deadline is actually the next day, but then we submit that back to them in order for collection and also to the state. So there are some terminologies because we only do this once a year that are unique to this process. And so I just want to go into those. Um, mills, assessed values, and assessment rates are all used in order to calculate the property taxes due. And so one mill is equal to onetenth of a penny or 1/1,000th of a dollar. Um, and some of our calculations are for
051a set revenue amount and some are for a set number of mills. And so there are formulas in order to calculate from each of those. And then AV or assessed valuation is the taxable portion of a property value based on the current assessment rate. And so for residential and non-residential, there are different rates. Currently, the residential assessment rate is 6.7% for most properties. That means that for every $100,000 of market value, $6,700 of that value is taxed. Um there is still an exemption that's in place this year where we actually subtract off $55,000 in value and then apply that rate to it. And then similarly for non-residential, it is a higher rate, but that's currently at 27.9% or 27,900 is taxable per 100,000 um after a $30,000 actual value subtraction. And I'll go through some
052examples on that, but just high level how those are calculated. And it's important to note that uh legislation sets these rates and so they do change from year to year. As we know, they had a special session um that's going to change some of these terms for next year. Um but really that's um just something we watch for every year. Um in general, when assessed values increase, fewer mills are required to generate the same level of revenue. And when assessed values decrease, it takes more mills than to generate that revenue. So there are three primary uh categories for school districts for property taxes that are collected. Um the first and largest is our local share of school finance total program funding or PPR. Um that provides our general pro fund regular program and abatement and
053that is set by CDE. Um that's currently at 27 mills. The second category are our voter approved mill levy overrides and those are for operational expenses u above and beyond PPR. And then the third category are voter approved bond redemption and that's uh also passed by voters to repay debt on capital improvements. So just breaking that down into a pie chart of the resolution that's before you tonight. You can see that by far the largest section nearly 60% of our property taxes that the district levies are for our PPR total program and again that's set by CDE. Um the remaining 40% are ones that our voters have approved either through mill levby overrides or through bonds. So, if we're looking first at the total program property tax collections, um that's the amount that a district
054receives per student and it's set by the school finance act formula. Each district is unique in the amount that they get per student and there's a variation in the number of mills that we levy. For us, it's set at 27 mills and that's uh our full amount that we need to levy each year. And that provides roughly 60% of our total PPR funding with the remaining 40% being made up of local property taxes and specific ownership tax dollars. So that 60% if we didn't have state funding rather than levying 27 mills we would need to levy our community for 80 mills. And so that just demonstrates that 60% that's provided by the state. Uh the second category are those mil levy overrightes. I know with the election we've talked about this probably more than we
055normally do and so this might be a little redundant but we do have three currently. Uh one is 1996. That's a permanent flat amount but this one is unique in that it adjusts for inflation and last year that dollar amount for inflation was 5.2%. So that's the increase from last year to this year and that's for operating expenses of schools. 2004 is also permanent, but it's for a flat dollar amount of$4 million. And so that one is unchanged in dollar amount, and that's also approved for the operating expenses of schools back in 2004. Um, our new one is just extends the 2017 MLO, but we are now labeling it as the 2024 mill. It is now permanent and it is for a flat 6.5 million. So that allows us to continue the student contact days,
056curriculum and related training, school tech positions, and building maintenance. Um the total of those MLOs's is 16.8 million for next year. Um as a district, we're capped at 31% of our total program could be approved in mill levy overrides. Um we're at about 8%. So we're using about a quarter of our capacity right now in those mill levies. Uh the last category is uh to repay capital debt. Those are for our bond redemption property tax collections. These funds are unique in that they're actually held by the Mesa County Treasurer's Office rather than held in our books. Um they make the payments um based on those levies and the it's for principal and interest payments and can be only used for that purpose. Um, support for capital construction is capped at 20% of the net assessed
057valuation as well as the annual limitations in the ballot questions. And again, we're using we're well under those caps. Um, this year was not a reassessment year. That means that there was very little change to AV through growth, a 1.3% change from last year to this year. um our mill levy comparison from last year to this year is that it there is no change. The total mill levy rate will remain at 45.077. Um based on all of those assessments rates that I shared, uh roughly $300 per 100,000 of residential and non-residential is $1250 per 100,000 in market value after those exemptions. And so just to walk through a couple taxpayer examples. So on the left hand side, if there is a home with a market value of 400,000, uh the $55,000 exemption is applied uh
058netting to 345,000. To that you apply the 6.7% residential assessment rate multiplied by the 45.077 077 mills divided by a,000 where it's 1,000th of a dollar um to be an annual property tax of 141 or roughly $87 per month and that covers all three categories the PPR the MLOS's and the bond and then non-residential that rate is higher and so you're taking the same market value but there's a 30,000 exemption and so that's a net value of 370,000 that then the 27.9 is applied to the 45.077 mills and that annual tax bill is around 46.50 or monthly about 3.87 on a market value um non-residential property of 400,000. So again, I know that our mill and bond passed as a no tax rate increase. So we're remaining at 45.077. The total number of mills levied
059remain the same. And from last year to this year, those assessment rates and exemptions are also the same. So unless there was just a change in um somebody's property value, the tax bill should be the same for the district 51 portion. Um so next steps uh tonight you have a resolution that walks through each of those calculations and then the comparison table again just showing that there are fluctuations in between individual categories but the overall amount remains the same and then after which we can provide that certification to the county and CDE in order to comply with their deadlines. Uh lastly I just wanted to provide a update on the bond. So we are in the process part of the aur is an important piece of getting ready to take our bonds out to market
060and so that's the piece that we're wrapping up now. We're also working on our preliminary official statement or POSOS and so that's another piece of it. Um some of these other deadlines uh are around a ratings call and so that's with our rating agencies and then once all of those documents are completed then we can take our bonds out to market and so right now our tenative timeline uh shows us taking those bonds the second week of February. Um there is one more resolution that the board will need to approve at the business meeting in January and that's just setting the parameters based on the ballot language for the sale of those bonds. And so, uh, Dan Okonnell and Kim Crawford will be available online for that meeting in order to go over with that.
061Um, but that would be our last piece and wrapping everything up and getting them ready to get those proceeds. Um, are there any questions? Can I just clarify something? So, will you will you go back to it's slide seven on here. Millie over property tax collection. It shows that one. So, if I'm if I'm doing my math correctly, which is scary to do that out loud, um I think so you're saying we only borrow we're only borrowing up to eight we can borrow up to 31% but we're only borrowing 8%. So, if we actually were able to or levy um through our through mill rides with our community, that number would essentially be almost four times as much. So we the 16.7 million which is great and the reason why that's not going up necessarily
062is because we didn't actually because the Millerville right we just passed didn't actually add any funding to our district to just secure what we already had. Um but we we technically have the opportunity to ask for even more but we haven't and so my assumption is that other communities that have been outpacing us with mill overrides are are levying a much higher percentage. Is that accurate? A lot of our comparable districts, I know that number that we had is about we're at about a $27 million disadvantage per year to the average of our comparable districts. And several of those are closer to their max. And those maxes vary a little bit by district. Um but yeah, several of them every time there is an increase to AV, they're able to go out to their communities
063and take the max. We are only about 1/4 of what we could be levying. Okay? And I'm not saying that because I'm saying let's go, you know, levy all that. But I just think it'll be important especially for um when Amy presents in a second on the budget, the proposed budget and what that's going to look like for us moving forward and we may need to have some conversations as a community around that because it's not looking great and there are opportunities to help with that, but it would mean potentially future millides in our community. Okay, absolutely. Mel, I have a quick question. And I know that some time ago you and I got to meet with the assessor so that when people are looking at this similar graph on their tax bill um we
064were just going to be able to explain it more because I think a lot of people don't realize that those 27 mills like you said is set by CDE but it's not something that we ever went out and asked for that like the state actually sets that and you know when you do look at your tax bill and you see like the school district has many line items on there obviously because we've passed quite a few different things. Um I don't think I think there's a misnomer there that that one larger chunk that they see was somehow something they approved years ago. And so are we still on track with kind of making sure that when people get their tax bill this year, it's going to be lined out a little bit more intricately or
065maybe just more explicitly? Yeah. So I think there will be a little bit of change on the tax bill itself, but also in the pamphlet that they put out. That's where we provided them with descriptions for each of the different levies and whether they were voter approved or they were set um by uh a mandate and so hopefully providing just more information to inform taxpayers about the different purposes for each of those levies that they see on their bill. Um, I actually reached out to their office today just to share with them these current numbers and the updated descriptions for the 2024 mill so that they can have that all updated for their document that they'll be preparing. Yeah. Because if you look at um obviously if you look at the 27 mills but then
066when you actually look at what the chunk that we're where our communities actually voted the pi the piece of the pie is obviously much smaller. So, um I I just I think when when our community can kind of understand I mean we all get into this and and you obviously live and breathe all of this and so I think any any little things we can do for people to understand um man it seems like I pay the school district a lot. It's like well actually part of that is statemandated and then there has been some that has been approved by our community and then to Dr. Hills point. It's like we're actually only using 8% of the potential of what we could ask and and we don't take that lightly, but I just think it
067helps get your head wrapped around like what what that funding actually looks like for the district because unlike municipalities, we don't get to go out and charge sales tax or do anything else. Like we really rely on these types of funds to obviously fund public education and we actually get very few federal dollars. um it is usually state and local that is obviously the the larger chunk of it. So um I just I think any of that helps our community understand that we're just we're different than municipalities and I think it's um it's easy for people to want to think that we're the same, but we're not and we don't we don't have as many funding sources as though they do. I think one other um misconception is that when property values are increasing like
068they did last year that we somehow get more money out of that but because of the way that our MLOs's are set up where therefore a fixed dollar amount and then our bond repayment is just the amount that we need in order to repay the debt um and then local share is set at a set number of mills and so all of those pieces don't generate additional dollars for the district on the local share side of things where that is set at 27 mills that just means that the state's backfill decreased increases the more that is lo uh uh generated locally. So I think that's another misconception that we've been working to provide information on as well. This graph is actually one that I provided to the assessor's office and so hopefully they'll be able
069to include that in the pamphlet. But again, just to walk over it, it's like 60% of that is our PPR total program funding set by the state and then another 25% are our capital improvements. And then those remaining pie slices there are the MLOS's. And so this one I think does a nice job of breaking that out, I guess, into what people are paying on their bills. Yeah, you make a great point. Um when I was when people were asking questions about the bond and mill that was just voted on, um there was a misconception that the the district got like a windfall of money because of the property taxes. And then when I told them that a couple of our mills were were flat rate, that was um news to them. And so I
070was like, well, we don't get any more money. we get the the same amount. So, um, and I think even the state backfilling it, it's like if our mill goes up, the state back fills less. It's not like the, like you said, the pie doesn't just get bigger, it's the pieces of the pie shift, right? So, I think that's really good information. So, or do you guys have any other questions? Okay. All right. Appreciate it. And friends, thanks. Yes. I think they might have left, which is good. I hope they left. All right. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Thanks, Mel and her team. We we have a great finance department, so we appreciate all y'all's work. Um, I would say probably the best in the state, but we're hidden out here on the Western Slope,
071so no, don't steal them. Um, all right. I think uh Amy Atwood is online hopefully, and she's going to give our legislative update. Amy, are you there? Hi. Can you hear me and see me? Oh, we can hear you. Okay, great. Amy Atwood, contract lobbyist with uh the district. And that was a great segue from Mel because the number one topic that I'd like to talk about tonight is the budget and I spoke with Dr. Hill and Mel yesterday about about this and other things in detail and those I think everyone went to CASBY and so you would have heard this at Casby as well but it's great for the public to hear it as hear it too. So going into next year building the 2526 budget the state is $950 million down. So they're
072basically a billion dollars down and that is keeping current obligations. So anything that is currently in law including and it also includes case load increases, projected increases in Medicaid as well as inflation and enrollment. So with a billion dollars already in the red, the joint budget committee and the legislature as well as the governor is looking at looking for places to cut. And they keep saying a term they use is finding all the coins in the couch cushions and they say it over and over every day at the joint budget committee. So with that, knowing $950 million down and this current year, if you remember, the budget stabilization factor was eliminated and the governor, the legislature, the joint budget committee, they all have made the commitment not to bring back the budget stabilization factor. So
073that is that is a big deal, but that doesn't mean that there won't be cuts in other places. And like Mel said, when when those percentages shift, the state versus local um you're not getting you're not getting any more money. It's just how those percentages uh shift. And where we will see cuts are specifically in grant funding and there are about 77 grants in the competitive grants in the state and when I say they that means the joint budget committee committee which are members of the legislature they have said that that is the first place really the first place that they're going to look to cut. So when we look at what kind of grants to do the district does the district get that not to plan on those going forward. Um another place is
074in career and technical education. They are not planning on increasing the amount of money that will go into those fund go into that. They're planning to keep it flat. But there is such a push for students to be post-secary ready. It just it's it's bringing the pool of money. So many more students are getting certificates. So that means that there is less money to go back out to the district for um offering those time those types of certificates. There is also a push that no unfunded mandates. Now, we hear that every year and you would have heard that at CASBY as well that we we've always, as districts said, no unfunded mandates, but the joint budget committee feels very strong that if the state can't afford to do it, then that cost shouldn't be pushed
075down on districts. So, if there are any new programs that are coming forward that are going to cost districts money or the state, the chair of the joint budget committee said he's a hard no. He's just he's just a hard no. If the state can't afford it, uh then that shouldn't be pushed down on to the districts. So, that that is a positive. There was also there has been discussion about efficiencies for districts and if there are ways for CDE in particular to find efficiencies for districts whether it's in data reporting um they talked a lot within data reporting that if there are ways that the department can find efficiencies that's also a way to help and save money for the department but also for districts. Let me just check my notes. Uh when it
076comes to inflation, as you are building your budget for next year, 2 and a half% seems to be the standard and the norm where the JBC staff governor's office is landing when it comes to inflation. So that's a good number to use when you're going forward and you're building your budget. So I I it isn't it isn't a rosy outlook at all when it comes to the state budget, but I think the commitments and this and the right signals are being sent that they are going to try really hard not to balance the state budget on the backs of education, which is what the budget stabilization factor has been. That's why it was there. they didn't eliminate it in um in statute, but they did eliminate the amount of money that was that was being
077put towards that that in the end was a cut to districts. So, if we have a year where we really hold flat, that would be considered a win for sure for next year. Are there are there any questions on the budget? I did have one question. Um, one of the things and I think you were talking about post-secary training and you said if the state can't afford it, it won't be pushed down onto districts. So, whose couch are we going to be digging in then? Right. Well, and particularly with CDIP, um the career career development incentive program, that is one that started with a $1,000 reimbursement to districts and it has doubled every year the participation and we did get a good bump in that last year up to $10 million, but it's not $1,000
078reimbursement anymore. It's $250. So, it goes back to the districts. Is this something is this a program something that you want to offer? But then you have to weigh that with it's also part of your part of the performance framework for the district. So you make a really really good point that you're mandated to offer these types of programs but the pool for reimbursement is um I'm not thinking of the right word. I want it's being diluted because there is so much participation. I would like to mention one thing about grants. SPED uh special education is being protected. So um sped has been moved really all under categorical funding and it's not a factor, it's a categorical which is in school finance. So the district gets gets special education funding through a grant, but it's
079for formulaic, so it really should be protected. Well, and just to to add to that, I we we we budget knowing we're never going to actually get reimbursed for all the programs that we offer for um CTE, concurrent enrollment, things like that. So, you know, you you uh and Sherry and her her team work really hard to um file for those reimbursements as much as we can, but we never actually get 100% of the funding back. So, we always have to um budget that in uh or put that into our budget. And then even with special education, uh we we don't it doesn't cover anywhere near the amount that we actually spend on special education services. So, we just have to um uh create a budget in a way knowing that we're not going to
080actually get reimbured for those things. And to Amy's point, it's it's frustrating when there is such a push for making sure the kids are post-secondary ready and um to offer all these programs and then you don't actually have the funding for it and if anything thinks the funding is going to stay flat and like you said, if you have more kids want to take advantage of it or if costs go up, things like that, um it ends up just falling back on those school districts in the end. So it just makes it tougher. So Amy Andrea here um so I'm also on the CASBY board for region 10 and we had um a quarterly meeting uh before the CASBY uh convention and there's some discussion or concern that the um while we said that the
081budget stabilization factor is going away that there is actually some wording that seems very much like a budget stabilization factor like um deal that may be coming out of the governor's office. So, um, have you heard anything around that or, um, I think Casby might actually take a position and that we don't want to see anything like a budget stabilization factor or the budget stabilization factor itself to show up to try to rectify the state budget. We kind of feel like we might need this, we might have to lend the state, our finance team, um, so that they can get their budget um, rectified. I mean, being almost a billion dollars in debt, um, they need to obviously look to cut those things, um, but not from education. So, I was just curious if you'd
082heard any rumblings of them trying to kind of do a workound, um, when it comes to that BS factor. Sure. So, I think one thing that they're referring to is with declining enrollment. And so Colorado has one count date and that's in October and it is very very labor and resource intensive for districts as well as the department and the governor has has always for his six years wanted Colorado to move to a multiple count date so that it it just it reflects more accurately where students are. there's a difference between October to say March or April. He also does not like that Colorado has a rolling average. And if you remember, I believe it was a five-year rolling average. With the new school finance formula, it moved to a four-year rolling average. And that
083was something that specifically got D51 in a support position on that piece of legislation was that we can't go to zero. And the governor is looking, he wants to bring it to take away any averaging and it is what your current enrollment is is what you will be funded for. And that washes out 17 and a half thousand students across the state. So that is a way that's a way to free up money immediately. Um there are some Senate Republicans that support that. There is not wide widespread support for that because Colorado most not most many of the big districts in Colorado are seeing declining enrollment. So that averaging is really important. There may be some negotiations um around around the four-year averaging where we move to multiple count dates that could help with it.
084Maybe it goes to a three-year. I don't see it going lower than a three-year average. Um but it's there isn't wide widpread support to move back to um move it to zero at all. He also had in his budget the new school finance formula 20% of it was supposed to be it. It's like it's being rolled out over a number of years over five years and 20% a year. Well, he wants it to go down to 10% next year, not 20%. And the it was the speaker's bill if you remember and she has pulled together a small group of CFOs to talk about that and she does not support that at all. at at all. And so I think we can we can look forward to hopefully a 20% 20% roll out and the averaging
085maybe going to three years but there is a huge push to keep it at four years because we had to negotiate down to four years in the beginning and I think Dr. Hills talked about this as it's like the bait and switch. you got us. This is what we needed to support your bill and then now you're just pulling the rug from underneath us. And we do have we do have legislators that sit on the joint budget committee, in particular, Representative Tagert, that that was the only reason that he supported it was because the district came into a support position and the averaging was a big part of that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I the averaging because we don't get the numbers from the state until so late in the year. Um the averaging really
086helps us to be able to determine what our next year's budget is going to be. So I while I understand that they want to go to actuals and not averaging. I mean they would have to be a complete overhaul of them making their decision much earlier in the year for us to be able to anticipate our budget because otherwise I don't it it's it's like what comes first, you know? So, um yeah, I can I would expect that they might try to negotiate um lessening the averaging. Um but it is concerning um from a district standpoint and trying to obviously handle our budget. So, thanks for kind of teeing that up and wrapping that up into something uh as far as what we were talking about. Did you have something? No, the only thing I
087was going to say is if they if they were to push that second um count date out into to March. What What would the attrition be? Do we have any idea between October and March? Uh we can look it up, but I mean as the year goes on, you're you're going to have that. So it that could really be detrimental. Yeah. I think the other thing too is whether you know we already knew we were going from five to four, so we planned for that. To go from planning for four to zero is really tough. But even if it goes to three or two, it's still going to be a hit to our school districts. So, I just want to make sure the public understands that that it's going to be an issue for us
088because um because we're we have been declining and we're going to continue to decline and so the averaging just helped us a little bit more to have a softer landing if he pulls the rug out as you said. Um it's just going to be a pretty rough landing for us. So, we need to be and I know Mel and her team are but we need to be prepared for whatever happens. It's not going to be what we've been able to do in the past unfortunately. So, I'm confident the joint budget committee is going to like wrangle in. I mean, the governor can make whatever requests he wants, but that doesn't mean the JBC is going to say yes to all of it. So, they'll um they've got to work obviously rectifying the budget. So, um
089and I think and I love that we have one of our own local representatives there and he understands our district quite well. So, um I'm thankful for that. Uh board, did you guys have any other questions? Amy, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate all the work that you do on behalf of D-51 at the at the Hill. Great. Thank you. All right. Have a good night. All right. Dr. Hill. Uh so I have Clint and his team come up for uh energy performance contract and audit. Good evening everyone. Can you hear me? All right. Uh, I have Caleb Shin with me tonight with Schneider Electric and, uh, he'll be here to answer the really tough questions. We met Caleb a few days ago. Oh, you did? Okay, great. We had lunch
090with him. Awesome. At CASBY. Good job. Yeah. So, we wanted to talk a little bit about an energy audit and some potential uh performance contracting uh moving forward uh in parallel with our bond work, but we'll talk about energy auditing for a minute here. So, you probably remember last year we had Keegan up here talking about some energy savings that we had about a half a million dollars worth of energy savings that was pretty significant. And so to to tag on to that, we want to do some additional work to see some additional savings. And so uh last year about this time in the spring, we started to talk about what that might look like and how we could do something through performance contracting. We met in the fall with uh some stakeholders with finance,
091with our legal here. Uh we also met with the county as well who is currently who are currently working on an energy contract and I think actually having some work done right now. Is that correct? And so we talked with them about how that process is going and and they're seeing some benefits already to doing some performance contracting. We are um looking at getting approval for an IGA for um that uh energy audit and then in the fall of 2025 looking at doing a um performance contract and that something that we can run in parallel again with the bond work that we're going to be starting to do next year uh as we start construction. All right. So um what happens if we do um this energy audit? Well, we'll see and and move forward
092with performance contracting. we'll see a 20 to 30% reduction in energy costs and over the life of um the work that we would do, we'd see 26 million to $30 million in total savings over the next 20 years. Um there are some potential grants that we can go forward with. Uh there's some best grants that we could apply for. Uh some tax code uh red um and inflation reduction act money that's available. There's also um some safety and security money that's available that Schneider would also help us procure if um if we want to move forward with that and I guess we probably would. And then um there's also some utility rebates that are available. We don't know what those look like. Those change from year to year what the utility rates might be. And
093then program addresses uh major needs while generating project funding. So, the potential scope of work that we're looking at doing is uh LED uh retrofits districtwide, optimizing light levels in classrooms, and staying compliant with the current fluorescent ban. And I'll talk about that in just a minute. Upgrades to building automation, major HVAC replacements, safety and security improvements, water conservation upgrades. Uh and there's some other items there to the right as well. and project scope provides benefits beyond uh efficiency gains. So again, we we've talked about um some of the work that we're going to be doing in our bond projects and some of those are educational adequ adequacy stuff. So we want our classrooms to be um optimized for learning and a lot of that includes our lighting and some of some of our HVAC
094systems as well. We want kids to be comfortable in the classrooms. So, um, again, classroom lighting levels would be optimized, occupancy, comfort improvements, increased control for facilities, extended useful life of our equipment, safer school campuses, of course, and then that would free up time for operations and maintenance staff not having to work on on some of the stuff that we have right now that's not working so well. All right. So, why this program? Well, with this project, more taxpayer dollars will go towards directly benefiting D-51 students and staff, and less will go to our utility bills and capital repairs, reinvesting $1 million annually from our utility providers back into the classroom. The scope of work identified will provide major improvements to physical learning environments across the district and again optimizing lighting levels, impro improving um
095occupant comfort. Uh, this program allows us to stay in compliance with state requirements, the Clean Lighting Act. Uh, what you may not know, um, and was a surprise to me and a few of us here is starting at the beginning of next year, you will not be able to fly buy a fluorescent tube. Um, and they will stop manufacturing those. So, we are being put in a position where LED lighting is going to have to be done in our buildings at some point. And so this is the opportunity that we have to to take a look at that and to start uh taking action on that across the district. And then uh building performance standards, keeping up with our building performance standards. Keegan has a report that he has to do annually for the state.
096And so um this will help with that as well. And this is an opportunity to gain uh significant efficiencies and demonstrate fiscal responsibility, saving taxpayer money now and well into the future. And then just reducing our overall costs. This program gives us the be the ability to tackle deferred maintenance and reduce our operating costs without burdening uh the general fund. So, one of the things that will happen with with some of this work as we start to identify it through this audit is some of this work with lighting or HVAC controls or HVAC systems themselves may be able to be done through this performance contracting offsetting some of the bond project costs that were bond projects. And so, we can then use those dollars to use in other areas in another building or maybe in
097that same building to do additional work that may need to be done. All right. So, project milestones, we want to obviously see an approval to move forward with this energy audit. Uh, and then this process really is just um collaborative design process um scope and funding. And this will take this will take about six to nine months to do the audit. And then we'd start the project implementation next year when we start the the bond work as well. So you were talking about 20 to 30% reduction. Is that on top of what we've already experienced? Having done what we've already done? Yeah, because the work that we've done already was done through scheduling, time of day scheduling. And some of the work that uh that Keegan has done with being really um uh thoughtful about
098setting our time of days so we're not running units when people aren't in the buildings, when they're unoccupied. We want them only running when they're occupied. That's even when we're doing um when we have folks in the building for uh events, sporting events or after school events, we're only turning the units on when people are in the building. So, those are savings that we've already seen and those won't go away. This is an addition to they should they actually should increase even more if we're getting more energy efficient all the way around. And then my other question is um the the upgrades that we're going to have to do in order to I mean obviously the lighting is going to be required and that sort of thing. However, on the on the rest of it,
099um I if that's not included in in our priority one expenditures on each of the buildings or whatnot, how are we going to balance um timing, I guess, for reaching that 20 to 30% if we can't afford to do all of the work? Do all the work with the lighting or No, do all the work with whatever it is going to be. I mean, you're going to do this audit. They're going to say if you make these changes, you're going to see this kind of efficiency. Absolutely. So, I'm just curious if we'll have an idea of um really how much of that 20 to 30% we're going to be able to attain if we can only do 30% of the work. Do you see what I'm saying? Sure. Well, our intent is to once the
100audit is done to look at to look at everything from um building automation controls to HVAC systems to uh lighting. There's some other items in there as well. And then look at the cost to do that and then make a decision on what we believe we can do and then move forward with those projects specifically. No, because they can't hear you on light. Hang on just a minute. Can you do a performance contracting on microphones? We could use that for that. Um, so during that six to nine month investment grade audit phase, we're looking at um anything that like hits your gas, water, or electric bill. And um we're essentially going to go through all the buildings, look at all that stuff, see what efficiencies at the equipment level exist. So pretty early on in
101the process, we'll have an idea of what scope or what potential energy conservation measures exist and what like the savings percentage is. So, I mean, by the midway point, have all of that detailed out and then um based off of what the savings look like, how many grants, what state incentives, what tax incentives exist, we'll kind of whittle down that scope. And the idea is to find a project that fully funds itself. So, it costs a dollar, it saves a dollar. And if we can use the savings from things like lighting that costs a dollar and saves $5 to fund deferred maintenance controls, HVAC, infrastructure, things that um the district needs to tackle could be part of the bond. This is just a way to fund them differently. Um, so as far as where you
102land, 20 to 30% energy savings will be dictated by the scope, but pretty early on in the process, we'll have an idea of what scope will generate what amount of savings, and we'll work with the district to fine-tune kind of the package of scope that gets you to that self-funded spot. Well, you mentioned there's some energy grants out there as well that if is that like tied if we do this audit. Um is there like a requirement for those grants? So grants are kind of tricky and very scope dependent, right? And very like um based off of the demographics of the district. So Mesa County, for example, um they're funding about 11.5 million dollars worth of work. they have a little bit of solar in there. Um, and with solar, there are different tax incentives
103that exist. Those tax incentives don't exist with lighting. Um, so it's hard to know exactly what will make sense, but safety and security, Clint had mentioned, uh, we've been very effective at helping school districts take advantage of two different DOJ grants. There's a cops and a stop grant, and um, those are fairly common and easy to apply for. and get funding for. But if you don't want any safety and security scope, then you wouldn't be going after those. There's a highly competitive Renew America Schools energy grant that's out there, but it's highly competitive and like half a percent of the districts that go after it get it. So, I think at the early stages of the conversations where we're talking about the potential scope, we'll kind of line that up with the different funding opportunities
104that exist and make a decision from there as to what we want to pursue. But ideally, we're getting as much of this funded by incentives and grant funding as possible. As Amy mentioned, there aren't a ton of state grants, and those seem to be drying up. At the federal level, there still are quite a bit. So, it's a matter of just kind of lining up the the scope that the district wants to go after and what's out there. So, on average, what would you say? um let's say the district has $100 million worth of work that needs to be done in order to get the savings. What percentage of that have you found that you get funded by grants and and other ways to fund it besides us paying for it? It's super case by
105case and I know that's not a helpful answer. Um, Creek School District is a small two building school district with 300 kids and um, we helped them get both a DOA grant and a cops grant and help them submit for an EPA community change grant that would fund like $16 million worth of work and their annual budget is 6 million. So, and that's an extreme example. Um, District 11 in Colorado Springs, they're looking at about $25 million in scope. It will be totally funded by energy savings and then some. In fact, they'll have like 200 grand in additional funding every year, but there's only like a million and a half dollars worth of grants there. So, I can't really give you great answer, but I can promise you that we will look at as many
106incentive funding opportunities as we can. And did it make sense that whatever we take out, whatever the loan is that we take out, those payments will be made with the energy savings that we see, right? Okay. Um, what is our time frame if as the the board approves it for the audit to start? What is what is your ideal, Clint? So, these guys are ready to go and we've already we've already started the conversation about getting started on the buildings there. That's great. Yeah. It's six to nine months. Obviously, the sooner the better. Yep. Um and just to uh build on what Clint said earlier. So, if we are able to offset costs from bond projects, you know, that's the reason why we did the facility master plan, right? So, we want to remind the
107community that we have 600 plus million dollars worth of needs. So, it's not as if we are able to take care of all of it with the bond dollars we have now. So, if we can find savings through this, we have a plan, a roadmap now that we can start taking care of other needs that maybe weren't part of phase one, but we're going to be part of phase two of another bond package. Um, which will be great for us to be able to do that. And then, um, you know, I do appreciate Clint and his team uh, looking into this. This is something we've we've talked about even when I first got here and we never really it never really went anywhere. So, I appreciate his team um looking into this and and taking
108on because it's actually I've talked to superintendents from other school districts that have worked with um Schneider and they've seen really great results. I know y'all are working with Mesa County. I think y'all did work with CMU potentially too. Um CMU, not CMU, never mind. Uh Mesa County uh and uh and the other school district I've talked to have said um they've seen really great results from it as well. So, um I'm optimistic that this will be good for us as well and we can again take on more more of the building deficiencies and needs that we have in our district beyond uh maybe what we thought we were going to be able to do with the bond dollars that we have now. So, but I just want to reassure the community that that's that
109was why we did the 25 year facility master plan. So, if we find any um efficiencies and savings, it's not just going to be some random projects. It would be things that are within that scope um of work that we were going to do in phase two. Great. Any other questions? Awesome. Well, thank you. Thanks for coming over, Caleb, as well to be here for the meeting. Appreciate it. So, thank you. Thanks, the microphones. We have to vote now. Is that later in our business meeting or do we need to do the vote now? That's okay. No, we won't do that later. Can we do it? I'll just I'll put it down as um Yeah, I'll put it under business items. Thank you. Um Okay. Thank you. And then um so next up we if
110the board's good with continuing or do you all need a break? Um just a second board. We'll have to do a motion to um amend the agenda and then add that on as an item to vote for the uh legal council to get into negotiations on the audit. So, just remind me. I'm making myself a note. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Is the board good? We have Grand Junction High School. We have a few more things. I don't just Do you need a five? Okay. All right. Yeah. I guess we're already about 2 hours in. So, um, okay, we're going to take a 10-minute. We'll be back at 7. Um, thank you. You're good now. Okay. All right. It's 7 o'clock, so we're going to go ahead and resume our meeting. Um, we do have a couple
111of changes we need to make to the agenda, so we'll go ahead and just take care of that right now. Um so uh we're going to move the um strategic plan community partnerships up to our next item under the superintendence report. And then we are also adding under board business J5. Um a vote for the board to um authorize negotiations and um and sign the performance contract per the last presentation. So board, do I have a motion to um approve those amendments to the agenda? Motion to approve the amendments. Second. Seeing no discussion, we can vote on those changes. Mr. Chavez, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights, yes. Mr. Jones, yes. Miss Lima, yes. All right, that passes 50. So, okay, we can go ahead and have the strategic plan uh team come up and
112update. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. We're part of the engaged and supportive community partners part of the strategic plan. My name is Angela Christensen and I'm the executive director of the school district 51 foundation. And I'm Andrea Kemper. I'm the CTE director and assistant director of career and college readiness. And I'm Tracy Gyos and I'm the director of access opportunity family partnerships. Hi everybody. All right. Tonight, we are excited to share the work that we've been doing on the strategic plan since we last presented to you, as well as share celebrations that highlight the progress of this past year. We've really made great strides this year in operationalizing our strategic plan. This There we go. So, this slide lists the members of our community task force, and we'd like to celebrate the
113growth of our committee as we've added key members to keep the work moving forward. Our new members also showcase the connectedness between all of the focus areas of the strategic plan. We know that this work cannot be done in isolation. So, working with key community partners, we've been able to utilize their strengths to come together to create honestly something bigger than any single one of us could have done alone. There is strength in our collective and focused efforts. And you can see the list of all the names of the folks and it's a very robust uh list. Two months ago, we gathered with our task force and as you can see in this picture, we were happy to see that the engagement level remained high with so much participation even at this point of the
114strategic planning process. We are deeply grateful for our task force members, two of whom are here with us tonight in the back. We're thrilled for that. And some of them have been able to help us from the launch of this work and others have joined as we knew we needed to grow and fill in gaps we defined in the prior year. Our D51 graduate profile is a powerful tool that keeps our why at the forefront of our work. Four years ago, when we developed our strategic plan, we hosted a series of community meetings. We invited district staff, teachers, and leaders to join our invaluable community partners, families, and current D51 students to co-create the content of this profile. This very room was filled with energy and collaboration as together we crafted a vision to ensure
115that every student in D51 will be engaged, equipped, and empowered to be creative problem solvers who are closely connected and prepared for both career and life upon graduation. What I love about our guiding framework, it is not it not only emphasizes the importance of academics, but it also drives us to incorporate essential life skills into our instruction. These includes um creativity, critical thinking, resilience, innovation, teamwork, communication, self-awareness, self- advocacy, advocacy, and self-direction. Additionally, it fosters an overall awareness of where our students want to be as they transition from their K12 education into the next phase of their lives. As you know, our strategic purpose is to identify and communicate strategic partnerships with organizations and institutions in the community to support the advancement of the district's strategic goals and initiatives. For year three, our goal is
116to deepen partnerships with our community partners. Specifically, these partnerships will be designed to support student career exploration, mental health, and deepened family partnerships. In October, we met with our community action team to share progress from each committee and our goals and plans for the upcoming year. As a reminder, we generated the following committees you can see here. The family partnership team has created opportunities for families to connect to our schools and each other through the brunch and learn and coffee and connect series. In addition, representatives from the access, opportunity, and family partnerships department have been working to increase advocacy efforts in the schools and community. The career readiness team researched Colorado school districts best practices for engaging and tracking community partners. This work culminated in identifying a useful tool that will connect community members with
117our schools and students to support career connected learning. The wellness team has categorized ways that the community partners have engaged with D-51 as well as gaps that need addressed. Tonight, we want to share our progress and a couple of celebrations from this year as we continue to operationalize our strategic plan. As a reminder, our focus area brings together key community partners and several have had the chance to speak about how they support D-51. One of the ways these partners have come together is to create consistency in partnership management across the valley. Part of this effort was focused on finding a more user-friendly community partnership database. While we started our community partnership tracking tool, this created momentum to find a platform that is more interactive, sortable, and useful. The work group chose to add a program
118to our already successful school links platform, which means a more seamless experience for our students and staff. School links is the main resource for our IAP curriculum and now will house our experiential side of IAP and industry partnership management. This allows students to connect their learning about themselves, careers, training programs, and adultting or life skills to actual experiences with community partners where students can then test drive careers through guest speaker visits to schools, work site tours in the community, job shadows, internships, and apprenticeships that our partners are offering to our students. This addition allows us to track partnerships and the type and frequency of engagement with these community members. The tool also allows us to schedule events and tours, manage work-based learning experiences, and track data. As we are trained on this tool and begin
119to share with our community partners, it will help us deepen our relationships with members of the community and ultimately scale this work so that more students have access to career connected learning opportunities and future success planning. More celebrations that highlight our progress include the following. The first is our coffee and connect. In an effort to continue the connection with parents and families, we started last spring with our brunch and learn. And this fall, we hosted our coffee and connect that provided an opportunity for PTO, PTA, accountability members, and D51 ambassadors to come together to hear from Dr. Hill and share ideas and tips with one another. This was truly inspired by Vice President Jones um when we gave our year one presentation. These engaged community members shared ideas about how to support one another and
120how to support schools through fundraising efforts, recruiting more involvement involvement from parents at their schools, and engaging more families in every aspect of their school. Measuring community support can be challenging, and we know how important that support is for all of our schools. The passage of 4A and 4B this fall is one way to measure community support. Our community supported both the bond and the mill initiatives that will provide needed resources at schools across the district. Central High School and Fru High School will receive significant updates. The mill will continue to provide funding for additional school days and updated curriculum that has been so key in our recent academic success as a district. Although the needs as outlined in the 25-year master plan are still significant, this will make a big difference across D51. Strong,
121wellsupported schools are key to a thriving community. Thank you to everyone who said yes to D51. In September, our second annual strong schools, strong communities lunchon brought together over 150 community partners and businesses who know and value the key role of public schools and the the role that they play throughout the community. The D51 Foundation was proud to be the sponsor of this important event. Dr. Hill gave his state of the district address, updating our community on our celebrations and sharing where we could use some more support. In addition, the audience heard firsthand from students from five of our high schools. This event was a tangible way that we are operationalizing our strategic plan. Another exciting event we'd like to celebrate is the successful district-wide workforce development day. This day truly showcases the integration of
122our community partners in offering ways for students to gain access to career readiness planning. There are a lot of ways that our community supports us and oftentimes it's one partner doing one specific thing for a school. The great thing about this event is that we had over 100 community members who came together to put on this career focus conference for over 1,000 D51 juniors. That's a lot of students who connected with local industry members and future employers and they got to choose the sessions that were of interest to them just like adults might when we attend a conference and that was based on their IAP learning and their future plans. Our volunteers helped to plan and coordinate the event for our students. They recruited and took part in industry panels, put on skilluing sessions, and
123planned and hosted a resource and hiring fair. We had multiple key players that helped on the planning committee including the Grand Junction Palisade and Fruda Chambers, the Mesa County Workforce Center, Colorado Mesa University, Growl Marketing, and of course our D-51 counselor alignment team that creates and manages the delivery of our IAP curriculum and coordinates the monthly experiential career and college events. Couple pictures here from our big day. Other collaborative events that we've had um similar in nature include our recent career construction day in October, our healthcare day in early November at St. Mary's, and just last week our business entrepreneurship work site tours. Again, our community continues to step forward as they host interacting and engaging career exploration tours and experiences for our students who have an interest in these career pathways. I also want
124to highlight our third annual middle school options fair where all eighth grade students get to visit with high schools and community sponsored programs so that they can figure out what they want to do when they transition on to high school. It's a great opportunity for them to think about their career interests and what classes in high school might help them explore those interests further as they plan for an exciting future. Some upcoming events that we have um starting in January, we have an advanced manufacturing trip in January that will visit local businesses who are looking to hire our skilled graduates. Our yearly CMU tech tours are coming up as well. We take all of the ninth and tth grade students this year to see the programming available. We also have career center presenting to each
125grade as well on those days. Um it's really just a great way to highlight the robust options available to our students through D51 career and technical education and the college level CTE programs available through our wonderful partnership with CMU. The timing is really perfect because as students begin to work on their IAP in the spring and plan for their intentional course schedule that meet their career goal needs for the upcoming year. This gives them a peak at what they have um available as opportunities. In February, students experience various careers in public service such as emergency medical services, criminal justice, and wildland fire. And then in March, we have our annual healthcare day at community hospital. And this is really a long-standing event and the model for our recent additional healthcare day back in November. As
126you know, healthc care careers are one of the most needed jobs in our community, and our spring tour has always been full with a wait list. We're grateful to have two great partners that support our students in learning about the various careers and training opportunities to enter into the healthc care field. There are more events in the spring, but this is just a sample of what our students have to look forward to. Staff and student wellness truly showcases the power of these partnerships. As you can see in this slide, the substantial number of partnerships happening to create a win for kids, a win for the school district, and truly a win for our community. The staff wellness team is working to provide opportu opportunities for our D51 employees that improve their physical and mental health
127such as monthly wellness challenges and a healthy eating series. A couple of our key partners include Monument Health, Gandola Goods, Brady Chiropractic, and Fruta Chiropractic and Massage. Another wellness event was our D-51 benefits vendor fair. This event brings together our healthc care community partners and our employees. Our employees have the opportunity to speak directly to representatives at Monument Health, UMR, Novo Benefits, Inter Mountain Health, Triad, Delta Dental, and several others. The Office of Family Partnerships is committed to deepening engagement with all families to create meaningful and impactful relationships that support student success. Our work is guided by the dual capacity framework for family and school partnerships developed by Dr. Karen Map. This researchbased model emphasizes building capacity within both schools and families to foster authentic collaboration. Rather than relying solely on parental involvement, the framework
128prioritizes shared responsibility, equipping educators and families with the skills and understanding to work together effectively. Tonight, I'm going to highlight um some initiatives that we are implementing to support both of our families and our students. Starting with this slide and looking at our family offerings. Um we host monthly informational meetings for families to provide updates on D-51 programs and share valuable resources from community partners. Topics covered this year include registration, attendance, parents and students rights, parent view, and graduation requirements. We also hosted a community partnership resource night featuring presentations from organizations such as Hilltop 211, Family Resource Center, La Plaza, Mesa County Public Libraries, and the Joseph Center with additional input from the city of Grand Junction, and an organization called Omni Salude. We recently completed a four-part um newcomer 101 workshop designed for families
129new to our community and often new to our country. This series provides essential guidance on accessing educational and legal systems, fostering informed participation. Our next workshop, what is mental health? Aims to empower families with the knowledge to navigate and support mental health challenges. The family literacy program is an evidence-based model developed by the National Center for Family Learning. It emphasizes collaborative learning by modeling educational strategies and promoting connections. Um, we help families support student learning at home. And looking at some of the ways that we offer um, supports to our educators, our attendance advocates, our reach advocates, and our family partnership advocates receive specialized training in areas such as motivational interviewing, highfidelity advocacy, and building trusting relationships through family home visits. Each title school has a designated family lison who participates in ongoing professional development
130facilitated by our office. In collaboration with the statewide family engagement centers, we conducted a four-part cultural relevance workshop led by Dr. Acet Mariam from the Black Parent Network. This series brought together D51 leaders and community partners. I'm pleased to report that our friends from CMU, the Department of Human Services, the Riverside Education Center, Second Wind Fund, the Freedom Institute, Transforming Justice, Hope West, Hilltop, Mesa County Public Libraries, La Plaza, Holy Family School, and the Black Citizens of Friends all joined us for this experience. Our focus on creating trusting relationships between families and schools continues to yield positive outcomes. We're thrilled by the progress we've made and remain dedicated to fostering connections that ensure each and every student has the support they need to thrive each and every day. We look forward to year three, we're
131in the midst of it, of operationalizing the strategic plan in this vital area of continuing to pursue and highlight our engaged and supportive community partners. Some of our action steps for this year include launching our engagement flyer as a call to action to onboard new community partners or deepen relationships with some of our current partners. Onboarding D51 staff and community partners on our new platform, School Links, which houses our which houses our new community partnership tracking tool. utilizing our new work-based learning team to review and update ways community partners engage with D-51 and create a structure for recruiting and securing new partners. And after hosting two successful connection events for our PTO PTA ambassador connections, we plan to coordinate a second spring brunch and learn to continue the collaborative efforts of supporting schools and deepening
132family engagement. We thank you for having us here tonight and we're open to any questions you might have. All right. I just real quick, um, one, I do appreciate all the work that you all have been doing in the team because, you know, if you think about it, we didn't really even have a family partnership department a few years ago. So, the amount of work that's gone into this really from the ground up is is huge. And I do want to thank um, again, everybody who served on the team, but also, you know, CI, I think Alicia's here still somewhere back there. Um, they come in monthly and work with the teams on making sure that this isn't a strategic plan that just sits on a shelf, but we're actually, we actually are operationalizing it.
133we actually are making adjustments and we're making sure that we're um monitoring progress. And so thanks to Alicia and I know Alex makes it out here a lot and I I mentioned that because we are in year three of our strategic plan. Um and I think on the Friday update last week, we sent out something um uh about uh folks that want to be on the steering committee for the next strategic plan because that process is starting up very soon. And as Trey mentioned, literally three years ago, we were sitting in this room uh with 50 to 60 people planning this strategic plan. We want the same thing this time around. We want folks to be at the table. We want it to be a communitydriven process like it was last time. So, we need
134folks to sign up for that so that we can create the next plan because it's going to take us through 2030. It'll be a five-year strategic plan that will start next year and take us through 2030. So, um, we'll send out another communication specifically for that to to families, but it was in the Friday update last week if folks are interested in, uh, serving on that because we've made a lot of progress and we want to continue that momentum moving forward. So, but again, thank you all for all the work that you are doing. This is really important work. [Applause] Thanks. Um, so I think next we'll jump down to or we'll jump back up to Grand Junction High School construction update. So, I think Micah's coming up for that. Hello everyone. Um, I think
135we're waiting for a slideshow still, but it's good seeing everybody again. I'm Mike Adams with Dynamic Program Management. I've got Eddie uh Mort up here with the school district as well as Jason Tisdel with Dynamic Program Management. Um Eddie had some jokes prepared for I did, but I forgot him. Yeah, I was going to dance. I forgot about that. Next time I've got to work on that. Which dance were you doing? Oh, that's a good question. My daughter's uh gonna do going to state cheer on Friday, so I'll wait to see what she does there. All right. Well, we do need a delay, so go ahead and show us some of the cheer routines. Is that what you're saying? I'm a little fragile these days. We did get to start our morning with Angela and
136Andrea this morning at 8 o'clock for a meeting. So, that was awesome. Good start. Good finish. Um well, I think we could probably I mean, we don't want to take up too much of your guys his time and it's um fairly straightforward. Um we were out there today um looking over the progress. As I'm sure most of you could see, um the old school is nearly all down now. It is. I think there's a couple doors standing there in the northwest corner of the the building still. Um but they have everything else down and are still working on cleaning up the rubble. Um they sort out some materials that can be recycled and and haul it all off. So, they've made um good progress on that. And here in the coming months, you'll continue to
137see that south half of the site develop into sports fields. Um right now, they're working on grading the baseball field. Uh they're on the east southeast side of the site. Um they'll be digging out foundations for the dugouts here soon. Um, you know, fence poles are going in for the baseball fields. So, starting to see a lot of progress. Um, tennis courts are actually something that they're um you're probably going to see some good progress on here soon as well. Um, they're they're doing the excavation and grading for that at the moment as well. Um in addition to that they FCI is working on the exterior you know renovations to the 2006 gym um that yeah the west side of that vestibule had to come off um where the old building was and so they're
138framing that up right now putting some exterior sheathing on that and then um here in just a matter of a couple weeks uh they'll have storefront framing with glazing uh going in there at the entrance as well those uh masonry uh at the rest of the um face of the building. Um thanks Amy for for getting this pulled up. Um our our typical overview of the budget and schedule, you can see where we are um you know to dates both as a percentage of days as well as a percentage of the budget. Um maybe one thing to note there is just the um the there was some money added to the budget for the uh there was a couple extra tennis courts added as well as um it was decided to replace the football field
139um grass with artificial turf. Um so that's the only thing to note there. recently completed. Um I'm sure hopefully you've got a chance to drive through the the completed parking lot. I think it's certainly done uh quite a bit to relieve some congestion there. Um so that opened up directly following Thanksgiving break. Um and I I I believe students are still getting used to it. Uh but it's certainly helpful to have that additional parking. Um here's a picture of the you know existing building the old building's foundation as they're uh working on digging out that rubble as I mentioned earlier. And as I mentioned, those items in progress are are mostly to do with uh site work and the 2006 gym renovations. Once again, here's just a site map that breaks down um the different
140areas of the site and what will be happening then. Um you'll notice that blue there in the middle parking lot was completed, so that can be checked off the list. Um, and then that large uh chunk of color there on on the right side is what's really in progress right now. Got a couple of fun construction metrics in here uh for you guys. Um along with you can see there in the picture the exterior framing for that 2006 Ox Gym renovation. Another picture. Um, you know, we we actually didn't get a drone video this year, so sadly no music. Um, Jason did tell us he would beatbox for us. So, yeah, got a whole show. [Laughter] Yeah. Um, here's a a good picture of the baseball field area. Um, and just there at the bottom
141of the picture in the in the bottom left hand side, you can see the roof of the what used to be called the 700 building, um, which has has seen some renovations on the inside of it as well. And, um, will be used mostly as storage space, um, for different a couple different functions from the district as well as a concessions area for the fields. Um and then bottom kind of right portion of the picture is where uh tennis courts will be. Another picture of the foundation coming out um for the old school. There's old steam tunnels. There's steam tunnels underneath the U that came from the old boiler room. So yeah, there's there's tunnels underneath there. Creepy. way too soon. Um, and I I think that really does it. So, any questions from you
142all? No questions. I would like to give just a a shout out to um Justin Whiteford. These trees look really nice. the ones that we were able to save. He came to me pretty early on in the in the project and said, "You know, we'd really love to save some of these old trees and not have just completely scraped new um landscaping across the whole thing." And they they really are going to, I think, look nice and give a little bit of settled in look instead of everything being newly scraped and replaced. So that was a great call on his part to think of that and then ask to get help to move forward with it. So that that's great. Definitely that provide a little bit of of a buffer too between the the fields
143and the roads. So that's great. And I don't know whether we mentioned it at a previous meeting, but adding those two additional tennis courts will allow us to do tennis tournaments. Now I know that's been a challenge for our tennis teams because we either have to coordinate with CMU or the city out at Canyon View. And so this will actually serve our district as a whole um to be able to hold the tournaments there. So I I think that was a great call to be able to offer that for the whole of D-51 for our tennis teams. Yeah, I think we once this is all done, we can we can hold matches for most everything here except for obviously not swimming um and a couple other sports and then not evening sports because there won't
144be lights but to be able to keep as many of the um athletic events there at the campuses of benefit. So, and then we'll still we'll still obviously need to utilize community partners like CMU for other things, but it will be great when these fields are done and like you said to be able to actually hold competitions there will be very nice. Yeah, we just won't be on top of them. Like usually those seasons all interchange with one another and then obviously we have a lot of um you know community members that like to use our parks and so um it can be a challenge at times. So I'm excited that we added those two additional courts. Any other comments? I did see the extra parking lot space. I'm sure the high school is very
145glad it's not maybe as congested. So awesome. Looks good. Thank you. you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. And uh I'll see you again. Thank you. Next time bring music. Just record the beatboxing. Um so I think next up we've got uh the school calendar. So Jyn, are you coming up or is it just there's there any questions? We remember we did a we did a three-year calendar which we had not done in the past. So the idea behind that was we were it was feedback from really families saying uh we don't want it to change so much every year drastically. We want to be able to uh plan a little bit better for family trips and things like that. So the board already approved that you know a couple years ago. Um so really this
146is just approving next year's calendar with that same structure. There's not any changes to it. I think the next time the committee will meet is it this coming fall? It is. So we're hitting the end of our three-year calendar. So, there will be a committee that will meet in the fall to talk about if we want to make any shifts, but what you have in your packet is really just sticking with what the committee came up with uh the last time around. So, if there's any questions, Jen can answer them, but otherwise, it's just what we did last year, which is approving next year's calendar. I didn't have any questions, I think, from the board members that did have questions. We got those answered. Okay, great. All right. So then we will move on to
147our final item under my report which is just an update on school boundaries. So I know Shannon's here. Um he's going to give a presentation that up some of the stuff you've already seen but just an update on potential boundaries for um the three schools that were closed. Um and then Jen and Clint have some information they're going to share about um specifically the Clifton uh boundaries. they surveyed some families and asked some questions around uh Thunder Mountain or Taylor um and they've got some options there as well. So, tonight not asking the board to vote on anything um because we want you to have this presentation, ask questions and then um and then based on that we want to write up some resolutions and potentially hold a virtual meeting, special meeting later this week
148to just to just vote on it. So, tonight's an opportunity to see that those numbers and then ask questions. Um so, I'll turn it over to Shannon. Thank you. Good evening everybody. It's a privilege to be here. Um this presentation shows the uh boundary scenarios in conceptual form for the um proposed school uh closures. So these are the uh boundary moves for Nisley and you can see the uh um areas sliced up into four different zones. Uh three of those are assigned to Orchard Avenue and one is assigned to Fruitville. Um the enrollment uh numbers post change are shown here with the um two capacity bases from the Alvarez and Marcel um report. Um all of these schools fit. There's a little bit of a negative number at Fruit Veil under one of the capacity
149basis uh numbers, but the other one shows that there are two classrooms. Um so both of these we are uh comfortable that the scenario uh works within the overall capacity constraints of the buildings. These numbers are PK through five to be consistent with the uh numbers presented in the Alvarez and Marsal report. Um, I've recommended to the district if we have places where we want to um mitigate classroom needs and create a better fit that we might be able to um move some pre-K programs around. Um, that's a standard procedure for most districts to uh make adjustments of that type when they need to make another classroom available. I'm not suggesting that any of that is necessary here, but it's one of the tools in our toolbox. Um, regarding the descriptions of these areas, I've
150written this resolution language. And most of my clients do three things. They either adopt boundary changes via a map or they adopt via a legal description or they adopt using something in in between. So, this is in between. And I'm willing to write legal descriptions, but I'll tell you, there are two people that read legal descriptions. The guy that writes them and uh a surveyor if you ever have to proof anything. So, um I I tend to present these in this fashion because it's a little bit easier for lay people to understand, but I've created this set of um standalone description of the areas in case you want to use it. And I'll be following up writing legal descriptions just in case. Uh regarding the scenic boundary change, this one is very straightforward. The area
151that is north of Highway 340, aka Broadway, would be assigned to Broadway Elementary, and the area that is south would be assigned to Windgate. And the students are very concentrated, but the boundaries are a little bit more um complicated than that. And for this one, I'll be writing a legal description because the uh western northwestern edge of the scenic attendance area is uh follows subdivision lot lines. And so I'll be writing that description for you. Um the uh uh section sizes and capacities were within the um numbers that were presented in the&m report. Um, this sheet also shows that the scenario works well within the overall capacity strengths of those two schools. Um, as far as resolution language, you could use this if you chose to, or um, I will have a legal description available
152for you at the subsequent meeting that Dr. Hill alluded to if you would like to adopt via that mechanism. Regarding these maps, I am working on adapting that to um the GIS software that the county uses so that they can add these boundaries to their online lookup system immediately upon your approval. So, I'm um developing the formalized mapping that follows streets and lot lines instead of the conceptual circles that you see here. Regarding Clifton, um we had quite a few scenarios and quite a bit of discussion about how to do this and came up with a result where we divide the school the attendance area among three schools um in two scenarios that remain on online for you. One would be the area that's north of Front Street and um east of business 70 um
153would either go to Taylor or to Thunder Mountain. So that is still um a uh a variable that needs to be uh decided upon. The area in the uh southwest corner would go to Chatfield and the area in the southeast corner would go to Rocky Mountain. And we've vetted these populations at the section level, meaning grade to grade, classroom to classroom. We've gone through in these three buildings and evaluated the extent to which they fit given the existing populations in these four destination schools and found that fundamentally they work. Here is a lot layout that's a little bit different than that that helps you in even more finite terms understand what we're looking at. So basically Front Street is uh in the south edge of the green lots there. And then this is business 70.
154Oops, I got lost. Business 70. That is this thick blue line that also corresponds to the middle school line. This is I70. And then there's a large area across BLM line land that goes all the way up to the foot of the book cliffs. That's also in that attendance area. That would be included. And then the neighborhood that goes to Chatfield um is north of Grand River Canal um and south of Front Street. And then there is a subdivision there, Jay Lee Road, that is um all accessed to the west. And all of those lots, including the lots on Jay Lee Road, would be assigned to Chatfield. And then all the blue lots that are east of there would be assigned to Rocky Mountain. uh the scenarios according to uh the Alvarez and Marcel report
155work in the initial year the inaugural year Chatfield is very tight but we've gone through and found that um that would work given the uh resources available in the building. This is the Taylor scenario. So that area north of Front Street under this scenario would be assigned to Taylor Elementary School. And in this scenario, that area north of Front Street would be assigned to Thunder Mountain. There's a little bit of seat availability issue in thunder under the smaller of the&m capacity numbers but under the larger permanent capacity aka comfortable fit scenario uh or comfortable fit capacity uh that enrollment would work in that building and historically we have seen that building work in that 550 range. uh in in in the recent past and so we are comfortable with that being viable on a section
156tosection basis. Here is the resolution language that is somewhat simplified that you could use to describe the assignment of this area. The component on the top would go to Taylor or Thunder Mountain. That's the area that is north of Front Street. And I've attempted to simplify that, excuse me, simplify that to the extent possible. And then down under the uh description of the Rocky Mountain area, you see me kind of transition. Oh, thanks. Transition back into the kind of legal description sounding language. But this will result in about a three-page resolution for you. Uh whereas the legal description would be more of a sevenpage uh resolution. So um um I'll respond to direction from you and from staff regarding um how I can support that process. Um let's see. I think that's it. Um we
157did a survey associated with um the area north of uh uh Front Street regarding Thunder Mountain or Taylor assignment and um I think Jen's going to come up and describe the results of the survey. Thanks Shannon. Yeah. So again, those um other scenarios were ones that the board's already seen and we actually even the Taylor one was one that we originally looked at and I know we had some discussions around well it seems like it's a further distance. Um is that something that we want to look into? But um you know Jen's got some data that she can share and um sorry threw me off. Uh Jen's got some data that she can share on the surveys with um because we did survey families um up in that section to see what the preference would
158And then I think there's also just some pros and cons around um Taylor or Thunder Mountain that we can have a discussion about. So, and then y'all can ask questions. So, I'll let Jim share a little bit about that. Yes. So, we reached out to um the the families that live right in that in that green area. Um we reached out in three different ways. We um we created a survey and we sent that survey out via email. We sent the survey out via text. And then um after uh a couple days of having the survey open, we cross referenced who had answered because part of the survey we asked what is your name, what is your address because we wanted to make sure that we were um capturing feedback from the area that we
159wanted. Then we cross referenced who had answered and who hadn't. Um we weren't able to get everybody unfortunately. We found there's a a number of people that block the school district's telephone number and they also block email um requests as well. So, of the the families that we were able to um get answers from either from straight from the survey or from interviews over the phone, um the majority um wanted Taylor. Um next then it was Thunder Mountain. We gave them a pre preference. I shouldn't say what they wanted. What would they prefer? Which school would they prefer? Knowing that this now is a busing um neighborhood. They would have their bus either either way to to um Taylor Elementary or to Thunder Mountain. It was um Taylor then Thunder Mountain and a large number
160said no preference. So you can decide. We also asked for input like why did you choose um the one that you chose? And um for Taylor Elementary in particular, but Taylor um specifically they chose Taylor, they wanted to stay in the same feeder pattern, meaning it middle schools um boundaries are based on their residency. So Taylor is um a feeder pattern with Mount Garfield and Palisad High School where Taylor I'm sorry where Thunder Mountain is um a direct feeder to Graham Mesa Middle School. And so they wanted um all of their their siblings to go to the same feeder pattern or their friends. And so they preferred Taylor Elementary over um Thunder Mountain. And then the ones that had no preference, they just just tell me where my student is going to go and now
161that they have a bus, what time will the bus pick them up? What time will the bus drive drop them off? And they will be at school with um whichever bus they ride. Sorry. Can you share with us um what percentage of the families you were able to reach? Yeah. Um, so interestingly, we sent out 82 and um, there were 82 surveys, meaning we sent them out based on student names, but it really ended up only being about 60 families because many of those families have multiple students in their household. And um, it turned out to be we got about 40 of those families, 41 families. [Music] Yeah, I think a good survey is 20 to 30% for a good sample and we had over 50%. I think some other things to add to this
162that we've been discussing is um because again we've we've had this conversation for a while uh as far as like which one would make more sense. I I think the feeder thing is obviously something to to factor in. Um again there would be a bus regardless of which direction um we would go with this. Um and then um the um the survey feedback is also helpful I think when in trying to make some decisions around this. Um also just thinking about capacity utilization you know Taylor is one that initially we we had recommended or was a recommendation because they actually have space there. Um and so and not that Thunder Mountain doesn't but um it already is more utilized than Taylor is. And so this could accomplish one of the um the goals with EDC
163was around trying to better utilize space and having more resources in schools. So, you know, just to throw it out there, if we did this and Taylor was the school that received the students, their enrollment would go up, it would impact things like having an assistant principal, um you know, other counselors, things that go into our staffing formula, um which could be a benefit for the the school as well. Um and then, you know, it's a performance school as well, so kids would be going to um a performance school, which is great. It's a great program out there. Um, and then I I didn't realize until we were going through all this, I mean, even if you look at that map down there at the bottom right, which is very close to Rocky Mountain, those
164students, the students that live in there, they already go to Taylor. So, it's actually we already have kids that are traveling pretty far to go to Taylor anyways from the current boundaries. Um, so it's not much of an adjustment of of what's been going on already with the boundaries there. It just would be obviously a change for the families that are used to having Clifton right there by their um by their neighborhood. So, you know, I think either way we go, we'll make it work. Um, but there seemed to be a lot of benefits um to uh potentially having Taylor be the destination school. Um, and the only thing really I feel like we were debating before was was distance, but hearing from the families that they like the feeder pattern, things like that, this
165this might be a better option. And then back to what um Shannon had mentioned, you know, we we can always look at things like um uh relocating preks and actually that sometimes there can be a really benefit to that if you can house preks um more prek classrooms in one section. You can have more resources or or more in one area, excuse me. You can have more resources provided to to students within those prek programs. So those are some things that we'd still want to have conversations with the schools about, but we have some opportunities there to help with utilization. So, um, again, ask whatever questions you might have, but this is really the one that we've been debating the most is, um, and at the end of the day, I think it's what is
166what works best for the students, um, at the closing school and the school that's going to receiving be receiving kids as well. So, to clarify, are you making a recommendation that it's Taylor or Thunder Mountain, or are you asking the board to make a decision? I don't you don't need to make a decision. I No, but I mean I guess I'm just asking what is expected of the board because is it is the recommendation that they go to Taylor? So I think we I wanted y'all to have some time to ask some questions first. So if you have more questions, I would ask those and then yeah, we can make a recommendation. Okay. Well, it just seems like based off of the feedback that the families prefer Taylor. I mean, and there were some families
167that preferred Thunder Mountain, so I don't want to they could also school a choice into Thunder Mountain as well. they could and we tried to make a forced choice on our survey. Obviously, it worked um when they only did the survey and there were other um options or um schools that they plan to select that isn't Thunder or Taylor and they would use school of choice. None of these boundaries affect like we're not shifting kids who are currently at Chatfield with that then would bump over to like Pear Park or anything, right? is just taking what we have in those areas and then putting to Chatfield Rocky and right that was one of the goals through this for all the closures was to not have to do a double shift. Um so no students at
168receiving schools wouldn't be shifted to a different school. Got it. Okay. I mean, to me, it just seems like there's more room at Taylor than at least based off the numbers than Thunder Mountain, but obviously then there's school choice if there are families that prefer the feeder to Thunder Mountain. So, any other and I don't know that I particularly prefer a legal description. I mean, I'm familiar with legal descriptions in my job, but I think we need to have something that the that the community understands. Okay. If I'm looking at this street or this area, then I know exactly what boundary, you know, what area I'm in. So, um I don't know if the board has any thoughts on whether we want Shannon to write up a legal description for those. We don't we don't
169have them for anything else. We don't have them for board districts. I we have a legal description for board districts and then for the boundaries in the past. Is that how we've done it? I I don't remember. The last one we did do. It's standard procedure for schoolboard director districts to have a legal, but school boundaries typically don't. But this district has a tradition of when we do changes of this nature that we write a legal description for the resulting boundary. Okay. So, for the last round of boundary changes, we did it. And um but it's it's not common practice for school districts of our size or even for school districts that are larger than we are. Is there any additional cost for a legal description versus my hours to sit down and write it?
170Write it. Um I just wonder why we've done necessary why why are we yeah still doing it. Since I've already spent so much time with this particular it wouldn't be a huge amount of my time to write them. So I I I think that the time is shouldn't be a huge issue. It should just be it could just stay consistent like just concluding maybe the year of 2024 and then this board could decide later if there if there's any other boundary shifts if that's the route we want to continue to what is the benefit for Shannon and the surveyor who read it. That's what he said. I was I was gonna say the words that I hate saying which is just the way we've always done it. Um, but so if the if the board
171feels comfortable with just not doing that this time around and moving forward with the decisions, that's that's fine as well. It's whatever y'all feel. I guess if there's no I mean I don't want to if there's no real need um or justification for it other than it's just what we've always done then it seems to me like sort of the layman description is easier for everyone else to understand and what everybody goes by. So, I don't know. Does like does like the realtor association use the legal description or I think they use actually this one based off of when they start looking at changing the boundaries. That's correct. they use these these more conceptual descriptions, but um reading a legal description is is is challenging and um uh the advent of GIS software has really
172changed the need for legal descriptions because the lines are so exacting and that given the high level of support we get from our county GIS department, we would have a good record of what the lines are. Okay. Sorry, I just had a little interesting thing at my home with that and it was way off by about 40 yards. So, uh not sure that I'm sharing the same confidence on that one. Um does our legal counsel have any uh any um weigh in on whether or not there would be a benefit or to that? when you you have any especially with that whole GIS thing. She prefer a legal description. Yeah. So, our legal council is recommending a legal description. Yeah. Okay. So, it's the way we've done it and it doesn't leave a and we
173and we weren't sure if you were going to need time to think about this. That's why we didn't anticipate a vote tonight. But again, if you want to, we can. Otherwise, I think um it would make sense to do this sooner than later. So, we could have this written up pretty quickly and then even just doing a quick virtual special meeting and taking a vote would be really easy. I know um I chatted with some board members today. We had one-on- ones and um some folks are going to be going out of town on Friday. So, I would suggest we do it like tomorrow or Thursday, and it would literally be like a 10-minute virtual meeting to take a vote on this, but we'd need to I'm saying that as I'm looking at Shannon to
174see if you can write it fast enough. You said you could while ago, Shannon, so I'm just holding you to it. Um, so maybe maybe Thursday. I don't know, but um we could do it pretty quickly. Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you for the presentation. Appreciate the information. and thank you for um surveying the families there that north part of Clifton to see see kind of a what they were thinking. And just a reminder, as soon as the vote happens again, we'll we'll work with um Mesa County to get the maps updated so that um families can search based on address. And then uh and then we will start communicating directly to families um that on what school they would be zoned for for next school year. and that gives them enough time
175um with January with the school of choice process if they for some reason wanted to school of choice as well. So um that'll kickstart that process next. So thank y'all. Thanks for driving down Shannon. You're welcome. All right. Next up we have audience comments. Um, so this is a time that the board dedicates to hearing the public comments and so we encourage everyone to speak that would like to speak. Um, please refrain from disorderly speech or actions. Avoid name calling, personnel attacks or derogatory comments. Um, threats are absolutely not tolerated. And to save time, please avoid dup duplicate comments. Um, and then each speaker is allowed three minutes. Um, so you have the timer up there by the microphone. You also have a light up here and there will be a tone um there's one
176tone that will indicate that you have 30 seconds left um just so you can wrap up your thoughts and um we do a hard stop at three minutes. So um Director Jones, you want to kick us off? All righty. Um and just to add to a little bit of that, um if in fact you don't finish in your three minutes, you are more than welcome to send us your your email or send your your letter through email so we can read it fully. So, um I know that there are no students in here. Would you let me go first? But there is a young young lady who's going to speak for a student. So, if you guys don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and get him out of the way first. So, Mr. Joey
177Pinata and I have a young lady who's going to read his statement. All right. Thank you. My name is Joey Panata and I am the student leader of Project Butterfly at Grand Junction High School. Our cause is to spread mental health awareness out to the community and primarily to the student population. We do events to make people feel connected and to help as much as we can. Students will be worried about this upcoming school year with questions. Will my friends be in the same school? Will I have to ride the bus? Do they have the same programs? We need to be ready for upcoming students and the new stressors they're about to face. Is there any way you think we can help? Please contact us. And then you can reach us at projectbutterfly.ggj on Instagram.
178And then for the record, can you just give me your name so we know? I'm so sorry. Sheila Worth. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Worth. All righty. And then up next we have Mr. Joshworth. And on deck, Miss Elizabeth Ross. Good evening, board members, Dr. Hill, and D51 administration. Thank you for your continued efforts, and thank you for taking the time for public comment. Today, I and the following three speakers come before you to offer our long-term support and collaboration to serve all kids in the community. We are here to pledge our time, efforts, and resources to ensure every student is provided an individualized opportunity for academic growth and success. We are here to express our intention to open a tuitionfree public and open to all charter school in the scenic elementary building. We are here
179to reiterate our following requests. We are requesting for the board to exercise the right to wave or extend the application timeline as defined in the D-51 relations to charter schools policy for the opportunity that our application can be reviewed and approved for our fall 2025 start date. We understand that it will take uh we understand what it'll take for a fall 2025 start and we're supported by a number of key local and state organizations to ensure we can hire and build a high-quality program able to serve a wide range of students and families. A 2025 start is crucial to our mission to ensure we can collaborate with D-51 to ensure no gap is left unfilled in this transition process and to provide an alternative highquality academic option. As a charter school authorized by D-51, we
180will be able to partner with the resources of D-51 while pursuing a vision that includes enhanced curriculum. For example, incorporating ASL into the classrooms and fostering a sense of belonging and empowerment for deaf students. As a as the district has stated they have no clear plans for this current scenic elementary building and property shuttered, we are requesting the opportunity to access and or release the scenic facility. This location and amenities provide a learning environment that is crucial to the growth in academic foundation for all students. The physical attributes of the scenic property are unique and can be leveraged to promote hands-on learning and practical applications of students knowledge. We are requesting prompt clarity and collaboration from D51 administration on the use of the scenic facility. Scenic View Charter School will help D-51 ease the financial
181burden of a shuttered school by recouping maintenance costs and other expenses while allowing better use of community's funds and eliminate waste on maintenance and shutters facility. We request in writing that the board and district provide clear direction to the viability for a fall 2025 start date and the access to the scenic facility. we will find a way to create a new school and hope you'll be supportive given how much these decisions impact our children's educational pathway. Thank you for your time and I look forward to diving deeper into scenic view and how we can help our entire community in District 51 flourish with you all. Thank you. All righty. Up next we have Elizabeth Ross and on deck Miss Kim Carville. Good evening board members and district 51 administration. Thank you for your continued efforts
182and thank you for providing my family with the opportunity of school of choice. As a parent in the Clifton attendance area, this vision for Scenic View hits close to home. I have felt firsthand the challenges families face in finding schools that truly meet their children's needs. Each morning I make the long drive to our current school of choice because I believe in providing my child with an environment where he feels safe, nurtured, and inspired. I also know many parents across our valley share the same desire to preserve school of choice and to ensure their children have access to options that support their unique paths. As we face significant changes in district 51, it is most more important than ever to preserve the student trust in the district by providing as many school options as possible
183and ensuring families have access to schools that meet the diverse needs of their children. Scenic View Charter School with the collaboration of District 51 will stand out as a beacon of hope and opportunity, offering an environment where students can truly thrive. Scenic View will provide a tuition-free public school option built on the work hard and be nice culture and the deep understanding of the importance of small class sizes in individual learning. These elements are especially critical in our K through5 students as these formative years shape not only their academic abilities but also their confidence and love for learning. Scenic View alongside of District 51 will be uniquely positioned to provide tailored support and ensuring each child receives the attention they deserve and the resources they need to succeed. With school closures and the challenges for
184families are only growing. Larger class sizes and fewer options mean that many students may struggle to find a school that fits their unique learning styles and needs. As we navigate these changes in our district, let us come together to support our community through Scenic View Charter School. One size does not fit all, and it's important that options that include small class sizes are made available to meet the diverse needs of students from all ends of our community. Together, Scenic View and District 51 can collaborate to identify and fill in gaps to ensure every child is accounted for and allowed the best opportunity to succeed. I believe the current Scenic Elementary facility and location is critical to the mission of Scenic View Charter School and can provide enhanced learning for all students. I believe in this
185option for students so much that I am willing and more than happy to carpool as many students as I can from my community to ensure they have the same. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, we have Miss Chem Carville and on deck, Mr. Brian Austin. Good evening. Thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to speak again tonight. My name is Kim Carville and I am here to express my support for Scenic View Charter School. I'm here tonight in two capacities. One is a parent. I have two students currently attending Scenic Elementary and I have every intention of having them attend Scenic View Charter School. I am also here tonight as a local business owner looking to do what I can to try to help um solve the problems, try to overcome the hurdles that
186we see on the path to opening Scenic View Charter School. Uh my husband and I have committed to um providing transportation, purchasing vehicles and maintaining them for as many students across the valley that would like to attend Scenic View Charter School. We are hoping that it will be a diverse community just as we have in our school right now, welcoming kids that are displaced by the school closures and any kids whose families make this choice. Our district prides itself on choice. Scenic View Charter School, authorized by D51, would offer a solution to many challenges the district and our community face. One that prioritizes listening to the needs of students, individualizing learning, and having a strong community culture rooted in the values of our work hard, be nice. This partnership with District 51 reinforces trust and
187ensures families have access to an innovative tuitionfree public school option designed to meet the challenges of today and the aspirations of tomorrow. As the authorizer of Scenic View Charter School, D51 would be reaffirming its commitment to providing equitable educational opportunities. This collaboration sends a powerful message. Every student in Mesa County deserves an individualized path. One of my students is not a typical learner and a crowded classroom and fewer resources spread within his school, it's not going to work for him. Scenic View Charter School is where I hope to be. And if it isn't, I'll be looking outside our district for options for him because it it isn't one-sizefits-all. And so we're asking you, excuse me, we're asking you for your support to start by adjusting your timeline. And I believe what I asked the last
188time I spoke here is just meet us at the table. In the weeks, we have been able to solve so many of the roadblocks that appear to stand in our way of forming this school. This team of people that I have become partners working with are amazing and we ask that you listen and just see what we have to offer. So adjusting the timeline just giving us a moment to be able to explain to you what we have come up with and how we plan to open our doors to everyone in our community that is interested in attending. Thank you, Miss Carbell. Up next we have Mr. Brian Austin and our final one, Valentina Servin. Good evening board members, Dr. Hill and D51 administration. Uh, thank you for your dedication to our community and for
189allowing us the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Brian Austin and I'm a parent of students in D51, a business owner in our community, and someone who firmly believes in the mission of Scenic View Charter School. Tonight, we come before you with a shared commitment to serve all children in the Grand Valley communities. Scenic View Charter School is not simply a continuation, but a catalyst of new educational opportunity across the valley for decades to come. We are here to ensure every student, especially those affected by closures and consolidations, has access to the best individualized opportunities for academic success. We formally request the board's support in waving or extending the application timeline as defined by D-51's policy on charter schools. This flexibility will ensure Scenic View Charter School can open its doors in fall 2025,
190backed by a team with the experience and dedication to meet every application requirement. Additionally, we we request the use of the Scenic Elementary facility. This space, currently without a future plan, is uniquely suited to fostering academic growth and community engagement. By utilizing this facility, we can help the district reduce the financial burden of maintaining a shuttered building while enhancing educational opportunities for students across our valley. Basically, uh, help us help you. Um, Scenic View Charter School will be the immovable object during this time of uncertainty, a steadfast foundation for families and students. While transitions bring challenges, we will remain committed to providing stability, continuity, and a seamless educational path for students and families. With no attendance boundaries, Scenic View will welcome learners from every corner of our valley, building a diverse and inclusive community dedicated
191to academic excellence. As we step forward, we pledge to embrace collaboration with the community, educators, and D-51 leadership. Together, we will create a culture that not only supports student success today, but strengthens our district and community for generations. You charter school will stand as a pillar of strength, an enduring partner in the growth and success of our community. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to working together to ensure Scenic View becomes an invaluable asset to our community and District 51. Thank you. All righty. And our final audience comment tonight is Miss Valentina Servin. And I believe she left, but Mrs. Sheila Worth is going to read her. First, thank you, Secretary, and administration for all the effort um to accommodate our deaf community and our ASL interpreters. Uh, that was amazing.
192She did have to leave but asked me to read this. Hi, my name is Valentina Servin. My kids go to Nisley. I want to tell you I'm concerned about next year. My kids worry. I need information. No one give me information. I don't want my kids in big class with 30 or more kids. Some kids need more attention. I heard maybe another school uh another school choice but have transportation problem. I hear maybe can pro uh maybe they can provide transportation that would be wonderful for my family. I want good opportunity for my kids. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you. And that concludes our audience comments for the evening. All right. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have our um consent agenda. So, the consent agenda contains routine items such as personnel
193actions and acceptance of gifts, which can be approved with a single motion. Um the total of the gifts for this month is $12,315. And we're always so very thankful for all the different community partners that donate um in various ways. So, um, are there any items that need to be removed for individual consideration board? Okay, seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Mr. Chavis, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Miss Lima? Yes. All right. So, next up we have our board business items. So, um I propose that we vote J 1A through V, which are the policies because W through E are repeal and removal. Um is the board okay with that? Okay. Yes. Um, so
194we will have a motion, a second, and there can be discussion on if um any of these policies that the board would like to discuss. So, do I have a motion to approve um items J1A through J1V? V is in Victor. Motion to go ahead. Motion to approve policies J1 through J J1 A through J1 V. J1 V. Second. All right. Discussion. Um I will I will um note that in policy JQ the student fees um a wording change from um the board to D51 um if let me sorry the district sorry to district to the district. Thank you. Um I'm sorry. Can you say that again please? Yes. So let me hold on. Let me pull the policy. I have it here. JQ student discipline. No, JQ student fees. Sorry, let me I'm just
195grabbing the I was good with the way it was. Is there a reason? Okay. So, here I'll just read it. So students may be asked to pay miscellaneous fees and expenses on a voluntary basis as a condition of attending, participating in, or obtaining materials, clothing, equipment used in a school sponsored activity or program not within the academic portion of the educational program. Rental fees for the use of items such as um corral robes, band uniforms, school own instruments shall be approved by the board upon recommendation of the superintendent. Students participating in activities or sports that are not required by the teacher or used in the determination of a grade may be required to pay charges covering the cost of the activity. Such changes may include but are not limited to admission fees, food costs, and
196trans transportation costs on activity trips. However, it is incumbent upon the teacher and principal to make every effort to be sure no student is denied right to participate in trips or other enrichment activities because of lack of funds. The district may impose and collect a fee for the payment of excess transportation costs in accordance with state law. Only those students who use the district's transportation services shall be required to pay any transportation fee. So this sentence, the board may change student parking fees. We could that could be changed to the district may charge student parking fees to offset costs associated with parking and other student supportive expenditures to enhance the school community. Um as long as the primary intent and costs associated with the parking is met. So there was a proposal for that to
197be changed from the board to the district or we can remain as the board. I'm actually fine with it remaining the way that it is. Do I have that on if um and then the rest of it's just a waiver of fees and a fee schedule for the rest of the policy. So, so it says the board may charge student parking fees to offset costs associated with parking and other student supportive expenditures enhance the school community because then the board would approve that through our fees, the fees that we vote on because JQR is something that we approve anyway. Well, the regulation well we just well we approve the policy. The regulation can be can be um adjusted at any time. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The schedule. Yeah. Yeah. So the Yes. So what
198was what was stated was in the the first part of the policy it is saying it is referencing that the district may impose and collect a fee. This is the paragraph before and then it says the board may charge student parking fees. So to be consistent with the rest of the wording it would say the district may charge student parking fees but the board does actually vote on those student fees. So if the Yeah. So and on the fee schedule. So, if the board wants to look at any of those fees when they're presented to us, we can ask questions of that or or ask, you know, about those fees or and then prior to that, if there's any fees that we are concerned about, then those the specifics as to those fees could be
199requested. Correct. Yes, we could require specifics prior to approving any fee. Okay. Okay. As long as that's the case, I'm good with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The wording the wording is more consistent if it's just we changed the board may change student parking fees to the district may sorry not charge not changed. Okay. It's the board that was the only clarification one I had for any of those policies. Okay. Okay. Seeing no other discussion, we can take the vote for J1A through J1V policies. This is a second reading and adoption and changing yeah changing policy JQ student fees fines and charges to the third well one two three four the fifth paragraph down from the board to the district. Okay. Mr. Chavis. Yes. Mrs. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights, yes. Mr. Jones, yes. Miss Lima,
200yes. Okay, passed 50. Thank you. All right. And so next up, we have um J1W through J1E E. E is in Edward. Um so these are just repeal and removal of policies. As we've been going through these, we've just been looking at redundancies or where some of this information actually is housed in other policies. Um, so these ones will just um basically be removed. So do I have a Motion to approve J1W through J1E. Second. Okay. And that's the to sorry I'll clarify. Is there any discussion? This is to repeal and remove these policies. We're not adopting any policies. Okay. All right. Seeing no discussion, we can go ahead and take the vote. Mr. Chavez, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights, yes. Mr. Jones, yes. Miss Lima, yes. All right. Um, so for J2, we
201just have the policy first reading for LBD relations with charter schools. So, there were some updates to the state statute um that has to be updated um with the LBD policy. So board um you'll you have a copy of that in your email. So if you have any questions, make sure that you get um clarification on those before a second reading. Um so J3, um we have the resolution to certify the mill levy. Um I can read the resolution or board, you have it in your packet. So if you're fine, we could just make a motion to approve the resolution to certify the mill levy. Motion to approve the certification. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Melany's presentation was really good. So, it's great. Don't know. We asked all the questions already. All right. Seeing no
202further discussion, Amy, we can call for a vote. Mr. Chavez, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Miss Lima? Yes. All right. So item J4, the 2025 2026 school calendar adoption. Do I have a motion to adopt that calendar? Motion to adopt the calendar. Second. Any discussion. All right. Seeing none, we can vote for the adoption of the 2526 school calendar. Mr. Chavis? Yes. Mrs. Evansson? Yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Miss Lima? Yes. All right. And then we added J5, which was a vote um for uh approval to negotiate and sign the performance contract from the presentation earlier. Do I have a motion uh to approve a vote um or excuse me, a motion to approve and negotiate and sign the performance contract? Oh, sorry, the audit. Sorry, let me
203Okay, a vote to negotiate and sign for the performance audit. What's the company's name again? Schneider. Okay, there we go. For Schneider um audit. There we go. Motion to approve the negotiation and signing the audit with Schneider. Okay. For Schneider. Second that. Do we have to vote to amend the Do we have to vote to amend the agenda? We already did. We did. Yeah, you're fine. It's okay. Earlier we did two things earlier when we um changed we moved the strategic plan up. You're good. It's okay. It's a good time. I understand. Second that. I know it was a while ago. I did. Yes. And uh Director Evansson second. Thank you. Yeah. Is there any discussion? Okay. Yes. We're ready for the vote. Mr. Chavez. Yes. Mrs. Evansson? Yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes, Mr. Jones. Yes,
204Miss Lima. Yes. Okay. So, now we have board open discussion. Um, one item we do need to determine is um a special meeting to vote on the boundaries that were presented this evening. So, like I said, I know at least one board member is not going to be here on Friday. So, would Thursday work for folks? If not, it'd be virtual. So, you just need to be able to get on virtually. Are we wanting it to be at a certain time? Um, I mean, we traditionally we hold them at five just because it's if someone wanted to get on virtually and they're working, they could. Um, there's not really I don't anticipate a lot of discussion. It'll be a vote, but that we traditionally try to do it around 5. Um, I think if we
205did it next week, we would it wouldn't be until Tuesday. Um, I think was the earliest. I had some one-on- ones with board members today, so I know folks are going to be out. So, um, so I would say tomorrow, but I don't know if I mean Shannon already left. I don't know that he can get it done in time. Tomorrow would work well. So, we also need to give 24hour Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, good call. Um, Thursday. Yeah, I just um I would need to do it before like 4 o'clock. I mean, I might be able to do I could maybe do it at 4, but later than that. Um I'm busy. Yeah, I need to do it before 6. So, it's not a meeting that's going to have any public comment or
206anything. So, I I mean, if you do it at 4, it would be It probably would be 5 to 10 minute long meeting. So, is there a time during the day that works for board members on Thursday? I'm just going to be traveling. So, it could be a little iffy whether or not I could have service to get on. Okay, that's my only But you still have enough people to vote. If I could not get on, nobody else can do it. Look at me. Um Amy, do you have any challenges on Thursday? Um since we have to remote um or do the virtual meeting? No, I'm fine. Okay. um board, is there some time before Well, it just it sounds like later in the day is is getting a little bit more tricky. So, and
207I know that we need to make a decision to help facilitate everybody knowing or get the ball rolling on everything. So, could we do like a one or a two o'clock virtual on Thursday? I can't do two, but I could do one. Okay. one o'clock virtual on Thursday. Okay. Yeah, as long as you have service. Okay. Or unless unless there's noon, 11. Yeah, I'm just throwing out times. 1:00 p.m. noon, 11:00 a.m. Is there something better? One more. Okay. All right. Then we'll do one o'clock Thursday. Yeah. For the vote on the boundary change virtually. Um board any other discussion? Okay. Seeing none, we do have um this concludes our meeting for the 2024. Well, no, I guess we'd still have the special board meeting. Excuse me. So, this is at least in person. We
208um our next meeting will be January 7th. Um our board work session here back in the boardroom and then our January 21st uh board business meeting. So um Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Yep. Yeah. Merry Christmas. So do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Okay. Thank you everyone.