5/7/24 Board Meeting

001Okay. Uh, attention in the building. Attention in the building. We'll be starting our meeting now. Get started. Mrs. Eritt, can we have you take a seat? That got real quick. Domino. It's okay. All righty. Well, we're gonna go ahead and get started. Um sorry for the delay getting started. We just we had a little bit longer executive session and um had to get ready for that. So, um we already had called um meeting to order. So, we'll go ahead and do um the pledge of allegiance. So, if you can stand with us and director Jones, do you want to kick us off? To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All righty. Well, thank you

002for uh joining us this evening for our work session. At the very end, um we do have a couple business items. So before the executive session, we actually um already called the meeting to order and did roll call and did the agenda approval um before. So um we have a couple of um proclamations for this evening. So um this month is the Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. So whereas in the month of May, we take time to recognize and celebrate Asian-American and Pacific Islander heritage in the United States. And whereas Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month seeks to honor and recognize Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders and their countless contributions to our society in a variety of fields from science and technology to business and cultural arts. And whereas as a district, we are committed to

003creating an environment that promotes access, opportunity, and a sense of belonging for all. We want to recognize that our Asian-American and Pacific Islander community members bring unique perspectives and talents to the Grand Valley. And now, therefore, be it resolved that the board of education of Mesa County School District 51 hereby proclaims May 2024 as Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and encourages our community to engage in activities and events that celebrate their heritage and highlight the contributions of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders throughout history. Yep. Thank you. And then we have our teacher appreciation month. So whereas the board of education acknowledges the essential role that teachers play in shaping the minds and futures of our students. And whereas teacher appreciation month provides a moment for us to extend our gratitude for the tireless efforts and

004dedication of our D51 teachers. And whereas every day our teachers devote themselves to fostering engaging and inclusive environments, instilling a passion for learning and empowering their students to reach their full potential. And whereas teachers are an integral part of our community, actively contributing to a brighter future for all students. We recognize the profound impact our teachers have on students' lives and express our sincere appreciation for their unwavering dedication, creativity, and commitment to D51's vision and mission. Now therefore, be it resolved that the board of education of Mesa County School District 51 officially proclaims the month of May 2024 as teacher appreciation month. And we encourage our community to join us in expressing our gratitude to our teachers, recognizing their exceptional contributions to our students, staff, and D51 community. So, thank you everyone for all you

005do. [Applause] I I did want to mention real quick to a shout out to our um nutrition services department because we this is the second year I think we've partnered with them from our office to um to make uh cookies as like a nice sweet treat for all the teachers um at the schools for teacher appreciation week. So um thank you to our nutrition services department for doing that for our teachers and I know all of our schools have um a lot of different events going on uh this week which is exciting. Um and then I think at the meeting on the 21st, we'll show the video that the foundation put together um with different community leaders um celebrating our teachers. So again, shout out to all those individuals that are celebrating our teachers and

006thanks to the board for the recognition. Thank you. And then while we don't have a proclamation, um yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day and I think it's always important for us to never forget things that have happened in our history. I think it's too easy for one generation to the next that we forget different things that have happened in our world. So, I just wanted to put out that because it um coincided closely with the board meeting um that we just want to take a moment of silence to just remember um what happened um during that dark time um during World War II. So, if we just take a moment with me, we'll have a moment of silence. All right, thank you very much for that. All right, we will get into uh our agenda for

007this evening. So, we have the revised teaching and learning framework presentation. So, if that team wants to come on up, sorry, you might sit in the middle. Uh, I see that a different deck is loaded. I'm Jackie Anderson, executive director of teaching and learning. [Music] I have a joke for you. Hey, you you asked. I have an eight-year-old. Did you hear the joke about the penny? Never mind. It doesn't make any sense. [Laughter] All right. Do you have one? You got You got some good dad jokes, right? I have a bunch of Come on. I have chicken jokes. I have a hen. She can count her own eggs. She's a mathma chicken. [Laughter] Anybody in the audience got any jokes? [Laughter] for dad jokes. We could actually unplug it and I'll just start. How about

008that? It's on the final electronic packet. Just pull it. There it is. Right there. Awesome. I'll click for you. I'm clicking. All right. I'm clicker. Okay. Um, all right. So, we're excited tonight to talk to you about the 2024 teaching and learning framework. I'm Jackie Anderson, executive director of teaching and learning, and this is Jen Marsh, our chief academic officer. What we're presenting tonight is an executive summary of a document that's significantly longer but really critically important to teaching and learning in district 51. And we're calling it the 2024 teaching and learning framework with a lot of intentionality because there was and it has been a 2017 teaching and learning framework in our district that's guided a lot of instructional decisions since 2017. And again tonight and into the fall we're presenting the 2024. So

009here's an executive summary of that work and here are the team members who helped draft and refine uh the 2024 teaching and learning framework. And so on screen you can see names of members who contributed to a two-year process to rewrite that document in our system. The teaching and learning framework elevates competencybased uh instructional strategies that are uh important for all district 51 educators to know, be familiar with and implement in their context to support highquality education across our system. This is a timeline of the revision process. Again, our first teaching learning framework was introduced in 2017. The strategic plan was composed in 2022. And this new iteration of the teaching learning framework is coming out in 2024. And it's important that those two documents work together in synergy so that um we aren't working

010towards different aims. So the goals of the strategic plan, anything that could be connected to teaching and learning are elevated by the church teaching and learning framework. And so with a new strategic plan in 2025 and beyond, we would update this teaching and learning framework too. And they would work now together in a cycle. So we're excited about that change. There are other changes too. This is a graphic still under development. It's in draft form, but an image that would be the cover page of that document. And there were four dimensions in the 2017 teaching and learning framework. Those same four dimensions still appear in the 2024 teaching and learning framework. They're at top. They're learned centered environment, design for learning, monitoring learning, and professional engagement. But there are things that are different um that

011have changed in the 2024 edition. And that's the inclusion of core beliefs. There are four of them that organize each dimension, practices, instructional practices. Previously, those were questions, open-ended questions. There are recommendations for different stakeholder groups, students and parents and the community, the district alongside teachers. And then there are additional tools and supports. There's a typo on this slide, but additional tools and supports in the appendix. It was my first time in Canva. Couldn't read it. It's so tiny. Yeah. Um, so there are four slides now that are a preview of what you would find in any one dimension of the 2024 teaching and learning framework. And so on the right for me, what's in white, that's a belief statement. There are four of those. And then in the gray boxes are examples of practices.

012So I'll be reading aloud eight practices. In the whole framework, there are 48. And that's what we're aligning our instructional practices to. So this is a summary of those. Um the first belief is all learners can and will learn when they feel included, respected and valued by their learning community. Two practices that we would implement as educators in any of our roles would be these. In a learner- centered environment, educators celebrate learners growth, achievement, and positive mindsets and behaviors. In a learner- centered environment, educators foster predictable school and classroom routines and procedures that promote respect, inclusivity, and belonging. The second belief is on screen and reads, "Through rigorous academic learning opportunities, all learners must be challenged, believed in, and supported to reach common high expectations." Two practices that support that belief are on the right

013in gray. In the design of learning, educators provide learners many opportunities to respond, deepening their engagement and understanding of content and concepts while also developing their academic voices. Another practice we would adopt in the design of learning, educators backwards plan with student data so as to ensure all learners will have access to grade level content or higher and where appropriate, educators plan to scaffold, accommodate or extend. The third belief, learning is enhanced by continuous cycles of practice, feedback, assessment, and reflection. Two practices. Um, and Andrea, your head is blocking part of it. And so, good. Thank you. I'm good. Thank you. Uh in monitoring learning, educators provide learners multiple opportunities for revision and multiple opportunities to demonstrate what they know, understand, and can do, allowing for productive struggle and the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

014A second practice in monitoring learning, educators provide learners frequent, focused feedback on specific learning goals and provide timely, constructive, and corrective feedback to help learners understand their progress and areas for improvement. And then the fourth belief, educators must take collective responsibility for all students learning to practices. An engaged professional measures the impact of new or refined practices on student learning, engagement, and belonging. Belonging, then reflects on the data and makes adjustments. An engaged professional embraces a professional responsibility to learn about effectively responding to the social, emotional, and diverse academic needs of all learners. And so those are eight practices of 48. This is a document that will go out to our system on Friday of this week. Principles, building leaders are engaging with it now and we'll engage with it in professional learning through the

015month of May. And then in the fall, the full teaching and learning framework will be embedded in all of our professional learning and uh we'll be digging into all 48 of those practices in each of the four dimensions. So we're excited to share that preview with you tonight. What questions do you have or might you have about the teaching and learning framework? Question I have is uh on the last one on the educators may take collective responsibility for all students learning. We have an engaged professional embraces a professional responsibility to learn about effective responding to social emotional and diverse academic needs for all learners. Is there going to be training so that uh teachers and all staff will be able to have strategies to be able to do it in a in a responsible professional

016manner? Yeah. So the next group that presents is our professional learning strategic plan task force. That's been one of the goals of the strategic plan is to embed social emotional learning in our professional learning and in our learning communities. So tonight they'll report out on the data and some of the next steps that we're taking and they'll share a preview of for you of the professional learning calendars at elementary and secondary. Um I don't know that we'll address that with maybe the level of detail that you're looking at. What are the specific social emotional learning plans but per our strategic plan it's embedding that content and the other professional learning that we run to equip educators. Yep. Yep. The uh the next presentation is about how we started to measure that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay.

017So, what did I guess kind of what did we really have before we had this and what is this um new? Are some of these new? Is some of this complimenting? Is some of this tweezed out from what we had? Can you maybe kind of show give us a little bit of an overview of where we were? Yep. And kind of where we're at like obviously we see where we're at with this right now, but kind of maybe where it changed from just so we can have sort of that perspective. The 2017 teaching and learning framework. uh you would remember this if you've been in our community and were in our community at that time was part of our roll out of PBL or proficiency based learning and coupled with it was another document or

018tool called the D51 learning model and both of them described instructional practices in our system that we'd align to by level uh but they aren't the same the teaching and learning framework and the D51 learning model and so that second tool was meant to accomod like accompany the first to give greater definition to what it is that we were doing by level to move towards a performance or a proficiency based system. Uh today we talk about that as competency based learning and the the big idea is this is that I am as focused on what students have learned or more focused on what students have learned than what I've taught. It's about paying close attention to what students have actually learned and acquired competency based education. So I taught it but did students learn it?

019So what are all the tools that we need in our toolbox to be measuring and monitoring whether or not students learned it? A competency based system would have instructional strategies to support that and those four dimensions help us organize those structural those instructional strategies. So the dimensions are the same. In the 2017 teaching learning framework, there weren't specific practices listed. There were questions, open-ended questions. this edition the 2024 names practices and those were like the eight that I read. Can can we give it like an example of what those questions were? How might you use data to do something? This identifies how data can be used. So it's not given to um the teachers to come up with how might you it's giving explicit ideas on what those practices would be when you're monitoring learning.

020Yeah. So it's much more explicit with practices. And then another change are those beliefs. The idea that we're educators working together make a difference for kids. No educator working in isolation can achieve for students the goals that we have in mind per our strategic plan. It takes educators working together. You'd have to believe that to invest in those instructional strategies. I think the other thing too, if you want to hit on it, um, Jackie, are the recommendations. So every person reading the teaching and learning framework can see themselves in it. So what I mean are you can have parents that were here are the recommendations for parents here's a recommendation for community and teachers and administrators. So how does this document when you look at it through a different lens or you're recommended there's a

021recommendation on how to use it comes to life in a different way when you're in a different role. Yeah. I think the 2017 teaching and learning framework had one audience in mind primarily and that was classroom teachers. And this uh keeps in mind many audiences including students and families and classroom teachers and any educator and for different disciplines. So when you read this as a teacher and you're a social studies teacher or you're a first grade teacher and you're looking at content but then there are recommendations how would you look at use this document when you shift your focus or your idea when when it comes to um attendance or behavior. What might you you how can you use this document that will focus on the area that you're you're working in at the current

022time, not just teaching and learning academics. That's great. I just I you know I I know some of the wording is changing like um and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're kind of going back to the to this thought of rigorous academic um uh like learning. Um not that we necessarily got away from it, but I think we we kind of stopped using those words. And it's funny because we were at Junction High School even a few weeks ago and the students were actually asking for more rigor. they were, you know, and and again, I get some students won't. And I think sometimes we we confuse rigor with like difficulty or with um it being complicated, but but it's not. Um and so I I can appreciate seeing some of this wording

023come back because it means that we're actually really checking in to see did have students learned it? our our teachers and educators, you know, they're ready to to be able to relay it, to get it out there. And like you said, this is the framework in which everything that we're going to be working through now will kind of funnel through to make sure that we're all moving towards that those goals. And then like what Joseé Louise said is, you know, addressing all learners as well. So, speaking of addressing all learners, one of the other things that came up that that's come up a few times, and I don't I know Jen and I have at least blushed it. Um, this will give an opportunity to speak to it. Um, is interaction within the teaching. Um,

024that's one of the things that we heard a lot from that particular group of students was we don't want to be spoken at for 45 minutes. We want to be involved in the and and engaged in that learning process. And so you want to speak would you like to share anything just specifically just regarding that and explicitly like the how to right y not not just do it but right ways in which to do it. Yeah. And so there are 12 practices in this dimension and you'd see that reflected alongside this belief across each dimension. So that's another new feature of the 2024 teaching and learning framework is how uh iterative it is reinforcing some of those big ideas. Student engagement is one of them opportunities to think critically and to make decisions about their

025own learning and certainly the rigor that you mentioned is also a part of this 2024 teaching and learning framework. Uh we read the opportunity myth and a couple of years ago uh brought in one of the authors five wow as a keynote. Um but the research is really clear. How do you make more than one year's growth in one year's time? That that should be our concern in the teaching and learning department always. How do you make more than one year's growth in one year time? Um and it's really clear that there are four things that matter in that respect and two of which are elevated on this slide right here. It's teachers with high expectations and access to grade level content. And that's a real challenge. How do I support and scaffold for my

026students and bring them into the classroom and help them find success with grade level content and keep expectations high knowing that there's lots that I need to do still to support students with where they're at and to keep them engaged. So always meet them where they're at. We want to ensure but that just because we're meeting them where they're at doesn't mean that's where we stop. that we always want to ensure that we're bringing up that rigor which is grade level content with grade level expectations and we're helping them that scaffold that Jackie just talked about so they have access to that grade level. Yep. I have another question. Uh you have those one before those where all learners can and will learn when they feel included, respected and valued by their learning community. We

027look at the Mueller's report and we look at other like our students are not socially connected to our schools. How how are you going to work that into that because that's a real concern to me. So we have a high rate of suicides and kids are not connected. Yeah. First you have to name it as an expectation and make it really clear that it is an expectation and then you would coach into it. That happens through professional learning. That happens with ILT teams. It happens on a sitebased level. We have goals connected to uh what aims. We call them AIM one and AIM two. Uh goals around belonging that are also in our strategic plan and then aligned plans. You'll hear some of that tonight. We're also working on more extensive plans to address the

028Mueller report. Uh that's not part of tonight's presentation. And I would say Jose Luis as a teacher. So when you look over to the practice on the right in a learner centered environment, educators foster predictable school and classroom routines and procedures that propo that promote respect, inclusivity, and belonging. So what are you doing as a classroom teacher in your PLC to talk about what are we doing to ensure that our students feel included and valued in their learning? And so there are activities and that will go in part of their rituals and routines that they're meeting with each other, mixing with with each other so that um they have that feeling of being respected and valued in their learning community. Does that make sense? It does. Thank you. This this document needed to be updated

029to do some of that important work in our system. The last iteration was 2017. Without these changes, we're not positioned to do that work and to bring clarity to our system about what it is that we hope to see in teaching and learning. And you'll bring us data on how you measured that tonight. You'll have strategic plan. Correct. Yes. Thank you. And we know that we can still evolve, right? So once this is three years is done, what will the ne the next the fiveyear what will it look like in 50 and 51? Oh, 51 and 50. Sorry. Have you heard anybody use it yet? Regardless. Okay. So, I'm the only one wrong, but still did set it. Any other questions, board? All right. Thank you both for that. That's really good update. So, we

030look forward to seeing how this Thank you. progresses. All right. So, next up, we have our strategic plan update for our staff and professional learning. I didn't get the slide over. I'll be your clicker and your Got it. Good evening. I'm Jennifer Marsh. I'm reading my script though still haven't changed. Yeah. Um I'm representing prepared and supported um staff focus in the areas of the strategic plan in the area of staff well wellness diverse and growing pipelines and professional learning. That actually is not me, that's Nikki, but I took over for this evening. She's sitting back there smiling. Um, in staff wellness, our goals center on improving educators overall impression of their school and employment in D51. In diverse growing pipline pipelines, our goals are to increase the number of qualified candidates who apply for

031the positions in D51 and to increase the diversity of our staff. And tonight's presentation is about professional the professional learning focus area in the goals that you see above or on your screens. Um at this time I'm pleased to introduce two leads of the strategic plan group. Jamie, our elementary assistant director of curriculum and professional learning and Lana, coordinator of culturally and linguistically diverse education. Jamie will now introduce the members of the task force and those who will be speaking this evening. Thank you, Jen. Uh so presenting with uh Len and I tonight are Cammy Kidd, principal at Shel Elementary. Uh Jackie Truckucky, who's the assistant principal at Fra Middle School. Yes, good. Just checking. Uh Carrie Wartz, instructional coach at Fruitville, and Heather Flick, coordinator of secondary coaching and professional learning. Um, also on

032our task force are Matt Borgman. He's the instructional coach and the my coordinator at Palisade High School. Uh, Sharon Collis, site director, and Britney Walker, our K to2 science content specialist. So, it's important uh for us to share with you that the aim of our professional learning priority area is to ensure district 51 educators and leaders engage in professional learning that will lead to students mastering the academic standards that will support academic skills along life skills, especially those aligned with our graduate profile. that will support educators in effectively responding to the needs of all groups of learners. On screen, you will see a quote from the book, Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work, and it reads, "Schools cannot achieve the fundamental purpose of learning for all if educators work in isolation to meet any of

033the goals named in our strategic plan. We know it will take educators working together and our professional learning goals are precisely about that. It's about educators coming together collaboratively in learning communities to plan and adjust a their instruction. Professional learning matters. When D51 educators engage in professional learning, it is to equip and empower them with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to meet all students needs and to support those educators in their practice as they continue to grow and refine across their careers. Um, of course, the board and our community are familiar with this calendar. This is our board adopted calendar for next year. And if you've had students in district 51, you may have a good understanding of what the color coding means. Uh, for example, the blue days are are work days

034and yellow are professional learning inservice days. These days are critically important to equipping D51 educators and to supporting and sustaining District 51 initiatives aligned to our strategic plan goals. alone though they are not sufficient to sustain and accelerate the gains we've made in student growth and achievement the last few years. District 51 is one of only three school districts in the state of Colorado to have a positive trend in academic outcomes since 2019 or pre- pandemic. And that doesn't happen by accident or without committed time to professional learning. Those gains towards academic mastery are a product of the hard work of D51 educators who are committed to common goals and high expectations and who work together to ensure um each and every student experiences success. So for a more complete view of professional learning that

035drives our collective work, you'd have to reference our professional learning calendars. Those are considerably more colorful. You can see the 20 2024 2025 elementary and secondary professional learning calendars on screen now. These calendars change every year based on the analysis of our needs and progress towards initiatives as well as the input of stakeholders. They will give you a visual of how and when we're coming together to address our professional learning goals. to give you uh to tell you a little bit more about professional learning designs at elementary is Cammy Kidd. Good evening. Uh I am the principal at Shel Elementary and tonight I am pleased to tell you more about the professional learning designs specific to the elementary level. On screen is the month of August and I'd like to call your attention to two

036dates and designs. One is August 23rd, which is colored green and it's actually labeled DF for district Friday. Parents of elementary age students know that students are released early on Fridays and that's for critically important professional learning. Sometimes designed by the building principal and sometimes designed by district leadership. August 23rd is what we call a district Friday and that particular one is dedicated to learning about math and science specifically the assessments that are common across D51 elementary schools. The professional learning that we will that will be facilitated then helps ensure D51 educators have a good understanding of both what students should be learning in math and science in quarter 1 and how they will know when students have learned it. on August 26th, which is teal and labeled LL. LL stands for learning for leaders.

037I'm a member of the district early literacy advisory team, which we call DAT. And this is a professional learning design that DAT instructional leaders requested for 2425 based on the positive experiences building leaders have had this year getting learning and literacy alongside our D-51 instructional coaches. In the year 24-25, there are four such half days, and they've been redesigned to include more opportunities for leaders to converse and collaborate with one another and to include learning on both our year-long literacy and math aims. Through this format, building leaders and instructional coaches will have the opportunity to dig into the new teaching and learning framework, which you just heard about a little bit ago, into reading K5 classroom look fors and walkthrough tools, prepare for our D51 professional learning Fridays, and learn how AI might enhance our

038teaching and learning. It's important systemic work, and this will help drive the goals of D51 strategic plan. The two professional learning designs I've just described are important in helping us meet strategic plan goals that are connected to positive academic outcomes for students and to goals about educators learning together. And then to tell you more about the professional learning at the secondary level, here's Jackie Truckucky. Thank you, Cammy. As Cammy said, I'm Jackie Truckucky, assistant principal at Fra Middle School, and I'm pleased to tell you about a couple of other professional learning designs. And so on screen, you'll now see the month of January 2025. We've planned that far out till January 2025 in professional learning. And there are two things in January I'd like to take a minute to explain. The first is January 7th,

039an inservice day at all levels. and a critically important one because that's when schools look at data and evaluate their progress toward year-long goals. Goals in academics and in culture and climate along with the student and staff belonging and wellness goal. It's the moment where schools come together and ask, are we at midyear on track and on pace to meet year-end goals? If so, why? What's going well? and how can we accelerate to the end of the year? If not, why not? And what adjustments do we need to make right now to ensure endofear goals are met? At the secondary level, that January 7th inservice date is followed at the end of the month with what we call a nick convening. Nick Nic stands for network improvement community and that's when the middle and high

040schools come together on one of the three dates in purple January 28th through 30th to engage in professional learning specific to our quarterly sprints in academics and culture and to network with other schools who are working toward the same or similar goals. Next year, the focus of Nyx will be on highly effective and cross-curricular instructional strategies in literacy as well as common tier one instructional strategies for effective classroom management or what you might call a healthy and productive learning environment. These professional learning opportunities highlight how we monitor our progress toward reaching building and strategic plan goals and how the professional learning we engage in throughout the year is targeted and intentional. To share more about how we measure the effectiveness of these and other professional learning engagements is Lana Hullchuff, coordinator of culturally and and

041linguistically diverse education. Thank you, Jackie. Hello, I'm Lana Hullshoff, coordinator of culturally and linguistically diverse education. And the next few slides are about the ways in which we measure the effectiveness of professional learning in D51. We have pro, excuse me, we have formal program evaluation protocols in place to help us know whether the professional learning we offer is in fact effective in meeting the needs of teachers and their students. Currently, our program eva evaluation model is designed to monitor professional learning effectiveness when it's tied to the implementation of a new resource or any that has been adopted since the 2017 mill. It reaches many but not all D51 educators. This year we had strong participation rates, 673 responses across all levels with particularly high representation from elementary because of their place in the resource adoption.

042This year we also added questions that would yield data specific to the strategic plan goals in professional learning. Questions about educators participation in learning communities, about the extent to which their curricular resources affirm different cultural viewpoints, and about the extent to which this their curricular resources support the social and emotional needs of students. To tell you more about what we found in this year's data, here's Carrie Wartz and Heather Flick. Hello, I'm Carrie Wartz, instructional coach at Fruitville Elementary. At the beginning of the presentation, there was a quote that said, "Schools cannot achieve the fundamental purpose of learning for all if educators work in isolation." In my role as an instructional coach, I have the privilege and responsibility of helping educators come together to learn together and to plan together. And when they do that

043in grade level teams, we call those LC's or learning communities. I think this might be one of the most important goals of all the strategic plan because I can testify to the power of a learning community and what happens there. Having consistent and weekly LC meetings can be critical to student growth because it provides the opportunity to look at student data, identify areas for growth and plan next steps. For example, in my building, LC's have been most successful when we have an agenda and meet together weekly to go through an ODM protocol, which is an ongoing data meeting. Having consistent time together to analyze data and plan next steps creates teacher clarity about how students are progressing and meeting grade level expectations. Another use of our time during LC's could be to use our BPP,

044which is our backwards planning protocol to dig into standards and assessments and plan lessons. And what you see on screen is the program evaluation questions that help us measure whether educators are meeting whether educators are meeting NLC's and the sort of work they do there. The strategic plan is very specific about what kind of work should happen in LC's. And so that is why you see so many measurement topics under the first question such as I actively engage in a learning community. Our learning community focuses on student learning or our learning community analyzes student results. This slide tells us what the data is showing us about the health and status of learning communities in D-51. As Lana mentioned earlier, this bar graph reflects a 673 responses across all levels. What you can see is that

045more than threequarters of respondents consistently meet in learning communities. and for the purposes outlined in the outlined in the goals of this focus area. This is a huge celebration for us knowing that LC's are a proven strategy for accelerating students learning because of our proximity to meeting that 100% mark. And to tell you about other program eval evaluation results, here's Heather Flick. Hi there. I'm Heather Flick, coordinator of secondary coaches and professional learning. And Lana mentioned earlier, two questions were added to this year's program evaluation model so that we could measure each of the strategic plan professional learning goals. On screen in bold are questions aligned to the goals two and three. A question about the extent to which their curricular resources affirm different cultural viewpoints and a question about the extent to which their

046curricular resources support the social and emotional needs of students. Because these questions are newly added, the data on the next two slides gives us a baseline data and an opportunity as professional learning department to improve. In response to whether educators curriculum resources supported the social and emotional needs of students, 52.5% of the 673 respondents either agreed or strongly agreed. Just over half of educators responded favorably, which is a celebr c celebratory circumstance. However, it also leaves room for improvement. And because we have not calibrated on this specific question before, it's hard to know what factors might have influenced respondents answers. For example, students behavior or discipline concerns easily could have colored these data. Still and again the baseline data for goal two is both statistically positive and an area for growth. At the end of

047the presentation we'll share more about our next steps. Nextly though I'll share the data connected to goal three. In response to whether educators curricular resources acknowledge and affirm different cultural viewpoints. 61.7% of the 673 respondents either agreed or strongly agreed. This baseline data for goal three is also an even more favorable. Once again, we find this both celebratory and an opportunity for growth because by year three of the strategic plan, we want to see 100% of educators responding favorably in questions aligned to each of these three goals. So, to tell you more about how we will aim to meet these goals, I'll hand it back over to Lana and Jamie. Going forward, this task force will continue to influence the designs of professional learning aimed at preparing and supporting staff through three professional learning goals

048outlined in the strategic plan. Next year, we anticipate getting broader participation by extending program evaluation questions to audiences other than educators who have had a new resource. By including more educators and by continuing to align and monitor our progress, we would expect to see increases in each of the baseline data points presented this evening. As Len and each of tonight's presenters have said, we have many tools and opportunities for reaching our strategic plan goals. It would be important to note, however, that what we've shared tonight is not an exhaustive list, and we do support professional learning on other occasions or with other groups of educators. For example, each school has one multi-tered systems of support or MTSS teacher leader, and once a month after school, he or she gets learning about how to support students

049ever more diverse needs. So, there's more that we could have said about D51's professional learning, but what was most important for us to communicate is that we're aligned in our goals and initiatives. And with data now filtering through our program evaluation, were positioned to make significant progress over time. And what questions might you have for all of us? So, one question I'm curious about is, and maybe you do this at the building level, but how are we addressing um maybe those teachers and educators where maybe they're falling through the cracks like are is that something that as um maybe building principles, I I don't know like where where are we addressing where maybe some of our educators might not feel like they're getting the professional learning that um they feel they need? because I'm thinking

050of kind of a newer teacher versus more of a veteran teacher or maybe you guys are addressing all of that once they get to those learning communities. But um I don't know, it just is something that made me think about like while we think about the diverse needs of students, we have diverse staff as well. So I wonder just how we analyze the needs that they might have for these things. Sure. Um I can start with that one. Uh one of the things I think what you're really talking about is like that job embedded professional learning that people are looking for. Um and so one of the ways that we can support that is uh through instructional coaches. Uh instructional coaches can sit down and meet with the teacher and meet with them right where

051they are. Um the teacher often has a goal that they want to work on and they think about like events that they want to have happen to support that. Um and they think about the data they want collected and most importantly uh how that's going to impact the students uh in the classroom. And so coaching would be one way uh that we have to differentiate professional learning uh for teachers. Could you explain to me uh what do you mean by different cultural values in regards to yeah that language comes straight from the strategic plan and doesn't have definition in in our system. And so Heather spoke to it um maybe only briefly but said this is the first time we've asked that question and we haven't calibrated on what it means. We haven't defined it

052as a system this on sunscreen now. What does it mean to acknowledge and affirm a different cultural viewpoint? What is a different cultural viewpoint? We haven't defined it as a system and is the first time that we asked it in order to get the baseline data. And now that it's a part of our systems and our structures, we mean to coach into it and include it in our professional learning. But the first thing would be to define some of those and it's work we haven't done. We haven't done that work. Okay. Yeah. But it seems like you're you asked the question and yet uh 57 agree but if they don't know what the definition that that 57 is meaningless to me. That's right. Yeah. That's right. That's concerning, right? What does it mean? And for

053both of these data points, these three goals in the of the strategic plan were challenging to collect data on. And so we found as a large team a mechanism to finally do that. So we were excited to to have data to look at to know where we're at as a system because those are hard things to measure. And now we have the data. So now how do we get more data to represent all educators in our system? Because 673 is a pretty good response rate but it's not all educators in our system. And then when they responded to that question, what did it mean? What did it mean and where are we going as a system? So what you've heard tonight are some of the PL designs that support it and some of the guiding

054documents like our teaching and learning framework that will help us get more targeted. Do you have a timeline of when you're going to look for definitions and get that part done? Right. Definitions, I don't have a timeline, but the embedded work, yes, it's this brightly colored calendar because the works that we do in academics, we call that AIM one. And the work that we do in culture and belonging and of affirming students and who they are and their identities, aim two, is connected. And so each of the designs are different from level to level. So you heard a little bit about that, but not an exhaustive story. and the NYX that Jackie spoke about at secondary, we do that work together in one setting. We have a consultant supporting us next year, but that's a

055different structure at elementary. And so it's an awfully complex web, but what this gives us is baseline data to start making progress against so we can start to progress monitor because we run these surveys every six months. But then this is our second year of our strategic plan. Next year is our third and then we're going to start working next year in our third for our the next the next strat plan strategic plan which will be for five years. And so what we learn from these first um three years we'll be able to identify um better language and how are we going to monitor it monitor the goals before we jump in. And I this was our first atbat. I think we've done a a pretty good job but now we can evolve. Well, I

056just think if you're going I like that you're that you have that in here. I do like that and I do like that you're going to do uh training regarding all that, but if you don't have the definition, then how do you know you're doing the correct training? That just my concern. I just want to that's fair. Understand that part of it, I guess. No, it's a good point. And actually, you know, even thinking back to when we developed the strategic plan, um you know, there wasn't really work that was put into def was mentioned before, defining some of these things. and then even um you know maybe folks that were working on some things at that time um are not in that same role and so there's been a lot of change throughout the

057last two years as well. So that's good feedback for when we go into not only the work that we're already doing leading into year three but as we work with um CI on the next strategic plan to to say hey we need some more emphasis on making sure we define these terms and um and categories within the strategic plan so that everybody's clear on what that means and what we're actually supposed to be measuring. And so, you know, it was a is a first round of uh actually implementing a strategic plan. And so, this is a that's a good example of something we can ask for uh differently on the next one. I think to piggyback on that is, you know, one, I think defining the term is is the first I guess domino that

058goes into that. Then we have um different cultures here in town like and locally, right? And then I think we want um our students to appreciate the culture that they're tied to, but then obviously expose those kids to the vast array of other cultures or you know um you know worldwide. And so I again I'm probably getting to step 20 when we haven't even got to step one of defining what that means, right? Because I think there's there's a an appreciation of of your culture, which I think we probably do with our our own students here. But then if we're talking about culturally diverse, then what what all other things are we are we talking about with students? And and and how much of that can we implement into our our studies? because I mean

059going through the curriculum with you guys, we know that we have very limited time um with our students in certain aspects and so I just um I think the definition one will help but because two I don't want to put too much on our teachers to try to have to cram so much into a time frame that they're not even feasibly going to be able to obtain. So I again I I think as you guys work it out you'll probably be able to answer some of these questions for us. And so I'm not looking for an answer tonight, but I think it's just more of kind of a thought process of like what do we do for for the students and the cultures we know that we have in our community, you know, versus what

060what do we have the ability and time to do um to expose them to the rest, you know. So I'm talking about not necessarily just cultures regarding race. I'm talking about cultures regarding being poor, uh mental health, children with disabilities, all those type of cultures also. I think it's important for teachers understand those cultures. If you have a parent that has a child that's that's disabled, what is their thought process or culture of the poor, how do they look at things? That's I wasn't just looking at race. I was looking at the whole of everything. And I believe when we start that um the process for our next strategic plan, which will be next year, we're finishing up one and we're going to start another and we'll be able to address those and have some

061better understanding and ideas of what went well and what do we still need to know more with this strategic plan. Right. So obviously the definition because when I hear cultural obviously that wasn't um what I was thinking versus what Jose Luis was thinking. So I think the the definition is important if we're trying to set an expectation uh for our teachers to be able to understand what we're looking for them to do. So yeah, agreed. All of this work is connected and you heard earlier about our 2024 strategic plan. That first core belief is all learners can and will learn when they feel included, respected, and valued by their learning community. That we've set a stage to do this work as a team. Uh the people that you see in front of you, we're working

062together. we were all parts of different departments working together and working with site leaders uh working with people in the field to make sure that it's all connected. We're excited about the coherence that we're building around this. It is year two and we don't have a clearer picture for you right now, but that's because this work is underway. Uh and we're really pleased again, Jen said, to have data to present to you tonight, baseline data that we haven't had the opportunity to share before. And I do appreciate that you took that step. Mhm. I think that's a really good step to go forward and I do appreciate that that you're actually looking at those type of issues. So, thank you for that. And I think it's important for the board to know too. Thank you.

063That uh we'll need to rely on national standards and outside agencies and consultants to help us do some of this work. This is really big important work that we are not necessarily equipped to lead that sometimes we'll need support and to reference nationally things that are happening to support us in some of those designs. So, Mhm. Is this all currently internal work or do we have a consultant? We don't have a consultant. No, this is internal. Yep. But I mean like social emotional learning has standards or social emotional learning standards that we could be referencing at a national level. So things like that instead of making it up ourselves. And this data is perception data. So um sometimes perception data might be different than um correct and so this is perception but a perception is

064the first place is a place to start until we lift it with our teachers in that professional in those professional learning venues. They sometimes they see it or sometimes they may not to no fault of their own. No and I I agree that we need to look at it. I I just worry again with how little time we have on certain subjects and how much we can actually get in because if we're talking about rigor, rigor is being thorough on something. And so I I know you guys have to juggle a lot of things with that. It's like how do you get rigor and then try to address all this gamut of of everything? And so I don't necessarily envy the position you have to try to figure that out. So, um I just again

065just more of a comment and trying to and just kind of thinking aloud is I don't want to um overwhelm our teachers where we we sacrifice rigor of going through something very thoroughly by just trying to to I guess get through everything. And so I know it's a balance that we we need to look through. So I think you guys do a great job. I mean, just in having the conversations with, you know, Jackie and and I know your team, you guys are very thoughtful when you guys approach all of this. And I think while we may need national help, I think you guys know our community, all all of you know our community and what our community needs because I think there's a balance there too of not of taking what is happening on

066a larger level, but we don't want to sacrifice of how we know how our community works and those communities within the community, if that makes sense. We're all classroom teachers. I think no matter what title we just shared, we still identify as classroom teachers. And um you know, I'm just going to keep coming back to these beliefs while I've got a microphone in my hand because I think they're that important. That first one again says all learners can and will learn when they feel included, respected, and valued by their learning community. So, we see these goals as requisite to learning. They're they're they're requisite to learning. It needs to be in our system, and we embrace the challenge of making it all fit with the time that we have. Um, and that means being really

067clear amongst ourselves and with teachers about the outcomes and what it means. And we're excited to be taking on that work. And that's the first belief. And the second belief is through rigorous academic learning opportunities. All learners must be challenged, believed in, and supported to reach common high expectations. And the third is that learning is enhanced when we measure it and we monitor and we give students opportunities to practice and assess and give feedback. And the fourth is that educators working together are the thing that makes a difference for kids. So, we're so glad that this presentation reinforced the first because that 24 2024 teaching and learning framework is going to help us make big changes in our system. Any other questions, board? All right. Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate you

068all being here this evening. Yes. Yeah. Give them a hand. This is a lot of extra work they do probably outside of their other duties that they have. All right. So then up next we have the culturally and linguistically diverse education presentation. Sit down. Everything. You're all my people. Oh, you sit right here. You're the slide over. Okay. All right. Good evening board. I'm Dan Banell, the executive director of student services. Um, I've asked the culturally linguistically diverse education team to join you this evening in order to keep you informed about some of the changing demographics among our multilingual learners and our student population within District 51. Uh, I'm pleased to introduce Dr. Lana Hullshoff to my left, uh, the coordinator of our CLLDE programming, as well as Regina Cortana next to her. And then

069to my right, um, I've also got Lisa McCall. These are the two instructional coaches who support our CLLDE program. So, I will turn it over to Dr. Holshoff. Good evening. Again, thank you for giving us some of your time tonight to talk more about the groups of students our department serves. I'm going to start just by grounding us in a few common terms and some of the laws that we're obligated to serve. You might hear us generally refer to this group of students as multilingual learners. Um perhaps in other contexts you've heard words like um English learner, English language learner, ESL student. Essentially, we're referring to the same group of students when we use all of those terms. Um, Colorado state statute, however, defines multilingual learners as students who are linguistically diverse and have a

070ling level of English that not only requires us to develop their English skills, but also to support them in accessing grade level academic content. In addition to our state laws, there's also a number of federal laws that um our department works under. One of those um court cases that was particularly influential in how districts ended up serving multilingual learners was Lao versus Nichols. Um it was a court case brought forward in the 1970s. Um uh some Chinese American students in California brought a case across against their school district. Um, basically they claimed that the lack of linguistically appropriate accommodations effectively denied the students equal educational opportunities on the basis of ethnicity as required under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court ruled in the students favor stating that there is no equality of

071treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education. What that essentially means is that we have to do something different for our language learners so that they understand what's happening in their classroom. So, as we shift to thinking about the district's changing multilingual learner demographics, it will be essential to frame those conversations with this idea that we're obligated to provide a meaningful education for our linguistically diverse students. And there are a number of laws that outline our accountabilities in doing so. So despite the fact that our district has seen an overall decline in student enrollment, there is one group of students where we're seeing an increase. Um, and that's a group of students that are often called

072newcomers. The US Department of Education typically defines a newcomer as a person who arrived to the United States within the last two years. It's also important to note that it's a very heterogeneous group of students. um they have very different needs and some of them when they come adjust very easily to living in the United States while others face significant hurdles. Oh, oops. Skip that one. Sorry. In addition to acquiring the English language, many of these students come with varied educational experiences. Some newcomers may already be fluently bilingual and proficient in grade level literacy skills, while others may have experienced gaps in their education. Students with um the students that have experienced gaps or limited or interrupted formal education are often referred to as SLIFE students. This is important to understand because district 51 is

073seeing an increase in students who are enrolling with limited or interrupted formal education. To help us understand more about these changes, Regina is going to share some demographic data pertinent to District 51's multilingual population. All right. Thanks, Lana. Uh before we take a closer look at uh how these student numbers are changing in our district, I'd like to make sure that you know the reporting codes that are used by the state of Colorado listed on the graphs that we're going to look at today. Uh the first code that you're going to see is NEP which stands for non-English proficient or students who are new to English. These students are just in the early stages of learning English. Uh the next code you will see is limited English proficient LEAP which these students are learning English

074within our program. They're progressing with their skills and they're building some quality academic English. The last two codes that you will see are monitor year 1 and monitor year two. These represent students who have become fluent in English. They've exited our program, but we continue to monitor their academic progress for two years, which follows state requirements. Okay, on this slide, uh what's important to highlight first is on the left and that's the increase of students that we are seeing who are new to English. First you will see that in almost one year's time from November of 2022 to October of 2023 we saw an increase of 40 students who are new to English. Then from October to January during this year uh we added another 40 students who were new to English. And then from

075January to about midappril uh we enrolled about another 29 students new to English despite overall declining enrollment in D51. Now on the right you can see the graph there that has our overall numbers um comparing 2022 which is blue to the current school year of um up until about midappril which you see in red. So the important thing to really look at is where it says NEP those two columns there. Uh you can see the significant increase in students who are new to English. That's quite a difference there. Uh just this year up until about midappril there have been about 135 students who were new to English. That is more than the entire year of 2223. Okay, this graph here shows that we now have about 13 schools with over 30 multilingual learners in their

076buildings. The red color indicates our students who are newer to English. The yellow represents the limited students who are just progressing in that English proficiency. And then the green and the blue are those students who are in monitor year 1 and monitor year two. And on this graph, you can see the representation across the district. This is the breakdown of all our multilingual learners by grade level. You can see that most of our multilingual learners are in the elementary level with third grade being the highest population of our multilingual learners. Now, I'm going to pass it over to Lisa and she's going to share some of the ways our department has responded to this growth. Thanks, Regina. Um, starting back in January, we convened a small collaborative team with representatives from the migrant department as

077well as family access and opportunity to think about what we might be able to do in order to be rep responsive to the increase in our newcomer population. Stemming from that collaboration, we decided to provide extended learning specifically tailored for our newcomers. We are excited to offer three weeks of instruction focused on literacy skills and special specialized language programming in June. We have had 60 students in grades K through 8 enroll to attend. We have also organized a two-day course titled instruction for newcomers which will be offered at summer institute as a way to support teachers with instructional strategies essential for working with our newcomers. And we have recently convened a work group to think about and support our school level teams with the complexities that might accompany students enrolling with limited schooling and perhaps

078without any transcripts. We continue to think about ways to support these students into the next school year. We've gratefully been allocated an additional three full-time CLLE teachers, which will allow us to continue to support the increased number of multilingual learners with acquiring and developing English language skills. Furthermore, we are in the process of exploring a possible collaboration with Wreck, the Riverside Education Center, to provide supplement supplemental literacy interventions for secondary students through afterchool programming. Um, additionally, we've recently received the exciting news that the state will provide the district with a little over $400,000 in additional one-time funding to support this influx of population of students. The department plans to allocate this money to provide professional development for teachers and staff to pay for additional additional curricular resources, language assessment tools, and academic support programs as

079well as support parent and community engagement efforts. We know that this is a dynamic group of students um and that they have unique needs and that we will continue to proactively think about how to serve them in district 51. Does anybody have any questions for us? So, on the the slideshow that we have here, the last thing that you mentioned, you said that the state is providing an additional $400,000, which is one-time funding, and that's specifically to assist teachers with education on how to handle students that are language learning or English language learning and those students. Is that correct, Len? Would you like to take this one? Sure. Okay. Dr. Well, and you you may have more to add. I'm just from a financial standpoint. Um yeah, the the state um allocated $24 million um

080this year, one-time funds to help districts across the state. I I think districts across the state were were expressing that there have been challenges with um the increase in students because um uh just the the different needs. And so if it if students enter um the school district after the October count, we don't receive funding uh for students who enter after that. And so that happens all the time, right? Um but especially if you're going to have students that um that come with additional needs um like being new to the country, um having um limited English proficiency, um there was a request for more funds. So, $24 million were allocated and it was allocated to districts um based on the numbers, but actually it doesn't really capture all the numbers that you saw up here.

081Um and so we are receiving a little over $400,000 um to go directly to serving uh students with those needs. Um so again, doesn't meet all the needs of the students that we've um that have been enrolled in our district since then. Um and it is unfortunately it's onetime dollars. Now, if the students um you know stay and continue to enroll this next year and they are added to our October count, then we'll get um district funding um per pupil funding for students. That's another thing to note, too. Um the $400,000 isn't equivalent to per pupil funding from the state. So, we receive around $10,000 per student. Um that's not how they did this formula. So, it's actually not even adequate to what you would receive for um for a student whose enrollment in our

082district. So, that was a long-winded way of saying yes, we're getting some money. It is one time and it um is supposed to be spent on the needs of students who are newcomers to our district. I don't know if you have more to add. I'd like to add so I believe that the state determined they funded this $400,000 on 52 students. That 52 those 52 students were the students that came within a window of act after October and midFebruary. And you saw as the numbers um that Lana and her team presented, we have far more than 52 students, but that was the window that they captured that data in. I have questions. Uh you didn't talk about when you said that there's uh they're non-English proficient, but I know that there's some youth that come

083in that they're illiterate in both languages. You didn't speak to that at all. So, I was wondering if uh because I've been into some of the CDL classrooms. I'm impressed by them, by the way. But there's I saw that they didn't have those some kids that were illiterate in both both languages. And then you asked for an increase in CLDE staffing teachers, you didn't ask for aids. And I was just wondering how come because if the teacher is speaking to the majority of them that are somewhat proficient in English but you have somebody that is not that's illiterate in both languages don't you need also an aid there is a question. So, in thinking about your first question about kids that might not have literacy skills in their first or second language, um those are

084often lumped into that group of students that we're referring to as they're often students that have limited or interrupted formal education. And so, those would be some of the characteristics associated with that group of students. There's perhaps that they have low literacy skills or no literacy skills in either language. They possibly have low numerousy skills. Um they might have some gaps in their academic content maybe. um in their identity as learners. So you I kind of was referring to those kinds of skill sets when we're thinking about those students with the interrupted or formal education and there's definitely an increase of those within our school system like now about you asking you want teachers but you didn't say anything about aids so and they seem like they'd be high needs. Yeah. Um, so I can

085Okay, I I'm happy to also Yeah, go ahead. Uh, to answer that question, um, we'll take as much as we can get, whether it's teachers, you know, um, or the pair professionals, we had some choices to make, um, Jose, when it came to, um, the exact needs of what you saw up there on the screen. um our non-English proficient students and the numbers, the high numbers that we saw are the most intense, most needy students that we have that need more explicit direct instruction from a classroom teacher. Um so that was that was the reason why at this point and and I'll come back for for more. I'm going to ask for more, right? But at this point it was about teachers because we needed we needed to get some of the class sizes down.

086our numbers in some of our schools were exceeding you know 35 to 40 students on case loads for our CLLDE teachers. So it was about right now at this point in time Lana really and I discussing the need for the explicit instruction delivered by a certified CLLE teacher versus the you know the pair professional in the classroom. Um both very important pair professional is important to that work as well. Um but at this point in time that is where we're at trying to get those case loads down and then obviously yeah I'll come back and ask you for more later. So okay, I think in addition to that we are still operating under um an agreement with the office of civil rights and under that agreement we are required to provide 45 minutes of explicit

087language instruction each day and for newcomers something more and when our pair professionals are serving in those roles to support those students, we can't count through that agreement that those minutes count towards meeting our requirements there. And so with certified qualified teachers, we're able to provide better services in terms of meeting our our agreement. So that was another factor to consider. The other I have one more question. So your your your CLLD teachers, are they in elementary, middle school, and high school or just in high school? Yes, we have teachers across all three levels, elementary, middle school, and high school. And um no matter how big the numbers are in a school or how small the numbers are in a school, we're still providing services. So we do have some buildings with, you know, one

088or two language learners and we're making sure that we have a teacher that goes there and provides services as well. Thank you. So just this may be speaking out of absolute ignorance when it comes to this, but did we create any additional positions for this for this particular program? If so, how many? And [Music] um are how are they how are they being sourced out? So I guess my first question is did we create new positions for this and how many? Start then you can do the math. It's it's a special algorithm on the math at which she um provides services across all of our buildings. Um yes addition three additional FTE. But wait, you had add you had FTE in ESSER and so those FTE and ESSER were pulled over and we added correct.

089Correct. Um we did we had uh some positions that were in our ESSER funds. Um so we were allowed to to keep or we found money to be able to keep the ESSER positions just change the funding source on those and then an additional three uh FTE just in the last couple weeks. Um and so at the teacher level that's that's where we're at. So, yes, we did we did receive some some additional uh teaching support or FTEES and then how she utilizes them across the system. I'll let her explain because it's it's rather complicated because we're only talking, you know, 31 to 32 teachers across, you know, multiple sites, 45 sites. So, she's got a pretty pretty good plan to to be able to serve. But, I'll let her explain that. I think it's

090just important to note that they're I mean, it's not a new position. It's just creating more of the same position that we already had in terms of CLLD teachers that are providing this explicit instruction in in English, helping kids know the language of English. Um, and yeah, it is kind of complicated to try to figure out who goes where, but we just try to make sure that we have a teacher that can serve all of our schools. And so sometimes that means serving a building at a 0.5 or a 0.25 and then matching it with another building. And that's, you know, I try to think about geography and schedules and uh staffing formulas and all of those things to try to make it all work together so that all of the language learners across the

091district are getting services. And you know, just this is one piece of the large puzzle of every year we talk about, you know, position requests and what can we actually afford and and not afford and having to make some decisions. And so those are tough decisions, right? We'd like to be able to fund every position that's requested. Um, if we want to be able to do that, um, well, one, we can't be 173rd out of 178 school districts and per people funding. Um, you know, we have to talk to our community about how we receive better funding through our Milvy overrides. And so, when we don't have really great funding as a school district, we have to make some tough decisions on how many positions do we give to this department and this department. Um,

092and so, yeah, it's it I'd love to give more positions to every department. Um, and you know, when we're doing things like we're having to go through school closures and we're um we're going to have to use $2 million out of reserves to fund unfunded positions at elementary schools, like they you have to be really smart about your budget and keeping it balanced um while knowing that we have uh increased needs in our community and within our school district. So, we'd like to get to a point where we're not having to say no to things and and being able to say yes to the the positions that we need in the district while also taking care of all the other um uh needs and interests in the district as well. So, with that being said,

093I mean, I know we have the $400,000 coming in, so that's going to offset us quite a bit. And it might have not even been something that we had taken into consideration before we added the three positions. So, the total six positions that we have, is that something that we're going to be able to fund year after year? Is that something that we might have to actually look at diminishing at some point which would be horrible but yeah and I've talked to on that these students will now be part of our October count. So they that will have that funding will continue. Yeah. The per pupil it'll because they've added to our total student FTE which then Mel is able to fund. Well, right. and and the 400,000 is a is a one-time and it's

094more about materials, curriculum, support, that type of thing. It's not for people. It's not for FTE. And hopefully, while the new um school finance formula is not perfect, it is supposed to account for districts with higher learners of this range or or needs, different needs. um instead of just getting instead of just dividing the pie a third, a third, and a third, um districts who have those higher needs for those types of learners, we're supposed to get better funding for those. Again, that's not going to kick in right away, but in theory and looking at it, which this is the one the board um uh had the special meeting about, which was House Bill 1440. Thank you. Um and uh so hopefully that's something that as we look down the line we won't necessarily have

095to cut, but it'll be something where we get better funded um as a district. That I mean obviously that's the hope that we all have. So and piggybacking on that as a reminder that you know losing the fifth year of averaging is going to hurt us because we are in a declining enrollment state. So, you're right. We we will maybe receive more uh funding per pupil because of our needs, but as we continue to decline in enrollment um it's kind of offsetting some of those those additional dollars. And so, we're not going to see that um that increase right away and um until we make some tough decisions. Um we've been making tough decisions, but the rest of the decisions we need to make um we're not going to be able to utilize new funding

096um to be able to meet the needs of of our learners. So those are why we have to make some of those decisions as well. One more question to kind of caveat off of Joseé Luis. So he had mentioned about um our students that are to an extent illiterate in any language. Did those students fall under a different area under an IEP or anything like that instead of it falling under the multilingual? You want some of it? I can do some of it. I mean obviously special education is also in my realm. So certainly some of the learners that we've experienced, some of our newcomers come with multiple needs, right? Not just language needs, but we do have students that have come in with some significant medical needs, um some significant needs around uh learning

097disabilities and things like that. So yeah, we we do we have kids that that have a lot of, you know, impact on our system and and so um certainly um that's something that we're we're working with in multiple departments, cross-d departmental and and really the collaboration with her teams at the building level with our IEP teams and special education. Uh we also have twice exceptional students coming in as well, which means we have kids that that have language barriers, but they're gifted students. And so we're working through, you know, how to meet the needs of our students that are that are twice exceptional. So I I would say this is how important language um acquisition is because you can't identify a student with a a learning disability until you know that they know and understand

098the language. So if they even they're it's been interrupted. They haven't had the opportunity to learn it because they haven't been taught it. Then we can't identify or determine if they have a disability. So, first we've got to teach them the English language before we could determine if they have a disability. However, like Dan just said, we do have students that are coming in that that have other needs and not we don't know know if it's necessarily a learning disability yet. Okay. I would recommend that the board go see Mrs. Adams at Junction High School. She does the CDL students. They're just totally amazing. Just let you guys know uh for Cesawa celebration Ali who is a CDL student won our scholarship. He's amazing. He speaks well wrote well and he'll be going to CMU

099next year to become uh in the medical field. So they're amazing students. Yeah. Okay. Right. Any other questions? I I I will say I I've got two comments. So, one, as we're hearing about this, I do think I just it reminds me of really the beauty of public education. So, we accept everybody who comes through our doors, um, and while we know there's challenges associated with that sometimes, um, that's that's what we're here to do and we're here to serve. And so, I do want to thank, um, all the folks up here and all the the folks in the department that are serving every single student uh, who enters our doors. Um, and then the other thing I just have to say this because I'm seeing Miss McCall up here. um you know and in

100the um the spirit of teacher appreciation week just want to thank you cuz um our son is in at dual immersion academy and uh he actually didn't get in in kindergarten because we moved here after the cutoff date and he got in in first grade and Miss McCall was his um first grade teacher and so you think about a um um that's why I'm not looking at you because I'm not going to cry but um the uh you think about a kiddo who didn't get the a full first year of dual immersion experience um and having to catch a kid up um And then also he's in he's finishing fourth grade right now and he's very successful and he's loving dual immersion academy and it's because um he had a really great first grade teacher.

101So I just want to say thank you to Miss McCall for um for all that she's done for our son. Yes. Thank you very much. I think I appreciate the partnerships that we're garnering too in the local community because um while teachers are superheroes, we don't want to burn anybody out. And um I appreciate um organizations like Wreck and others that can come in and help support and we can get those learners um hopefully up to speed a little bit more quickly. So, all right board. Um, okay. We have some first reading of some policies here. Um, so we have IGL, our library materials selection. And so you guys, uh, we have copies of these because they will be, um, hopefully voted on at our business meeting. We have IIGJ, our instructional resources selection and

102adoption. um and JICJ, student use of cell phones and other personal electronic devices and KEC or public complaints about instructional materials. So, um we've been working on some of these for quite a while. And then um as Dr. Hill had presented um a couple weeks ago on the student use of cell phones and other personal electronic devices, um it's really important for us to look at this one. Um, does the board have any questions or comments right now? Um, yeah, and I just to share on that one because I know it has, uh, garnered a lot of attention recently and so just like with any first reading, uh, any thoughts you'll have over the next two weeks, we definitely want to hear them. Um, you know, I would what we're planning on doing as well

103is now that the first reading is put out there, I'll send this out to um all of our uh principles and get feedback from them as well on if there's any language changes they want to see or if it to make sure it makes sense. Um, but the main things that I want to mention that are in there, there's some there's some language adjustments so it makes it clear around, you know, personal electronic devices versus the um former term that was used in there. It defines some examples of what that is. Um, and then it really differentiates it by level. So, what we're looking at right now based on feedback from teachers, principles, even students, um, K through 8 would be a, um, start of school, into school, no access to these devices. Um, and

104so, just want to make that very clear. That's the language that would be in this um, in this policy. Um, high school is a little bit different. That's mainly from some of the feedback that we received around u bandwidth of staff and then being able to enforce an all day quote unquote ban. And so we really focused um and Tammy's um wording in there is really focused on that instructional time and really defining what instructional time is. It's the start of class to the end of class. It's not when your teacher gets done teaching that you get your smartphone out. It is start of class to end of class. Um and so there is some differentiation there. So I want to be clear about that as well. Um and then also there's some language in

105there about it being off limits and things like bathrooms and places like that. Um and there are some exceptions in there. So, IEEPs, 504s, um if a student has a medical or a health care plan, those there can be exceptions obviously for if a student needs access to some of these devices for those type of things. So, want to make that clear in case there's any family members that are listening and thinking that their kid might need that. Also, in case of uh if it's necessary for emergencies, there's language in there about that as well. Um, and then also if a teacher has an instructional purpose um, for the device um, that there are opportunities for them to be able to work with their principal on when they might need to use the device for

106that. Um, and then the last piece in there is really around violations and consequences. It's not really getting in the weeds because we don't want to um, dictate too much exactly what it's going to look like on every single campus, but there is flexibility in there for um, administrators for to be able to impose, you know, certain consequences if students are violating the policy. So, while it's not finalized yet, those that's the main gist of it and the biggest piece is and just want to put it out there because assum assuming this gets passed in two weeks, um we want families to be prepared next school year that if you have a student in K through 8, um they will not have access to their smartphone all day long. Um they will not have access

107to these devices all day long and we need uh families to help us with that. Um so that that's successful. Um and then also um at the high school level during honoring that instructional time and and removing distractions from instructional time during the day. Um the other thing that we've been working on is sent out a survey to um admin asking like what what uh tools would you need to help with this? And so we've got a lot of data from them on um you know if it's a bo a wooden box in the class that kids can put their devices in or whatever that might be. And so we've captured that data as well. and we've got some community partners that are working with us on funding u to be able to pay for

108those so it wouldn't come out of the district's funds. Um and so that's also something that we're working on. Um but the the main thing for y'all tonight is just if you have feedback over the next two weeks, please let us know and we'll be make sure that we get feedback from the folks that are going to have to implement this at the campus level along with the feedback we've already collected. So this won't be new to anybody necessarily. So thank you. Yeah, I think that's really good. I I think um just some questions I have off the top of my head which again don't need to be answered right now but if you just want to um because I'm sure other people might be thinking them is um we have surveyed the high schools

109about how students will store their phones or because I think the one piece of feedback we got I think across the board from both um teachers and even students was consistency right and I think there has to be some kind of consistency so And and again, I know with policy, you don't want to write yourself so tight into policy that it's then hard to uphold and so you try to leave yourself some uh leverage there. So then in individual buildings can do what they need to do. So, um I but we are looking at wanting each of our buildings to have something, right? Some kind of device to to store those phones because I think, you know, if I'm a student walking in and and we've already heard this, we have some educators who are

110doing a really good job um where their phones they the phones have to be put away somewhere once they walk into that classroom. And then we have just others that haven't done it. And so I just don't know if in the policy we need to say that there will be some kind of I don't know phone device or phone storage container that will be provided and we don't necessarily need to specify what that is but that when the students walk into every single room especially at the high school level they're going to see that there is something there for them to be able to for their phone to be put away. And I think that helps in my mind and and I could be wrong that helps our educators know that everybody's going to have

111something that there's something that students are expected to put their phone away when it when they're in that instructional time in class. And I know we're allowing it during passing time. I would just obviously encourage students to just not get your phone out in between because I think that's the problem. Like we talk about kids getting being tardy to class or there being some absenteeism and a phone can derail a student in between the passing period. I know it's way hard for us to at the high school level to monitor that. Um I don't know if we can put some language in there that we strongly encourage for phones to just be to stay put away during passing period. I get lunch. I mean, if they're gonna if it's an open campus and they can

112go, you know, off campus, they're going to want to check their messages and and I don't see that as unreasonable. I do worry though that we're going to do all this work and then kids will get derailed during passing period time and they won't get to class or they're going to see a message that something and I think that just doesn't actually support what we're trying to do. Now, K through eight, that makes complete sense. I mean, again, I know it's hard for our staff to be able to monitor that passing period, but I don't know if we could just put that the board strongly encourages um just even during passing periods for the phones to stay put away. So, yeah, and those are those are great points and they're things that we, you know,

113went back and forth on because I agree. I even had a student at one of the student advisory groups that said, "Well, if you if you do this, then then kids are just going to immediately pull their phones out when they're in the hallway." and and so, you know, as much as we can create phone free spaces in the buildings. I think that's the goal. Um, but we we ran into some things with um thinking through implementation that made us differentiate what high school might look like, but I do like the idea of encouraging um not getting them out during passing periods or even lunch. Um, you know, we talked to the high school principal this morning and we'll have level meetings all week. Um, and this was one of the topics and what I

114I tell them a lot is that there's not a perfect plan, but we can try to have perfect implementation of the plan. And so, um, you're right. If we're if we have certain folks that aren't enforcing this and some that are, um, it's going to crumble. And so, we really need consistency in our buildings to say, and honestly, that what we've heard is that this is actually going to give freedom to our our educators and our teachers to be able to enforce these policies because it's something that we are pushing out as a district and that we're saying is an expectation and it gives that freedom. So, um, I I will say the the you mentioned it the issue with putting too much detail on the policy. Like I've already heard from one principal, they

115actually do a really good job with this already and so they don't necessarily want storage um things in their classrooms because they make their kids keep them in their backpack and their lockers all day. It's a middle school and so they don't want to derail from what they're already doing. And so, you know, we want to leave some flexibility for schools, but if they if they don't have something in place like that or they're not successful, they need to be have able to have these other tools. Um and so it's a good point. And then there will be some differentiation and we've got at least one school, maybe a couple others that want to um that are interested in piloting those yonder bags um where the it locks the phone in the bag um for

116the kids all day. And so that'll be interesting to see if we can pilot that and see if that's successful. And then maybe some other schools might come around and say we want to try that too. And again um that would be we've got some outside um resources that are look are interested in funding that for us so that those that's not a burden on the school district. Maybe the wording could just be that we expect each school to come up with a consistent um uh procedure uh for the phones to be put away. So if that is in purses and backpacks and they don't come out and then they can also implement whatever consequences those are like again obviously a school could take what we have put in the policy and they could they

117could make it more um and so maybe if we could just state that there needs there needs to be some consistent procedure across every building. And so if that is a you know some kind of storage device in every classroom then just make sure it's consistent. if it's in backpacks, then let's just make sure it's consistent. So, I think that's all I ask for um as a board member is that whatever we do that it's consistent buildingwide and every teacher, you know, or and every person in that building is a is agreeing upon what it is. So, then everybody's on the same page. So, maybe we can just kind of specify that we ask each, you know, building to to yeah, just have a consistent plan and that that's implemented. And I don't mind if

118teachers need to make the board the bad guys and just say like you know what I have to do this because it's board policy and um and we do expect it because I hope also that we're monitoring data but by by uh behavioral and mental health issues and our academic outcomes because based off of all the data that you shared with us along with other news reports that um we've seen across other districts um behavioral issues um typically decrease increase and academic outcomes increase. And so I'm hoping that we're monitoring that data um in our buildings as well. And I and I'd say most of the feedback that we've received and I know some the principles have received has been positive. Um you know you uh people don't realize what's being implemented until it's being

119implemented. So I'm sure we'll get some feedback in the fall um once this is all um followed through on. But um but it's been positive and I think it's it's a topic that um you know it it goes beyond um there's no real divisiveness around this for for folks. This isn't like a political issue. This is literally um there's data now that points to um the negative impacts of of smartphone usage and and social media on students. And um I think everybody can get behind the fact that we want to create these um distraction free free zones within our classes um so that students can focus on why they're there and that's to to learn and and it removes the burden for teachers to have to try to police this all the time ideally. So

120um so I I'm I am excited to see once we implement this what the impact would be and and some data around um uh are we seeing positive results from it. So, I'm I am appreciative of the board um pushing for this and and being supportive of it as well because I I think it'll be good for our district. Could we also um you know maybe with Elizabeth and her team and maybe we already have something like this, but maybe um it could get sent out to our families of just sort of like some tips and tricks because you know after hearing about the Mueller report and the suicidality that we have in our district. Um, we know that if kids get poor sleep, that is kind of a precursor to obviously other issues which

121can lead to those suicidal thoughts because they're just not they're not resting. And if the phone is on all night and if it's going off and even I know studies say that you need to be off the phone an hour before bedtime, maybe we can give our parents and and families um some tips and tricks that might support them and help them at home because if if kids can have that support outside of school, I think it makes it easier for them to do it inside of school. And I think I know sometimes as parents there's so much, you know, and as families you have so much coming at you that maybe if we could just provide like a onepage, you know, tips and tricks of things that help support students when they're then at

122home. Um, then they're not, you know, they're not on it, you know, at school and then we don't want them to go home and then like binge, you know, being on on the screens. So, I just uh because my my real goal here would be and I know I because we get we're getting a lot of community support with this would be a really communitywide movement for the well-being of everyone. I mean, because screens affect adults, too. So, I do wonder if um you know, I know the the um the Colorado forum, you know, their foundation is is looking to help support communitywide. So maybe we could just look at something that we could send out to families like um that would help support them once this kind of goes in in place as well.

123No, it's it's it is important. You're right because we only get the students for you know seven eight hours a day and so um we have been putting little things like in the Friday updates um to try to some tips how to check screen time and um and things like that, but um having a more structured approach to that would be good. And then the other thing we're um we've talked about doing is an FAQ that would go out along with once this policy is approved um because I'm sure we'll get questions about it. So what does this mean for communication during the day? How do I communicate with my kid then if they don't have their phone on? Well, you can call the front office. So um what if an emergency happens? So try

124to put some FAQs out there too so we can um help with answering any questions um ahead of time before the new school year starts. And again, as much as we can get things out before the next school year starts, the better so that we can have our families help us um with the implementation and they can prep ideally prepare their students for what's coming. Um and then also then they're not having to go pick up phones um after school when they get confiscated. Very good. All right. Any other thoughts or questions? All right. Well, if there's anything that comes up obviously in the next couple of weeks, u make sure that you um get with Dr. Hill or Tammy on these policies if we see anything that we want to add or clarify. So,

125um, all right. Um, we have open board discussion before we head into our business items. So, board, is there anything that Yes. Can we have Mel come up and Sure. Mel, could you come up for a moment? share my good stuff after usually good stuff. Definitely a lot of numbers. Um so I was asked just to share kind of a recap of some of the information that was shared um over the first part of negotiations. And so certainly it was more detailed shared there. And then when we go through the processes of presenting and approving a budget, again, it will be the detailed, but just to quickly uh highlight some of the information is that in our current budget, we've been prudent to plan ahead um and set aside funds that'll cover nearly all of

126our required expenditure and transfer adjustments. um the continuation of $5.7 million worth of currently ESSER funded items as well as the funding of some priority budget requests like you heard about the CLLDE additional staffing. Uh custodians are definitely the the big um items on that list. Um what that means is that we've nearly taken care of all of that and then any new per pupil revenue um or other expenditure adjustments will be available to put towards salary and benefit increases for staff. Um, so our new per pup people revenue next year is right at $10 million. Um, it's important to note that it would be had if we were not in declining enrollment, it would be $15 million in new money if we just maintain the same number of funded pupils um from this year

127into next. And so we are seeing that impact ramp up um where about one-third of our new revenues are being offset by the 500 funded uh fewer pupils. Um, so when we look at how to close that gap, um, knowing that not all districts are in that situation and that they would just have the full amount of PPR to put towards their needs, and that's where we've been tasked by the board to continue to seek savings and efficiencies, um, helping to close these funding gaps due to declining enrollment and maximizing the dollars to support students and staff. And so, uh, we've made significant adjustments in, uh, that we would will be proposing in next year's budget. The largest of course is the 89 reconfiguration um savings of over $2.1 million from that move. Um but

128also just looking at other items um that aren't in the millions of dollars, but looking at some of our community partnerships or applying for grants to pick up some of the expenses currently in general fund. And so just really trying to carry out that that we're looking at everything and trying to u make the best use of our limited dollars. Um, it's been talked about tonight that the board was also supportive of accessing over $2 million to fund elementary staffing levels next year. And so when you fold all of those pieces together, it means that we'll have about $14.7 million to put towards salary and benefit increases next year. Um, so what we presented on the board's behalf was that that amount, the 14.7 million, is sufficient to provide a 7% cost of living adjustment

129and one-step increase for all eligible employees in the district. um specifically to the teacher salary schedule in our presentation was that this would achieve a shared goal of a $50,000 starting salary for teachers um funding for lane movement through attrition and uh to continue the allowance for the current GMI um transitional stipens. Um so as presented at negotiations uh this is a average of a 10% increase for this employee group and all other employees would see between a 9.2 and 9.6% increase for other salary schedules. Um continuing no out of paycheck premiums um for health insurance for employees and then small increases for other coverage tiers. Yeah. And I would say too that not every I do want to credit Mel and her team. Um I I don't know that every district prepared as well

130for the end of Esser. Um and because I'm getting a lot of feedback from other superintendents right now and they're looking at maybe being able to do a 2% um salary increase uh if they're lucky. And so, you know, it's just another great opportunity for us to be able to put as many dollars back um towards salaries for our teachers and our staff. Um and we've been giving these presentations um uh at the high school level on potential bond and mil levy override um in the fall. And there's a graph that shows the growth in starting teacher salaries since uh basically since 2020. Um and I think if I did my math right, it's it's over a 30% increase in just the last few years if we can get it to this um $50,000 starting

131teacher salary. And so, um, that's huge, um, in a time of, you know, we have had, um, you know, low funding again, like I said, from the state, um, and declining enrollment and with these S for funds going away that we've still been able to be strategic with our dollars and being able to prioritize, um, putting as much money back into these salaries as we can because even with a $50,000 starting teacher salary, um, we still have districts that are that are above that. And so as much as we can continue to try to increase that and be competitive to retain the great staff that we have and then attract um staff to our area as well um the better. And so just you know it really is a testament to Mel and her team

132and her staff um over the last few years to not um to not get so excited with the esser funding that we don't plan for what happens after the esser funding uh goes away. And so um I think that's going to be a huge thing for our staff. Thank you. Yes, you can. I'd just like to add, Dr. Hill, that I think I I appreciate just the approach with that one-time funding that we get in in a lot of different areas. The ESRE funds were one of those one-time funding. They were for a moment in time. And so I just appreciate how you guys approach those funds and and take care of them and um make sure that we don't get into trouble by using them rather than use them in the correct way that

133they're intended. I appreciate that. Yeah. I think um you know one of the other things that um the district was doing and obviously the board got behind was an audit because we were kind of wondering after the ESSER dollars certain positions were obviously um established during ESSER and we were wondering what positions we want to retain and I think at that point too it kind of propelled us to think about what are things that we're still getting a you know that we've done for a long time are we getting a good return on investment for those things and maybe what new things have we implemented that we're seeing a good return on investment and then vice versa you know what things have we done for a long time that now we're seeing a diminishing return

134and so Dr. Hill and his team have done that audit um of kind of our different positions and working through all of that and part of that helps us work through getting these funds because while we do have declining enrollment and it's not fun to consolidate schools and we still have more that we have to address at least what I feel this board what we're working to doing and I think based off of what we've done the past couple of years is that we're trying to pay our people well and at least stay competitive with the rest of the market. So while some areas are tough and um not fun to approach, there's other areas where um because we value the people, we we are working to do these types of increases. And I would

135add to the audit. Um so you know the other piece to it is there is the um you know organizational side of the audit, but there's also um the programs that we pay for um and whether or not we are getting that good return on investment or what's the utilization of those programs. what does that look like if we're not actually getting a lot of usage out of this program? Should we continue to invest in it? And so um once we're done with that process, we'll actually have a lot of good um feedback and data that we could make some decisions for even next school year or the school year after on u maybe some contracts that we have with some um different vendors and whether we should continue to invest in that um or

136put those dollars back into something else in the in the general fund like um teacher salaries. So, so that audit's um going to be very beneficial for us, not only on an organizational side, but a programmatic side as well. Yeah. And I'm excited that um you know, the board was obviously presented with a few different options um for the COLA and for the base pay. And I know it was really important to us to want to get to that $50,000 base, but we also wanted to give a really good COLA increase because just with the inflationary cycle that we're going through right now, we know that that would help a lot. That helps our entire staff. That cola it helps our entire staff. So, I think I know that was a priority for us. So,

137anyways, thanks for being able to um well, and I know you were waiting on numbers for utilities and other things when we were wondering if we could get to that point. And so, I'm glad that we were able to get that information back to see if that was something that we could we could do. So, Barb, you had some good things. You have good things. So, um I think quite a few of us attended the uh military uh swearing in event that was at the Fruit of Vietnam Memorial on it was last Saturday. I believe that was put on by the Blueest Star Moms. They do quite a bit for our community and just as someone that joined the military straight out of high school, I realized that it's something that's not um I don't

138know. I guess it's not it's just not spoken much of. So, it's really fabulous that our blueest star moms went out of their way to really provide that for our students that are joining the military. Um, they also were part of a military signing at Central High School. As far as I know, that's the one high school that like really puts it out there. So, they get everybody together. The sheriff came in. um Sheriff Ralph and uh the um I'm trying to remember the name of the crew, the motorcycle crew that comes in, Patriot Riders. So, the Patriot Riders came in and they put on an entire event out there for these kids that were joining. We had nine students from Central High School that are joining the mil the military. So, pretty awesome. Um

139I would love and I challenge the district. I would love for us to see more for those kids. I mean, I know that we do college signings and we have a lot of different events, but that's just something that I mean, such a small percentage of our students join it and I think that it would be a fabulous thing for us to recognize in future years. Yeah. And I can and that's a good point. I can ask because I know I um I know Fra did a small um thing for their students that are Fruit of Monument, I should say, that are um entering the military. So, I can we can shoot something out to the Yes, that's the central one. Yeah. But um but Fruit Monument did something, too. So, I can we could

140send something out to the high school principles and say, "If you don't already have something planned, here's some ideas." And then make sure to let uh folks know when those are happening so we can honor those students. And we um the other great thing too is with graduations next week, um I know they they usually uh take a moment to honor the students there, which will be fun. So, thanks for mentioning that. I was able to and some of you attended also the bi the biiteracy program and the certification. those large number of youth that are bilingual in different ones and one young man Ali won the global biiteracy award. I mean it just totally amazing on the mount of young people that from throughout D51 that are bilingual and I mean just reading, writing

141and speaking it was just to it was an amazing ceremony. I really enjoyed it and his story was so touching of his family coming from Afghanistan and the challenges that they face just getting over here and kind of leaving everything behind which I'm sure happens with a lot of our our learners that way. But um his his story was really touching. So I always love going to those and we always have a packed house like we had to bring in more chairs and that happened last year too. So had to bring in two full rows. Well, and we had our I think they said we had our first ever R5 student who earned their seal of bi literacy, which was really cool as well. So, yeah, a lot of hard work as our students, they

142have an opportunity in fifth grade, eighth grade or 12th grade to earn that seal. And so, that was cool to do the eighth and 12th grade and then we'll do um the fifth grade ceremony I think next week maybe. Um unless I missed it. When is it? Okay, good. I didn't miss it. The 21st. Thank you. I don't you might need to I don't think that's on the board calendar. I don't think so. Maybe we can get the invite to that. So, okay. Thanks. It is now. All righty. Um, all right. So, we are now going to move into our um business items for this evening. Um, so we have some personnel actions. So, we have um licensed and administrative personnel actions and administrative new hires. Um, board, are you good voting on the two

143of these together? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve um D1 and D2? the licensed and administrative personnel actions and administrative new hires. Motion to approve. Second. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing none, we can go ahead and take the vote. Mr. Chavez, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Ms. Lima? Yes. And uh if I can just mention um we did have an admin hire in there. So, um, Miss Summer Kennedy is going to be the, um, the new principal next year for Top Elementary School. So, we're really excited for her. Of course, um, Miss Bowlinger is going to be serving as a site director as, um, Paul JB's retiring. And so, Miss Bowlinger will be able to um, help um, uh, our leaders across multiple schools. And then with u, Miss

144Kennedy coming in, we're really excited. And you can see in the packet um, her experience. But like I did with the other um, new principal hires, I asked them what they're most excited about. and she uh messaged me that she said first she wanted y'all to know how excited and honored um she is for this new position and she continues to hear nothing but great things about TOEP as a staff in a school community. Um she's most excited about um or what she's most excited about is that she's eager to build relationships with the entire school community and focus on carrying forward the dedication to student learning using the steam design. Um so we're really excited about uh Miss Kennedy being the next principal at Taupe Elementary School. So we can give her a little

145round of applause. [Applause] All right. Well, we have our business meeting in a couple of weeks. Um, and then I know we have two meetings in June and then we take the month of July off hopefully. Sometimes we've had to call a special meeting in July. Um, so, uh, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjourn. Thank you everybody for joining us this evening and thank you for everyone that stuck around and presented.