2/7/23 Board Meeting

001Secretary. Okay, I think we're going to go ahead and get started. Uh we the board met here early because we had an executive session. So I do need a motion to adjurnn out of our business meeting. So moved. Second. Okay. We are adjourned. No, we don't have to vote to adjurnn. At least what I read in Robert's rules. So once we have the motion and the second, we're done. All righty. Uh, welcome everybody this evening. Um, we're going to go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance. So, if you could stand with us all and Hey, Dr. Hill, would you kick us off? I got to I got to keep it mixed up here. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the stands nation. We have to do Oh, you do the Texas pledge. Oh,

002no. We're not. All right. Well, thank you for There's a separate Texas one. Thank you for kicking us off on that. Why would I even ask? All righty. Um, next we have Director Jones who is going to uh do the recognition for Black History Month. Whereas the or origin of Black History Month began in 1915, half a century after the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The month of recognition grew out of the Negro History Week, first started by historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African-Americans. And whereas in 1976, the week-long celebration was extended to the entire month of February to honor and recognize the achievements and contributions of the central role of African-Americans in United States history. And whereas National Black History Month is a time for all Americans to remember

003and honor African-Americans history, teachings, suffering, and strength, which gave a voice to the struggle of freedom, equality, access, and opportunity. And whereas the contributions of African-Americans from all walks of life and all fields reflect the greatness of the United States, African-American citizens have participated and continue to participate in every American effort to secure, protect, and maintain the essence and substance of American democracy democracy. And whereas not only during the first month or I'm sorry, during the month of February 2023, but throughout the remainder of the year, it is important that we as a district continue to build awareness and understanding of African-American history and emphasize the importance of valuing differences within our own school district. Now, therefore, be it resolved that Mesa County School District Board of Education does hereby recognize February 2023 as Black

004History Month, and it be further resolved that Mesa County School District Board of Education encourages all citizens to participate in various schools and community activities that highlight Black History in February and throughout the year. [Applause] All right. Next, we have Dr. Schulty's uh recognizing National Counseling Week. National School Counseling Week is this week, February 6th through the 10th, 2023. It's a time to recognize the unique contributions of school counselors in the US school system, and focus public education on their hard work and dedication to a challenging yet rewarding profession. National School Counseling Week highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career. This year, the theme of National School Counseling Week is helping students dream big. And that's precisely what our school counselors do. They're

005highly educated, professionally certified individuals who are actively committed to helping students explore their talents, strengths, abilities, and interests to achieve their greatest potential in both school and life. An integral part of the education system, school counselors help students focus on positive ways to enhance social, personal, educational, and career development. They work in partnership with parents as they encounter the challenges of rising of raising children in today's world. And they work with teachers and other educators to provide an educational system where students maximize their potential and set healthy, realistic, and optimistic views. We want to take this opportunity to recognize and thank all district 51 school counselors. You're an integral. You are integral to our student success and are not thanked nearly enough for all that you do. Thank [Applause] you. All right. Thank you both

006very much. Um, next we have Mount Garfield Middle School International Balorate Middle School Years Program Presentation. If you need to grab an extra chair, you can pull one up. [Music] Get in here. Hello. Hello. Oh, here we go. Okay. Good evening. Don't start it yet. I'll be like here three times, four times. And I'm with Medbed. You can turn it on. But um good evening. This evening, I've got the Mount Garfield team here, admin team, and Dan Benell, the site director, and I'll have them introduce themselves tonight. Um, we're going to talk through the Mount Garfield IBM journey. Um, they are requesting that they um extend the IBMYP path that we have in our school district. and they're going to talk about the the process that they have been going through and what they've done.

007And then I will finish up at the end on what their next steps are. But because they're looking to expand, they want we asked them and let them know that they needed to present to the board. So with that, and I'll click for you, I'm going to give you um the microphone to Nikki Johnston. Then you can Hello, I'm Nikki Johnston. I'm the principal at Mount Garfield Middle School. With me today is um our assistant principal Sally Huddle, assistant principal, Danielle Bagwell, and our instructional coach and my coordinator Rachel Brown. So, we're going to start going through um how the middle years program aligns to the district 51 strategic plan. The middle years program is an international balora program that encourages students grades six to 10 to make connections between their studies and the real

008world preparing them for success in future study and in life. This program very closely aligns with our strategic plan. Let's begin with robust and aligned option for learning experience. Currently, we have pockets of aligned options for learners such as steam and STEM at Topen Central as well as dual language at DIA and Bookcliffe. Paliside High School currently has the middle years program as well as the diploma program. Unlike the Dipl the Diploma program, which requires specialized coursework, the Middleear's program is for all students. All students who attend Mount Garfield Middle School and ninth and tth grade at Palisade High School are my students and benefit from this program. Mount Garfield Middle School will develop an acceptance program similar to the one used at Palisade High School to allow students from outside of our boundaries who

009would like to benefit from this program. Now, let's look at academic success. This is the middle year's program model. This graphic shows the layers that surround an MYP learner. Notice that the closest layer includes the approaches to learning which is also called ATLs, global context, approaches to teaching, the ATS as well as concepts. These are closest to the student and symbolize their importance. At the center is the students and the teachers dive towards the middle with their content. We approach learning through the ATLs and the ATS. Students are learning all of the same concepts. How we as the teachers approach those concepts is what's different. Sorry that's hard to see. But so what is the middle years program? It is a framework that complements and lifts our current resources, curriculums and state standards. It challenges

010students intellectually as well as ask students to look at traditional subjects through the lens of global concepts, transferability and real world application. It is still developed around the ATLs which we will explain shortly shortly global engagement and subject transferability. The NYP program is based on research and years of success around building students academic confidence, the connection to a larger world and developing un and an understanding of global contexts. How does the IB Middleear's program help with student wellness? The approaches to learning which are ATLs as you see up here are the skills that are explicitly taught and integrated into each and every subject. ATL skills help students prepare for and demonstrate learning. They provide a common language that students and teachers can use to reflect on and articulate the process of learning. Teachers can use

011key and related concepts along with global context as vehicles for teaching effective learning strategies. Likewise, the approaches to teaching can be a powerful tool tool for exploring significant concept. This dual focus which Content and process promote student engagement, deep understanding, transfer of skills, and academic success. The focus of approaches to learning in the my help students to develop self-nowledge and skills they need to enjoy a lifetime of learning. The IB learner profile represents 10 attributes valued by the IB learner. They imply the commitment to help all members of the school community learn to respect themselves and others around the world. As an IB learner, we strive to be inquir inquirers, knowledgeable thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risktakers, balanced, and reflective. This is what we all strive for in our learning. So, now a little background

012about Mount Garfield Middle School. Mount Garfield Middle School and our teachers have worked hard over the last five years to build a culture of belonging, engagement, and academic success. As the largest middle school in the valley, we serve many of our most atrisisk students. We also continue to have stability within our student population over the last five years. With these challenges, we have also led the district in growth in math and ELA for two years. And last year, we had the highest proficiency in reading as measured by CAMASS. This is just the beginning of the potential that Mount Garfield teachers and students can achieve. For the last three years, we have been doing an MYP light curriculum, not fully implementing the program. So this is our my journey. In the fall of 2018, we had

013a new staff and new administration team, and we began talking about how to best address our student needs. Over the next two years, we spent time talking with Palisade High School and district admin to discuss the possibility of becoming an school. We took our first consensus vote in March of 2020 and planned to send teachers to the first NYP conference in May. Then of course COVID 19 hit and put a pause on our journey. During the next three years, we continued to send teachers to my training as well as working on unit plans and policies that we will need to have developed with the reconstruction of district administration. the new superintendent and new board. We wanted to revisit our implementation. Mount Garfield has had some staffing changes since our last vote. So, we invited Palisad

014High School back. We redid a gallery walk and did another consensus vote. So, this is our this was our consensus process. We repeated the same process that we did before. We had some teachers and admin from Palisade come down to answer questions regarding my process. We did a gallery walk to look at some of the components of my as well as some of the items we would need to complete. Teachers then took a survey to show support or not. They were asked three questions. Am I I am in support of my want to move forward with the framework for MGMS. I support moving forward but still have some questions. And the last one was I do not support my but understand we will be moving forward with unit plans, common assessments, looking at student datas

015and building LC's as led by the district. This time the results were 100% in favor. We had 93% who were allin and 7% that supported it but had questions. Those questions were around how to train new teachers, what the timeline looked like, and specifically what candidacy looked like. So, here are some of the things that we did on our gallery walk. We um talked a lot about a lot of the same things that we're discussing here. So this is the process that we will be going through. If we are allowed to be an NYP school this April 2023, we would request candidacy. That approval would happen through IB before the beginning of the 2023 24 school year. During the 2324 school year, we would have IB consultants coming out to look at our processes and

016our structures and giving suggestions for improvement. Then we would make the formal request for authorization sometime in the middle of 202425. Then IB does two authorization visits during the 2526 school year with our official authorization coming at the end of the 2526 school year. This is a process that is repeated throughout your time as an IB school and we are very lucky to have Palisade High School who has been through the process for my MYP and also for the IB program sorry the diploma program. So what will the cost be? IB charges a yearly fee of $10,50. This fee covers the cost of processing, reviewing, and reporting the application and authorization as long a as well as 20 hours of remote consultancy, one two-day consultancy visit per candidacy, a report, an end of consultancy report,

017and then another two-day verification for candidacy. This also includes all of the program resources, directory direct support from IB as well as use of the logo names and access to the IB world school association. We would also need an FTE for a full-time MYP coordinator as well as a Spanish teacher, a Spanish resource, and some money to continue professional development. All right. So, just one last piece and then I'm going to ask you, you'll be able the opportunity to ask questions. How have they paid for it so far? Um, and Nikki can talk about that a little bit, but that they've been using their title dollars to do that and I believe they've been using Palisade has been um bringing some of their teachers when they went to training. So, what does the process look

018like now? We don't want to rely solely or only on our title dollars when we want to do something um innovative or continue to work on our strategic plan by offering more options. The consensus um process that you saw them that that Nikki shared that they went through, it's actually part of our agreement with our MVA and it's a consensus process anytime you want to start something new. So they followed I just wanted to highlight and lift that they followed the process ensuring that they had um communicated and had buyin from their staff and as you can see they had some pretty good buy in. So what happens next? They've already met with our human resource with um to make sure that it seemed plausible or doable the the additional staff that they're asking. Um

019then we also met with um finance and Mel reviewed it to make sure that it it met um standards and it wasn't too big or too small and were they thinking the right way and yes it passed that. The next is the board presentation. They still need to go through the budget request process. Um, unfortunately, as we all know, you all know so well, we don't have an endless supply of money and we will have to prioritize and there still is the budget process request um that they will need to go through before they um are able to start or given the go-ahhead to start in August. So, with that, I'm going to give the microphone back. Is there anything that you want to say? Dan, you've been the site director and supporting them for

020the last couple years. So, Yeah, I would I would just add um when you think about a fit and this particular school, I think you have to think about its feeder pattern, which this school directly feeds into Palisad High School and obviously Palisade High School um with the IB program DP and and now how they've transitioned and expanded through MYP. This is just really that it furthers that next step which then allows really the my to get started at an earlier age and so a lot of those skills and concepts that you saw in the presentation will be started and have been really in a light version started already at Mount Garfield but it really sets the foundation um for those kids then transitioning naturally uh into the program with the opportunity to to move

021into the DP program over at Palisad High School. So obviously as a feeder it it does make a lot of sense and I know we've talked about it for several years. Um with with eventually I mean it it's set up very nicely for eventually down the road. Um they have a primary years program too. So it really you know that's down the road but as we think about those robust options for kids um within our district it would make sense that whether it's now we hope or later this would be a natural uh step in that process. questions. Hi, thank you. Um, so you there is no current Spanish teacher. The Spanish teacher would be um new and then the NYP coordinator. So even though we're extending the program, there isn't one right now. So

022right now Rachel is halftime an coordinator and halftime an instructional coach. Okay. So, she has a dual role right now. Um, and it's been hard for her to do both. Um, so, and you've been title and we've been Yeah. And we used our title funds to have her be our MYP coordinator. Okay. And with our algorithms for student staffing, is there a full-time instructional coach need or is that just a halfime in instructional coach? So, if she weren't doing the halftime NYP, we have another full-time instructional coach. Okay. How would that impact the staffing relative to her position if we got a full-time NYP coordinator? Does that make sense? Yes, it would it would mean that we would be down a half-time instructional coach. Okay. Just out of curiosity, I'm jumping to step 56. Well,

023I'm not, but people will. So, I went I just know that 50, you know, there's 57 figure. So, you mentioned just like Palisad, right? It's open to students across the valley, right? You already mentioned largest middle school. So, just logistically like what what enrollment are you looking at? I mean, I know that's many steps down the road, but I'm sure you've thought about that. Is it would it be similar to what goes on at um the challenge school or you know, where or you know, so kids are going to enroll or apply type thing. Yeah. So, we would do an application process and after looking at our numbers and where our numbers might be in the future, it looks like we should be able to take about 30 kids per grade level. So we'd start

024at sixth grade, we'd accept 30 more kids, then we would, you know, accept 30 more and back fill if anybody left. But the program here is for all the kids at Mount Garfield. So this would be an addition to it's not a separate like palisade if you know it's it's a separate correct. It is No, it's the same. This is for everybody. So this opening up for maybe 30 something extra kids. Yes. That would um Okay. Mhm. Is that 56 or is that an earlier number? I think that's earlier. Is it? It might be 30ish. Yeah. Still a ways to go. Yeah. But you've thought about that. That's good. Okay. I think along those lines, Doug, I was thinking the same thing with enrollment. So, I'm guessing you've also chatted with Palisade to make sure

025that we don't have all these kids that go through the middle years program and then we can't get them into Palisade if that's So, I'm guessing you've had that discussion or you've anticipated what that funnel is going to look like into Palisade. I'll think a key distinction is that the diploma program is for a select student application process. The middleear's program is for all students. So as long as all students can feed into Palisade, it's a pedagogical shift rather than a curriculum shift for the MYP program. Whereas the diploma program comes with curriculum what you're teaching students. So that PAL can still control the number of students that get into the diploma program and it still is going to be an application process. But the NYP program is a pedagogical shift for teachers. And um

026if you look at that program circle, that program model, it aligns very closely with the district 51 um teaching and learning framework. And so I think in reality whether they end up at Palisade based on their numbers or another building that learning experience would be rich and it doesn't mean they have to get into the diploma program. All right, that's actually leads me into my second question was is this going to be a curriculum the board would have to approve, but it's not a curriculum, it's a pedagogy. Okay. Yeah, it's a framework. The only thing that we may need is Spanish. I don't know if we have Spanish middle school that was on the budget, but so that would be the only cost in terms of resource. I think we would have to come um

027they would have to come to the board. Did I miss it? to um ask approval for the Spanish Spanish. Okay. Because we don't have one for middle school for middle school. That was my second question was on the the curriculum piece. So, okay. Lord, any other questions and this is going back to even I mean years ago when the um even as we're actually going back in slides that's it's hurting my eyes. Look at me when you say years ago really back in the day seem to emphasize that but there was a request from the board in the past that if we were going to expand programs or bring new programs in that there was a process for this so that it wasn't just a school said today we're going to be this and then

028and they become that. So um this is the process that we are kind of testing out with Mount Garfield um middle school to be able to bring it to the board. Obviously, it's something that we need to make a decision on. Um, but we wanted to make sure the board had a lot of um input or qu and get get their questions answered before we move forward with it. So, that's something that the board and the district can support moving forward so that we don't do IB middle years for a couple years and then we go, h, never mind, we don't really want it. And then this would would open up another option for for families. I am glad that it's going to be for everybody in the Mount Garfield attendance area. Um, you may

029have already answered this while ago, but if if I'm a kid who's one of those 30 kids that maybe gets in, I would assume I would still then when I go to high school, I'd still need to do a school of choice transfer into Palisade because I'm not zoned for Palisade then, right? Okay. And I think it would be similar than PA with Palisade in that it's before the school of choice. So, it's like a separate application process and then the school of choice window happens. Is that something to that's that's a great point Dr. up because if you know you have a child who's going to Mount Garfield for those three years and they're building relationships with friends and such. Um those kids are automatically going to Palisade because they're in that attendance area.

030I don't I don't know. It might be something and I know we have processes with school of choice but since this is a specific program might it make sense if they wanted to to be able to continue at PAL because they'd be in that network as opposed to now they're going to their home high school and they, you know, generally probably wouldn't know kids feeding into that. I don't know. Have you thought about that? No, it's a good point. I think I think it's something to explore and obviously we'd have some time um before that would happen, but because that's what we do with although it's different grade levels, but if you're in the let's just use DIA for example, if you're in the DIA elementary program, you're automatically going you're able to go to

031the middle school program. I think it would come down to just palacy to have the space to take those extra 30 kids in and then um and it probably would be something we'd have to bring back to the board. Um I don't know if that's a policy thing, but those kids can automatically because you're going to have kids that want a school of choice in the Palisade, but they didn't go through the middle years program. So, do they get preference over them? Yeah. Don't we do that? And and forgive me for not knowing this 100%, but our our kids that go to East and the Challenge program, they feed into Junction. Are those kids I guess I've thought those kids automatically get to feed in the junction too or do they go quite a few

032of them actually end up at most of quite a few of them actually end up at palisade they go through the DP oh they go through the that's true got you okay so there is no automatic they could if they wanted to application process if they happen to get into palisade they go to palisade if not they go back into to their okay to their home school so what I'm suggesting would have to almost if you do it with one you'd almost have to look at that program as Well, I suppose anyway, I appreciate you, you know, just I'm I'm sure I speak for like you said your your scores and everything look great and you could say, "Hey, we're we're good to go and and stay status quo, but you're looking, you know, how

033can we how can we do better? How can we with palisade and and uh that's terrific because I know it's tremendous amount of extra beyond what you're already doing for all of you." That's terrific. I think Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. That's great. All right. Yes. Next we have enrollment and grade configuration update. And we have online. Yeah, we have Shannon online. And Shannon, I don't know. Are you are you going to share your screen with the presentation? Um I can go either way. I seem to have a good stable connection here. So um um we could push it. Actually I'm seeing some latency in my voice. Why don't we use your system to display the slides and I will um grace you with my beautiful face initially and then I'll

034just go to uh voice only if that works. Okay. You'll just have to tell us when to switch slides. Okay. Okay. [Music] I think he's gonna Dr. Hill, if that's a challenge, we can try mine. I'm in the superintendent's office at Anchorage School District, so I'm hoping this connection is pretty good. Yeah. [Music] Shannon, we got it going on our end, Shannon. So, you don't have to do that. Okay. Oh, very good. There we go. Well, good evening everyone. It's a privilege to be here. Um, we have just completed a fairly um successful uh stakeholder process uh generically addressing um various facility issues. And um we've received almost 4,000 surveys back, which is remarkable. I was only expecting 400. So um uh thanks to our community relations department for doing such a great job on

035the push out. So I feel like we were able to get a really credible um um adequate response from our stakeholders on uh three issues that we wanted to um address. Um the next slide shows um the two town halls that we had at Fra Monument High School and Grand Junction High School. Um we had approximately 45 people in the room for each event. About 25 of those were community members and the rest were staff. um for the f fruit of monument um survey on grade configuration in um the fruit of redlands community we had almost400 surveys that were fully completed so we had a very um strong involvement on the part of the community with the survey um for the overall district-wide survey on our school replacement strategy and the potential school combination strategy

036we had 2342 responses. So again, we've had really good and adequate um response to the survey and I think we uh probably based on your direction this evening uh could consider pulling the survey down because the percentages and the opinions have held steady for the last four or five days and we've also leveled off in the number of responses that we have. Um, on the next slide, I'll just wade right into results. And are you seeing a pie chart on your end? Oops. Let's go to that uh third page. Is there a pie chart on your third page? Hey, give us one second. We'll pull the PDF up. [Music] Very good. Now we can talk about pi. Um this uh first slide Here we go. So, the first slide shows the community's response to um

037the district school replacement policy. So this was the district-wide survey and you can see that um 81% of people who participated in the survey either supported or strongly supported the school replacement policy or practice that the district has been involved in for the last 5 to eight years. Um uh we actually mentioned Orchard Mesa Middle School which was a school replacement and the current Grand Junction High School project. So we are looking at um very strong support for the idea of replacing uh existing schools um on their current sites. Um as far as uh the next slide, if you could go to the next slide. Uh this is the um uh concept of uh combining small programs into larger programs. And on this uh uh question we received uh 50% of our respondents were either

038supportive or strongly supportive of that concept. 20% were neither opposed uh nor in favor of it and 30% were against. So uh 50% of those surveyed were in support and 20% uh did not have an opinion. Um the next slide shows the uh uh analysis of that. Um you can uh read that a little bit as you see fit. Um there were certain areas where there was a little bit more support um for various concepts. Um but I would say that uh we had a pretty good representation of uh teachers. Uh we had a pretty good representation. The majority of the people that responded uh were parents. There was a little bit of differentiation of uh response but for the most part people were uh pretty universally in favor of school replacement and the percentage

039of people who support uh the idea of combining smaller programs was also uh consistent from roto. Um the next slide shows um a little bit of the geographic uh uh breakdown and um describes people's demographic. I would say that the uh majority of the people that responded to these surveys were parents. Uh the majority of the respondents were broadly distributed across the district and there was a pretty um uh even or um predictable um participation between elementary, middle, and high school where people who had children in all of those um levels of facilities participated. Um the next slide shows uh what was the primary role in the school district for uh most respondents was uh parents. And then uh the next slide I think shows uh this is kind of small on my end but

040it shows uh uh which following uh which grade level. Oh, this is for staff people. And you can see that we had a pretty even mix of people that um either work directly with children as teachers or in some sort of a support role. Uh the next slide shows uh the results of the Fruda grade configuration survey and on this slide you can see that 70% of respondents uh supported or strongly supported the concept of grade reconfiguration. And just to be clear, this means um exploring the idea of going from the current configuration of K567 89 1012 to the standard grade configuration used elsewhere in the district of K568 912. Uh the next slide shows an isolation of uh who participated and you can see that the majority of the respondents were Fra Monument High

041School um Fra 89 um uh Fra Middle School and Redlands Middle School. So you can see kind of geographically that the affiliations also spilled down into the elementary levels, but a lot of the folks that responded to this were predominantly interested in the secondary issues. Uh the next slide shows the preference for the ninth grade in the high school in isolation and 74% of respondents were in favor of that and that preference was stronger in the Redlands. And just to be clear, um, ninth graders from the Redlands are in the Fruda 89 building for one year and then they move to the high school. Um, whereas the students from Fruda are in the 89 building for two years before they move to the high school. So there is a little bit of a difference um

042regarding the assignment uh there that um uh you can draw your own conclusions as to whether that um had an impact in the survey data. Um the next few slides show uh some of the analytics. Uh you're welcome to read that as you see fit. Um I think this was provided to you in advance. Um uh there you see the issue with there being a slight preference um in the Redlands more support um regarding making um moving the ninth grade to the high school. Um on the next slide you'll see the uh geographic breakdown. Um, oh, this is the question that was, if we did do something and it required creating a 68 middle school, would you prefer to have one big 68 middle school or two smaller ones? And the response was almost identical.

043So, there's not really enough information out there, I think, for parents to really make a choice on that. So they tended to have almost the same uh pattern of response on that specifically uh there was preference for doing it but how we did it there was not a clear delineation on whether they would prefer two buildings or one. Um the next few slides show how the response uh on those two issues uh some uh permutations on that that were very subtle. Um, and again, you're welcome to read that as you see fit. Um, uh, the next slide shows, uh, uh, let's see, uh, primary role meaning parent, teacher, staff, etc. Uh, in the district for people that responded to this survey. And again, this was two separate surveys. So this is why there's a a

044separate uh demographic section regarding the role of the participants. Um the next slide shows um I think a breakdown by level as far as which uh grades people are affiliated with. Uh this is in a little bit more detail uh to allow you to see some of the um gradations. Um but for the most part we're seeing pretty universal support for this idea. Um the next slide shows uh for staff people um what is your primary role um etc. And then uh this uh next slide shows next steps. Um, I guess what we would like to do is just engage in a little bit of a discussion and these would be the next steps. If you would like me to go to the next level on this, I would begin to do focused stakeholder groups

045where we would have focus groups addressing grade configuration. So, we would be addressing the affected communities specifically getting real detailed response from those groups. Uh we would also do that on the school condition survey if there are some buildings that are uh candidates that might be suggested for the master plan process or we would be looking at um eventually replacing uh further buildings. And then finally on school combinations, we would be using interviews, instructional and operational staff meetings and focus groups to evaluate some specific options. And then um if you would like to turn this around during the month of February, I could come back to you by February 21st with some preliminary uh recommendations that you could evaluate that we would have gone through um a significant amount of due process to collect further

046information for you um on um a limited set of actions. and we would make sure that we tried to keep everything real specific to real specific schools so that we um uh kind of limited the discussion to just the schools that needed to have a discussion. So that's my presentation. I'd be delighted to respond to any questions or comments at this point and I'll thank everyone for their attention. I have a couple of um this is Carrie. I have a couple of um really quick just clarification questions for each question that says um that teachers felt a certain way. I just want to make sure is that um is that only teachers or is that below you divided out who um work directly with students and who didn't? Do the teacher respondents in are those

047just teachers or are those all employees some of which don't work with students? Not that it really matters. I just want to understand that. I think we isolated it to teachers. Okay, great. And then um I have another question that I feel kind of silly asking, but um at Fra 89, is the ninth grade way bigger than the eighth grade? Because how much bigger? Like is there one more classroom, two more classrooms? I don't know if you have those numbers, Sh. I think the ninth grade has about 400 or so. Is that right? And um and then the eighth grade is like maybe half of that. I I can pull the numbers up though. Yeah, it should it should be half. So whatever the Redlands eighth grade is um uh that's a differential between the

048um size of the Fruda 8 N 8th and 9th grade um class size. Yeah. So currently we have 283 eighth graders there. 423 nth graders. Any other questions? So, I just want to kind of wrapping my head around it. I just want to summarize the um for the question four the options between two small middle schools and one large middle school. So it seems like the overall support of moving 9th grade into fruit monument is at about 75% or so. And then when you break that down to see um if folks want two small middle schools or one large middle school, I I see those as so similar. And I think that's where you said draw your own conclusions from from that maybe. Um but I just want to point out that those look very

049evenly split. There's a lot of support for moving it. And what we what would happen, we don't have super clear guidance there. Yeah. And Shannon, maybe this is a question I have as we're watching this in real time. Um, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I I feel like we have some immediate needs we we need to make some decisions around or the board needs to make decisions around and then there's some that maybe aren't as immediate. So, um, the immediate need in my mind is that we have uh underenrolled schools and you have projections that are showing that we're going to continue to head in that direction. So, that feels more immediate. We need to make some decisions around what we're going to do to address that. the fruit of grade configuration and

050then the scraping and replacing of old buildings. We have good data now to show that there's support for that. But I my guess would be we have some time to look into that a little bit more because those aren't decisions that are necessarily going to impact next school year. Consolidations could impact next school year. And so I am I reading that wrong? And and if and if I'm not, I would think we'd want to put more attention right now in these next few weeks on addressing the enrollment decline and consolidations versus spending time doing stakeholder groups with the 89 912. Is that making sense? It it does and that would certainly be my preference to do the more pressing items first. Um, regarding Fra 89, I think that and Fra Middle School, I think that,

051you know, again, those results are identical and we would need to wade into how that would look with those stakeholder groups and that would include the Redlands, that would include the 89 community, that would include uh Fra Middle School and I think that um those original capacities were calculated on a junior high model that used six of seven periods active. And these are big buildings. I mean, some of these buildings have 35 or 40 classrooms at the middle school level. But, um, we're beginning to have some conversations with the principles to that that have, uh, revealed how they're actually using the buildings in a little bit more of a middle school model. So, we would need to reconcile some of that and that may kind of push us more toward doing two middle schools in

052Fra versus one. So, I think that that conversation needs to be had, but as Dr. Hill um mentioned, I think that the urgency regarding our ability to effectively serve some of these smaller buildings uh with an appropriate uh staff um at a reasonable cost is the more pressing issue. And um if we would like to um uh process that um on a shorter term basis, isolating to that single issue makes a lot of sense to me. Can I ask another question? This is Carrie again. So you'd said that we've it's come into we've gotten more clarity on the capacity question at the school. So to be clear, I I believe that to mean that so we know how many students are enrolled at those schools, but what is the capacity of that school? That's a

053slightly different question. So you could count like how many seats are in the room, but that also is a slightly different question because not there's not a child there's not a student in every seat in every room at every minute. And so there's we have to manage our buildings with um some flex time where not every classroom is used all the time. So that's why we're applying this 70 or 80% utilization rate or or whatever that value might be. Is that I was really that's correct. And I was really encouraged to find that some of these middle school principles have really sophisticated middle school block team schedules and um you know team organization. Um, and so, um, the calculations for those capacities are probably five years old now. And I think when those were done,

054it was more of a it was run more on a middle school model. And there were some pretty significant special education deductions that that I did. Um so for example, it appears that um uh East and West Middle School are different sizes and they're not they're identical buildings. It's just that when that examination was done, there was a different number of special education classrooms deducted. So um that is um uh was used in those numbers, but the buildings themselves are actually identical. So, um I think that um we've learned a lot more about how the buildings are actually being used this school year um as a result of spending some time in them. So, do I understand that that means that not only are our middle school principles doing an excellent job in being a

055lot more efficient with their space than these kind of more generic models, um but also it means that our numbers have shifted a little bit from our more generic understanding of those numbers. Is that correct? That's correct. From a capacity standpoint, I think we're we're looking at um uh some pretty pretty sophisticated scheduling as far as the middle school teaming uh that's being used and I think it's it's probably pretty consistent across all the middle schools. So, I was I was impressed to see that. Okay. When will we see the updated numbers on capacities and utilization? Um, well, I've got four scenarios. Uh, uh, junior high at six of seven, junior high at five of seven, a middle school um, at 75% utilization, and then a middle school at a little bit of a compromised

056utilization. So, um I could have that uh available to the board possibly um this week or early next. And is that a projected future? You're saying that um you would be targeting those utilizations. What what those four scenarios represent? What? So that's not existing scenarios. We have our our models for our current usage based on a refined model that the principles gave you. So we have those numbers and then these four scenarios that you're saying are for a future projection or what were those four scenarios? Uh the existing numbers were based upon a junior high model calculated at six of seven periods in use. Um so what I'm um probably going to do is do three more scenarios that are more reflective of how the buildings are being used today. Okay. that won't dramatically affect

057any of the utilization percentages that we've seen um in general terms. Um so that's just a little sensitivity analysis. You did a sensitivity analysis. We have a good feel for range and it will guide our decision making and evaluation of the buildings that we might want to address. Um, and I think that we would have um with the with the publication of those numbers, the principles nodding saying, "Yes, that's the way I use my building." So, I didn't listen. I was too focused on trying to understand when did you say we could see those? Late this week or early next week? Okay. Yeah, the end of this week or early next. Um I I I'm I'm looking at just focusing on the middle schools because I think it's the that's the only level where we

058have a um concern with capacity numbers and um um I think we kind of know uh based upon current practice in these buildings what they hold and I don't think it changes any of the um uh potentials available to us to uh consider making a few changes. So that felt like new information for me. I wasn't aware that it was just middle schools. So it sounds like we've No. So I think he's talking about middle schools when you're looking at the capacity numbers might not be the same as what he presented. Elementaryaries, they're they're pretty standard. And that was where we we presented to um all the principles last week and we were presenting to the um APs this week along with the town halls and that was some of the questions we got were

059mainly from middle school principles saying I don't know if those numbers are accurate. So yeah yes and I just for our timeline so we're we have a meeting tomorrow. We the plan was for Shannon to present the preliminary survey data. I think we're looking for some direction on one is there support to continue down this path and he mentioned those bullet points of some things he wants to do. I I I tend to agree that we've probably got enough data from the survey that leaving it open even longer is probably not going to yield different results. So, if we close that and then um we have a meeting set up tomorrow to basically debrief this meeting and talk about all the things that need to be done um leading up to the 21st meeting so

060that we could be able to present some scenarios um and some options to the board. The board wouldn't be taking action on the 21st. we would need to have a discussion about when the board would want to take action. But that would be an opportunity to um present everything that we're finding that he's already the work he's already done, but also what we need to do over the next two weeks. Um we've got to run some scenarios. So if he has some recommendations, we need to um get those numbers. um you know what are the new boundaries then if we did that scenario and then that get lets Mel run her staffing numbers and we can kind of look at it to see is this actually getting at what we originally said we wanted to

061get at as far as addressing the staffing and how we're overspending by $3.1 million on staffing. Um there's facility conditions conversations. There's a lot of work that needs to be done between now and 21st but ideally if the board is um comfortable with the direction then we would want to continue those conversations. We also um senior leadership, site directors, communications um we're all working through what a transition plan would look like and um really trying to map out what that would look like if the board were to take action um on closing schools for next school year, like what would kick in immediately after that. So, how would we support staff through that process? How would we support families through that process and students? Um and so we're working through that process right now of

062kind of creating a right now it's a project management document but creating a pathway for um how we would support those communities that would be uh impacted by this. I realize that it it feels like we're moving quickly on this. Um but there are pros and cons I would say to moving quickly or or not moving quickly with our budget situation is not going to get any better. Um so putting it off is not is actually going to make that worse. Um, we've had conversations about if we put these decisions off for even longer, but we or if we make a decision, but we say we're not going to do take it have it take effect until a year from now, what does that do to the climate and culture in that building, know it's

063going to close. Um, you know, also you run into issues with if families know that a school is going to close a year later, they start pulling their kids and putting them in the new school. Like there's just I think there's there's a lot of pros and cons for either, but I I tend to feel like there's probably more cons for waiting. Um, even though this may feel like it's happening uh quickly, but we we just are in a budget situation and there's not really a um unless we're going to get uh 1,300 kids that just move to this area or we're going to get a ton more money from the state. Um I don't know what else we would be um looking into. So that's why it may feel like it's moving quickly, but

064we've got to make some decisions and we want to make sure the board has all the information they need before they make that decision. when we did get really good response on that survey. I mean, that was really impressive how many of our community actually went followed through very quickly to get us that information, which I think is fairly unusual. Correct. So, Brian, maybe you could take one more step back and explain. So, it does feel like it's happening quickly. Why did it happen right now? So, you know, our student October counts came in, you know, can you kind of talk about like how why this is happening right now? So, I think um I mean I I won't dwell on the past too much, but um we we have had obviously been able to

065look at enrollment numbers from the past or numbers from the past and seen that it was declining. Um we got this information um and those um facility utilization numbers and everything from Shannon. I think it was maybe beginning of December into November. That was the first time we saw it as a staff. Um and then wanted to get it in front of the board as quickly as possible. You know, I I if we could turn back time and and um get those numbers earlier in the fall or or in the spring last spring, um you know, maybe making a decision before um February would have been great. Um but it is what it is and we are where we are. And so, um, I I think the issue now becomes if we, again, if we

066put it off, um, for another year, that $3.1 million in overspending on staffing is going to turn to projected $3.8 million. So, that's another $3.8 million that we can't spend on things like salary increases for teachers and other staff. Um, and you're also still being ineffective with the usage of those buildings. So by having them underutilized um we're also spending more money on energy costs and things like that um by keeping keeping them online. Um so yeah I the reason why it's coming now is we got that data later into the fall semester and the issue we're running into right now is I think originally we talked about maybe bringing it in March. Um but even talking to the principles and then talking to um uh HR, the longer we put off a decision, um

067we're not posting positions right now because we're waiting to see what happens with this. And so um other districts are hiring right now. And so that um hurts us in in posting positions. Um but we wanted to wait before we did any of that any of those moves because that's part of that transition plan. If we're going to close a school, uh, we want to make sure that the staff at that school have opportunities, um, for positions within our district. We don't want to go and post a bunch of positions, then make a decision to close schools. So, we're we're kind of behind the E-ball on some of that. Um and so the earlier the decision is made is even though it may feel harsher um is probably a better one financially and it actually

068in the end of the day probably is better for how we take care of the folks within our buildings and um and our schools and our students. Um some of the angsts that I've heard from staff has been um well if you close the school then that means you're just going to move all those kids to the other school and overcrowd their classrooms and that that's not the plan. um we would need because we would be moving kids into other buildings, we would have to adjust the the FTA FTE and staffing ratios at those buildings. So, they would essentially have positions they'd be hiring for. So, we would that's not the goal is to overcrowd um classrooms. And then the other um thing that I've heard from staff is that the um assumption that if

069we close a school, then we're just automatically laying everybody off at that building. And that's part of that transition plan of talking about options that we have for staff and how we can support them through those those next steps. So um we're trying to be mindful of all that um through the next steps of this process. But again, the longer we put it off, it creates less time for us to be able to make those moves and that transition if it's going to happen for next year. Um and it just puts us behind the eightball on a lot of different um things. And I mean, think about having to move classrooms and and equipment and desks and all that. It's just it's a lot that we've started to create a list of um that would

070give us a leg up on being able to start that maybe a month earlier than we originally anticipated. And can I just say one other what I was thinking was so everybody thought that um after COVID we would have a rebound. We didn't understand these larger population declines and population trends. And so everybody, you know, us the state of Colorado, everybody was expecting a little bit of a rebound. And then when school started and we realized that our enrollment was not there and then we started to collect data and then the data came in and then we realized what the were saying. So, it's not that I think that we've done a good job of staying on top of it, of saying, "Okay, well, here's what we expect. Okay, it didn't happen. Collect the data.

071Figure out what to do." And and yeah, it feels fast, but that's how the data collection and analysis process has gone. And and I appreciate the actions that have been taken at each step of the way once we've realized that we needed to start taking action. So, thank you. C can I assume that you know we talked about site utilization that and we've seen the charts of schools and their capacity so I have to assume those schools can read a chart and and understand who's being looked at in this is that are are there going to be surprises for schools that were over the next couple weeks that that you're aware it sounds like in your meetings they're Yeah. Shane, I don't I mean I you can chime in on this. I would say before

072we bring anything to the board in a public meeting, we would want to be able to talk to those communities so that they're not caught off guard at a board meeting. Well, and that's good because I I think all of us have received calls and emails of concerns about is is it my school and stuff and you know, my response has been we're gathering data, understanding the data, but now it sounds like it's clear why we're taking these steps. you know, in going to the public meetings sometimes it was it looked like we're making these moves for for good reasons perhaps about um more efficiency and and staffing this, but it's really a financial decision that's driving this mainly. Is that is that correct? So, it's a combination of it's I mean financial is that's

073a reality, right? Um, and just to without having the slides in front of me to recap, um, like I said, we're overspending on staffing by 3.1 million this year, projected 3.8 next year. Um, that five-year um, uh, that five-year funding average that how we how we are funded by the state. We're funded on a 5-year average. And so Mel, she has that uh slide with the bar charts that I'm looking at right now in my mind. Um, that shows that we only we really only have like a year or two left of those higher funding years. And so right now we're actually being funded for $5 million more than we should based on per pupil count because of that averaging. So you think of a and that's just going to continue to go down. So

074you think of a five to $6 million cliff from that plus a $3.8 million we're overspending right next year on staffing plus esser going away like yes there's a definite financial need here uh with this. But then you know to the other slides in Shannon's presentation there's um the issues we're having with providing services at the schools when they get below a certain number. it makes it really hard to staff those schools. It creates problems with staff being able to have planning time together. Um looking to be able to look at student data and plan around instruction. So yeah, it's just so it's not just finan that is a big piece is a financial but it's also a level of service. And then you get into things like you you talk to the principles, the

075less staff they have, the less supervision they have in the building. So it's a safety issue as well. Um so as those schools get smaller, it creates an issue um for for our school district. So that's why we're having to have these conversations now and that's why it it feels more immediate because it is getting very serious on the I I appreciate that personally but I I think for our community internally and externally understands that as well and and and my you know among everything else we've talked about I don't want to have anybody caught off guard you know and and even though it seems quick there certainly reasons behind why we're taking the steps to guard but if if uh it sounds like between now and the 21st you'll be or someone will be

076visiting with those schools that are going to be considered. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, but but they're being looked at for these reasons. Is that accurate? Yeah. And Shane, I don't know if you want to add anything to that that I already said. Um, there are a variety of factors. Obviously, if we're looking at the most underutilized schools, it's a pretty large number of schools, but from a city planning standpoint, a lot of those schools just aren't combinable because they're not next to um another building that could accommodate uh the enrollment that would be moved. So, um the other thing is we want to try to preserve as many of our modern uh buildings um that are in good condition as possible. So, as we look at um any of these moves, we need

077to be uh making a step up from a facility condition standpoint. We need to be uh recommending moves that that are fail failurep proof, if you will, as far as there being um a long-term viability for how we would reassign children to a building. Would they wind up with a bigger faculty with a richer level of service? Um and then in in other cases would we be winding up with a more efficient operational structure uh larger faculty the kids are in a more modern building. So that very quickly winnows the list of buildings that we would address to a smaller grouping. And it would be my intent to um make sure that we don't um unnecessarily upset a school community that really it doesn't make sense for them to be a combination candidate. And the

078only other thing I'd mention is that um so Shannon has projections around you know if a elementary school was closed what would the savings be with that as far as um you know not having again the energy usage within the building uh not having duplication of certain positions at the schools. Um so we can we can kind of project some of that out too and then we would need to have a conversation with the board about what do we want to do with those spaces after the fact. So, um, is it a building that maybe has some life left in it, not as a school building, but could be used as something else. So, some of the ideas that have been thrown out at some of the meetings have been if we're going to have

079um early childhood continues to expand in the state, do we need an early childhood center somewhere? Um, we've had questions around staff daycare before. So, I think it also opens up some opportunities for maybe using if the building is in good enough condition, um, using some of them for some other uses. Um, or if not, do we just um do we sell it off if it's a if it's a property we don't think we're going to use. So, there's also some financial implications with that as well. I don't think we'd want to go open another school because then we just negated what the work we did, but maybe there's some programmatic things we might look at as well. So, that that all comes after that's not part of our decision- making to be clear. That

080would be um next steps. So, I have one. This is this is kind of going back to FA, but I know Fra Middle School went away from a block schedule because of I don't know if it was lack of kids or maybe staffing. Is Redlands on a block schedule? Do you know does anybody know if Redlands is on a block or are they on a [Music] middle of our schools to come out levelached out all of our schools? Okay. Perfect. Well, and so obviously as we're when we're looking at Fruda, which is obviously a later decision that the board can approach, but if we're looking at keeping two middle schools, you know, are we going to be looking at what would be best supportive for them around either a block schedule or would, you know,

081one larger middle school be more supportive? So just again put a pin in that down the road is you know would one middle school in Fra serve better because the scheduling would be more conducive than two middle schools is just is just some questions I would have when it comes time for that. Yeah, and I and that's a good point. And then we we heard some feedback at that Fruda town hall meeting and I received uh emails from from families that ask some further questions around is it just is that the only solution is just to add on to the high school and the 89 could it be I mean nobody likes the topic but do we look at boundaries potentially if it means it's going to be a um no cost option. So, those

082are things we need to explore and decisions that I don't think we'd be making right now for next school year, but um if we could if we could look at some other options too that maybe wouldn't cost any money um explore them. So, in looking in that at that so we don't continually change boundaries is we kind of have to keep in mind the Fruda situation a little bit. I mean, yes, we can change boundaries years later, but it might be something to just kind of keep in mind because if we're changing boundaries now with the school consolidation, would that ultimately help offset the enrollment at Fra Monument so that we don't have to do as much construction out there because we can readjust the boundary line. So, I know it's I know that one's

083not as pressing, but I think there's some elements there that we need to be mindful of if we're making some changes now that could maybe just save our community and families, some of this change that, you know, not having to change it every year or two with the the boundary lines. Um, but I do think um if the board is is good with it, I think we're ready for Shannon to move forward to do the other work and make the recommendation. I guess if does the 21st give you guys enough time? If not, the board could call a special meeting just to go over this. Um, we definitely want to make sure that I mean that sounds like a lot of stuff to do in the next two weeks. Um, I I was going to

084say I believe in we can do it, but Shannon, I'm looking at you. If if or maybe we we we say our goal is the 21st. If we don't feel like we have it ready, we will take it off the agenda. the issue. I I think if we don't have it on 21st, I would agree with maybe a special meeting even the next week because otherwise we wait two weeks until the March meeting and then we have spring break all in the middle of that. So I think we set a goal for the 21st and we assume we're going to do that and then we'll let you know if we don't think we have it together. Well, that sounds good. Yeah, we'll just you guys can aim for the 21st, but if you need a

085few more days, we can we can Yeah. work that out. I would also love to see those capacity numbers whenever. Thanks. All right. Capacity numbers, too. All right. Any other questions, board? All right. Thank you, Shannon, for presenting. Thank you. Have a great evening. Have fun the next two weeks. Well, thanks. All righty. Next up, um, well, board, do you does anybody need a a quick break? Okay, we're going to take just a 10-minute break and then next up will be the strategic plan focus group for number three. ahead and get started again because uh for the next presentation we have some presenters that uh need to leave soon. So we want to make sure that we get them up here so that they can go on and do the things that they need to

086do. So, whoever needs to go first, you come on up. Come on down. All right. I think so. All right. Good afternoon or good evening everybody. How you doing? Um, it's an honor to be here tonight. Uh since our last presentation in November, our dynamic team has been working diligently to advance towards meeting the goals defined in our engaged and supportive community partners focus area of the D-51 strategic plan. As we've dug into this work, we've gained collective clarity about how important it is to intentionally cultivate relationships of trust and respect with our families and our community partners. clear and continuous communication about how we are collaborating with our stakeholders and allocating our resources as a pathway to gaining that trust and respect. And we have exciting updates to share with you today that will

087be highlighting our progress. Our entire team um is united in our commitment to designing the ultimate plan that will ensure that each and every student receives an excellent education in D51. Intentional community engagement and authentic family partnership are not just key ingredients to building long-term sustainable success for our organization. They're really the main ingredients. Tonight, Clinton Mel and other members of their implementation team will start off the presentation with a brief update on the progress they've made to allocate resources through a lens of fiscal responsibility and how that aligns with our strategic plan. Following their team, Dr. Christensen and Bo Tobin will give a brief update on our progress towards mapping out community partnerships and we'll be inviting a couple of our valuable community members from theiration team to share their perspectives about the importance

088of partnership with the district. And to finish off our presentation, Callie, Carrie, Estraa, and I will share what we learned from our communication audit and how we plan to move forward to ensure high quality communication for all of our families, as well as some details about how we will strengthen our family partnerships over the next few years. First up to bat is Clinton Mills. All right. Good evening board. Thank you for having us tonight. Um, I can tell you I feel a lot smarter working with this group. They are amazing. So, thank you guys for the work that you do. Um, we are priority area three, transparent and effective resource allocation. And when our team presented back in November, we shared with you uh the methods with which we uh were beginning to gather data.

089And we also shared with you our plans to present this information in a way that is comprehensive and transparent through an easy to understand uh lens of building profiles. Our team has also been working on some out-of-the-box thinking on how building funds are allocated and the possibilities that may exist to provide more uh proportionate allocations of those funds. So, tonight our team has a quite a bit of information to share with you around the work that we've been doing and where we are in the process. So, let me reintroduce the team to you and then we'll get started. So, Ashley Zang is our account supervisor. Mr. Mr. Dan Boolinger is our Palisade High School principal. Mr. Dan Prinster, vice president of de development at St. Mary's Hospital. Janello Ooaha, finance accountant. Rachel Tally, human resource

090data analyst. Uh Melanie Trill, CFO, and Clint Garcia, chief uh operations officer. With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Dan Bowlinger. Okay, as you can see uh the transparent effective resource allocation. Um at this point we are on track for our first year goals. Um if you look at the next slide, we're on track regarding uh the year one goals, but we have much to complete yet this year. We have completed our understanding of how our budget operates to have our baseline knowledge at a high level. We're in the process of completing a complete district profile that includes each school. So, a school profile. This should create a clearer understanding of the needs at each school and simplified. Uh we'll now start the work of inventorying each program, reviewing each program that will

091include the type and the cost. And we'll also start to work on reviewing and understanding the capital resources to be able to uh prioritize for equitable funding. got a lot of work to do. So, in reviewing budget categories, we looked at the district's revenue sources. This first chart shows a breakout of revenue from all funds for fiscal year 2122. As you can see, fund 10 or the general fund generated the largest piece of revenue at 46%. The general fund is the least restrictive fund while all other funds are more restrictive on how revenue can be spent due to the sources of the funding. For example, fund 41 is the building fund. It generated 27% of the district's revenue through bond proceeds, but can only be used in the construction of Grand Junction High School. Fund

09222 is a governmental designated purpose grants. It generated 8.8 of the district's revenue, but can only be used for the specific intent of each grant award. So when we think about the flexibility of funds, 54% of our funds are non-flexible, which is the red portion being for specific purposes and the remaining 46% for the general fund, the green portion is considered to be more flexible in in how it can be utilized. Drilling down in the 46% general fund portion, state revenue from CDE makes up the largest portion at 61% followed by property tax tax which includes our mill levy overrides at 31%, specific ownership taxes at 5% and then other local funds. Also, you can see in the bottom right corner there is a breakdown of what is included in other local funding. Examples include

093interest, the senior veterans exemption, which is reimbursement from the state for property tax exemptions giving to senior citizens and veterans, and mineral lease revenues. Now that we have seen what resources make up the general fund, this next chart is showing how those general fund dollars were spent in the 2122 school year. Salary and benefits are by far the highest expenditure category at 77% followed by purchase services such as the cost of transportation and special education. and contracted services at 10%. Transfers to charter schools and other district funds transfers at 7% and supplies such as utilities, fuel, and printing and copies at 4%. So we know from the data in the previous slides, the two main sources of this district's most flexible revenue are state revenue from CDE and property tax revenue. We wanted to see

094how this fund uh funding sources in our district compared to other similar district. These comparable district have similar attri attributes to this district such as size, area, demographic and the PPR funding. As you can see the blue bars representing the representing the PPR funding are very similar varying only $545 per student from highest to lowest. Where we really see a lot of variance is in the local support dollars through meal levy overrides shown in orange ranging from $41 per student all the way to over $5,300 per student. D51 is the second to the lowest among our peer schools at $754 per student. What this graph also shows is that school district 51 is below the average per pupil revenue and a meal levy override per student. The the average of these 10 schools was $10,779

095per student and the school district 51's funding was $9,52 per student. Part of our analysis was to overlay student performance to this information represented in green line. As you can see at the surface level, there doesn't appear to be much uh correlation. Border has the highest per student funding yet has has a district performance framework rating of 63 uh 63.6%. Colorado Springs 11 has the sec second highest funding per student yet has the lowest student performance rating. School District 51 has the second to lowest per student funding yet has a mid-range student performance percentage at a 54%. However, one piece of information we don't know we don't have at this point is what use each school each district's meal levies were passed for. of our own three meal levies. Two were passed to support operations

096of a new schools built in 1996 and 2004. The third one passed in 2017 has uses designed spec specifically to address student outcomes such as update curriculums and additional contact days. Uh but sunset in 2027. This of course is only one data point to performance, but as a district, we know how important this meal levy dollars have been for students growth and to our system. With that sunsetting me levy in mind, this last graph shows that D51's meal levy will drop to uh this shows what D51's meal levy will drop to after it expires. and also take into account Brighton's November 2022's election, which is the bar with a green top. Um, in this more recent election, Brighton passes a significant mail levy, going from a lowest per student to leaprogging D51, making us now

097the lowest in mill levy overright dollars per student amongst our peers. Uh, Rachel will now speak to the work. um we done on our second go around profiles. So we often talk about where and how money is allocated at the district level, but as part of this process, we also wanted to bring that data down to a school level. To that end, we've been developing school profiles for our elementary and secondary schools. This data collection has allowed us to present data in a meaningful way for each individual school and includes information on the school's state performance rating, building information such as the square footage and the cost to heat and cool the building, student enrollment and dem demographics such as the free and reduced percentage, staff demographics, and a funding profile into one centralized format

098and location. While we recognize that the data on these profiles do not tell the whole story of a school, it is a powerful snapshot showing the various components it takes to make school happen each and every day. This data has evolved as we continue to ask questions and collect information. So, not all of the information is populated yet, and the information presented may continue to grow and change. Our plan is to make this data available to parents and community members who want to know more information about their children's or neighborhood schools. This data will also help us by allowing for comparison not only with other districts but also within our district to help identify where we are having success and where we might be struggling. So, while that's the public piece of it and the

099outward facing, behind the scenes, we're also using this collected data for deeper analysis um of our efficiencies and effectiveness. We're looking at the data holistically to see how factors such as a building's age might affect utility and maintenance costs, for example. Um, we know that our student population is changing and that our buildings uh currently have a wide range of utilization. We're looking at staffing and enrollment numbers by level to better understand the ideal sizes for schools and at which points they become challenging to staff and operate efficiently. On the funding side, there is a wide range of available resources per student is what we've been finding. Philosophically, we've always distributed general fund dollars on an equal per pupil basis. But when coupled with the dollars that generate through a school's SBA, their student body

100activities funds such as fees, donations, fundraising, and grants, it really gives a wide variation with some schools having significantly more outside support than others. Uh this has led us to question whether our practice of giving the same dollar amount to each school is truly equitable or not. And these are some of the areas we'll be digging deeper into as we continue our strategic plan work. So in summary, uh as a taxpayer and business person, I'm really excited about the work of this group. I think taxpayers will really appreciate the transparent data that they'll be able to use to identify sources of revenue, the uses of the revenue, and comparisons in such information like per pupil funding. Um, in business, we use comparable data all the time to identify opportunities to improve performance. And uh this

101comparable data I think will be really helpful for the school district as they look at ways to improve efficiency and also look at ways to uh assist them in making some of the tough strategic decisions that you have in front of you. So I want to thank uh the school board for um giving me a chance to be part of this team because they've really been amazing. So, any questions that you have? Are you guys building out those school profiles? Those are really impressive. That looks amazing. Are any other districts doing that or So, I think so. I think we've seen um uh I think Jeffco maybe has one. And so, some of them really have like an overwhelming amount of information where it's a lot to click through, but we wanted to really target

102ours. And so Rachel definitely the formatting wizard and pulling in all of the data imports and everything that will populate those because we don't we want it to be something that can be updated yearly, right? That it doesn't just we build take all the time to build these out and they go stagnant. Um so we've built out a couple example schools, but we really were looking for your feedback too before um we completed the rest of that work so that we have a really solid template um to be able to build out the rest of them for. I think those look really good. And I mean, one rule in marketing is you need plenty of white space behind there. I think sometimes you try to put too much data on there, you lose people within

103a couple of minutes and they're not going to read the rest of it. I think one thing I and maybe you had it on there is I don't know if everybody understands what FTE is. So, do you guys have some defining little terms maybe down there because I could see somebody, you know, I didn't know what FTE was until I was a board member. um you know so I think there might be some little defining things there that would be helpful for the public to like what is that so maybe some little asterisks or or something that would explain what those are because I I know a lot of people don't understand that schools have a certain amount of autonomy and money that they get to utilize and spend for within their building and so

104when we talk about FTE in our meetings maybe that people will start making the correlation between like oh we get so many FTE in our building to choose from or or So I think what we can do is it'll start connecting those pieces for our community to understand what we're all you know speaking about. So can you put it back on that slide? Yeah, that one was it was so impressive. Just like to look at it the whole Yeah, it was the other Yeah. tab. Yeah, that looks so good. Keep scrolling down. I was gonna say what else. So you'll notice down here that there are um some fields that say data pending. So, I think we presented to you guys last time about some of our challenges with data collection that we recognize that

105we don't have all these pieces otherwise we probably would be looking at them before right now, right? And so, some of these are like future things that we're aspiring to collect and be able to throw in as part of our analysis. So like our maintenance costs, our work orders, um the number of hours that go into maintaining our buildings every year, and then just being able to put in like over on the right hand side, transportation costs or nutrition services, that's more readily available. We just need to actually do the work to parse it out and assign it to each school. Is there the only thing I can think of that maybe I would add to it is if there's a major improvement that needs to be scheduled at some point for that building. We

106were just talking about that a little earlier today. Or you guys have this this special programs housed here, but maybe if you have if there was something bigger, maybe you could kind of do like a projection. I think that's great. that there's so many of these things that would be so easy as a board member to look at each school and be able to get your arms around any little piece of data that we might be, you know, bugging you guys for on a regular basis because we we need it, but it's a little tougher to get. We could have access to it very quickly. But again, you know, having our focus on the maintenance and the upgrades and and the shape of our buildings currently and just to have a little bit of a

107visual to what we've got coming up that we need to make sure that we've got Yeah, I think it would be really easy to do that. We we know what we're going to be doing with those buildings as we talked. Yeah. um to be able to put it up so you can see in the forecast for projects for each of those buildings would be helpful. Yeah, that's all I can see off the top. When when you're doing this or creating these, are are you getting feedback from staff and parent community? And I bring that up because you can have what looks like a profile looks accurate and and does that would that school see themselves in that data? Because sometimes the data may not really reflect everything, you know, these schools are more than just

108numbers sometimes, but it would be nice, you know, say, "Yep, that looks like us." Or if you added this part, uh, and that would be you, you want to make them, you know, right standard for all the schools, but if that's been We haven't pushed anything out yet. I think it's it's all been kind of behind the scenes just trying to put something together to and again to get some feedback and this is all good stuff. I think we can absolutely maybe do a test run with a building and go through it. Well, we have one right here actually. Well, that's when I saw Dan there and I thought, you know, Dan would get that, you know, it's it's a profile of Pal State, for instance. Does that reflect that? Yeah, that gives people a

109real good impression of what Palisade is or isn't kind of thing. It's a good question, too. I think it um it depends on who you ask what they're going to be looking for. So obviously right now a lot of this information up there is I mean you look at the team so we have a lot of finance and um building utilization things like that but I think that it it does open up open up an opportunity for that left side there for being able to highlight programs within the school if there's other things we so you know like the one we had in Austin did not have all this other data which is great. it was more focused on tell us about all the programs you have in the building and and things of that

110nature. So if there was a way to do both of them um then you could tell the story of the school and highlight IB at Palisade but then also have this other data like you say you don't want to be overwhelming though. Yeah. No, you're right. There comes a point you don't want to go too far but I could see on a staff you people might want to know the makeup of the staff and their experience and you know just things like that. I don't know. It's good feedback because I think we're we're focused on, you know, transparent resource allocation and we're everybody's thinking the dollars and everything, but there is another another side to it. And I think this is some good feedback can but but then to point you don't want so much

111that it's like yeah, you lose the point of what you're trying to do. Is this helpful for all of you? Is this going to be like a one place where you guys can consolidate this or is this extra work to try to I mean put it together? I I would hope that it would be also helpful for all of you having the information maybe just so I'm looking at Rachel but delegate the board to not asking you as many questions you guys look the only one talking um but I can speak just from my my ready experience with this is we have a big Google sheet but that builds all of these fields in right behind the scenes and I already go to that thing a couple two three times a day because it is

112a one-stop shop where we can have that information. So even just the Google doc itself, not the pretty infographic one, it it is a nice to have all of that information gathered in one central location. So that was our intention was that it's a resource for us internally too to make decisions and to have available as data but also for you as board members for community like maybe somebody just wants to go see their kids school and see what's going on um from not just the school's website but how it might compare to other uh schools that they're familiar with too. Great. Um, you've asked if it's been helpful for for me. It's been helpful as a catalyst to be able to to start some of these pending fields that are that don't have information

113in them yet to drive that and to be able to put it in place. I'm going to echo what they said. Um, a lot of times you can have like a philosophy or a theory, right? like you think this is what's happening, but then once you get the data kind of in black and white and in front of you, especially with kind of the large scale and the scope that we've built here, you can start to see maybe some correlations or some things that you want to start to crosswalk. Um, so just by having the data, it's actually prompted more questions for us. It kind of feels like a vicious circle in a way because we get some information, then we're like, well, what about this? And so then, you know, we just continue to

114build and build. Yeah, that's what I was thinking that exact same thing as you as I'm looking at your year one goals. I'm looking at there were four categories. Um kind of exploring how budgets operate. Um creating the district and school profiles and then one thing that says it's not started or has just started is the inventory of programs and allocations, review of programs type and cost. Um yeah, I would imagine as you start to do that and as we were saying adding the special programs my you know my next question is like and what do they align to you know which is robust and aligned options and you know I feel like it is going to be a challenge to kind of pull back and what questions are we trying to ask and answer.

115Um but yeah I can see it having more components to it. Um okay so on that those year one goals the first category is how our budgets operate build baseline knowledge of systems and processes high level review of budget categories. So you used that to to fill in these components. Are we using that for any other decision making? So kind of getting back to like how useful is this? Are we is is this an exercise just for the exercise or how are we um so this like baseline knowledge of systems and processes how are we using that new built knowledge or that consolidation of knowledge. Yeah. So, um, thinking back to what was it, November when we presented the first time? I don't know. Our first one, we had some artifacts that we had just

116started pulling together, like there's a budget timeline that's a little prey document that you can click through month by month to see kind of what what happens in the budget process, where we're at on how staffing happens, and really just demonstrating that it is a whole 12 month cycle. It's not just an event that happens a couple times a year. And so I think to our own transparency pages and certainly like if we move to an easier to navigate website that probably plays in. And so right now we haven't put a lot of those artifacts and the things that we've been using to gather our own internal knowledge on this committee and push them out. But I think it's all things that can be used to strengthen our transparency to really go above and beyond

117the the quarterly financials and the audits and all of those things that the state requires us to put out there and really have use them to start telling our financial story and putting out information that might just be interesting rather than required um out onto like a financial transparency page. and Carrie, I feel a little different than Clint. Um, he feels smarter working with them. I don't I listen to them and I'm like, I got so much to learn. Um, what I know, but it's truth, right? What um what I found is how much money we get as a district and how little we really have control over where it goes. And and that was really important to me when we're looking at, you know, I look at I run a school and we have

118what 40 schools in the district and if we get um 400 million that means I should get a hundred million of it, right? And and it just doesn't equate quite like that. And so um it was really important for me to understand how big the budget is, but how little we actually have control over. Um and that that's been my push all year. And I think that's why I got put on this committee. Thanks. Thank you all. That's really great. I think we have the next section for a strategic plan. Thank you all for staying as well. Thank you for your time. Yeah. So, next up, uh Dr. Christensen and her team. And we're just so lucky to work with so many talented individuals work in our district, but also in our community. And that's

119what's been really fun for me. just pull up any extra chairs if we need them. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for having us here tonight and thank you for your hard work on uh looking at this and what we've been doing. Um we are the uh effective community partnerships and I just want to begin by highlighting the members of our team. Um, I'm working with Andrea Bolton who couldn't be here tonight. Um, Bo Tobin has really stepped in as one of a one of the key leaders. We also have Candace Carneahan, Jod Deers, Kayla Brown, Raul Dave Vie Hos Decker, Gabriel Otero, Joy Hudac, Trisha Galonza, Eric Ward, Tabitha Britt, Martha Graph, Sarah Shrader, and Sonia Gutierrez. So, as you can see by that list, it's a pretty robust list of folks

120who have really been willing to come meet with us. We started this with all of you this last fall, and so we really appreciate all of their input. We are all part of the engaged and supportive community partnership focus area. Under this area and group, we're leading effective community partners to advance our strategic goals. Last November when we were here um we shared that our primary objective is to identify and communicate strategic partnerships with organizations and institutions in the community to support the advancement of the district's strategic goals. As a reminder, we've been charged with focusing in on the following partnerships. So, it's not just any partnership. And I think that's pretty important. It certainly was in my mind as we looked at these. The first are looking at um student opportunities for career connection

121learning, wellness and supports beyond the classroom for staff and students and engaging with families and deepening relationships. And after spending time reviewing our partner data, we really felt it was important to add an additional category. And that includes financial support because so many of our partners are doing that. And some of our um as some of our donors support all three areas and even more. If our goal is having equipped and empowered students and staff, then identifying engaged and supportive community partners is key. Our year one goal was to include developing a map of community partners and developing a tool to measure that level of engagement. And we're we're excited and we'll be really thrilled to share that with you um at our next uh presentation. Tonight though, we're pleased to share some updates on

122the progress we've made and introduce you to a couple more of our key community partners. Right on. Yeah, thank you. Pleasure being here. Um, as you can see, we're on track uh in achieving our year one goal, which is developing a map of community partners. Our team has created a spreadsheet to help us identify current partners and identify the type of support they offer to our district. Within the tool, we have added a way to gauge depth of their partnership, allowing us to complete our second goal. So far, we have mapped 171 partnerships with 38% of partners devoted to student career readiness, 9% in student and staff wellness, um 7% of family support and engagement, and 46% in our new donor category, which truly supports all of the above areas. Based on this data, we

123are heavy in identifying career readiness and financial partnerships. Our big lift will be getting input from other district leaders to assist in identifying key partners in the student and staff wellness and family support and engagement. In an effort to start this work, we have already reached out to district leaders to seek their input. In addition, we have included a link to this tool and DT and are happy to report that we've had more partnerships added uh recently to our tracking tool. And I mean, we talk about all the time, but we know we have so many darn partners out there, and we're proud of those partnerships, but I mean, our goal is to really identify what we're missing. I mean, what what more can we do to establish greater, stronger partnerships? So, working together, we

124can ensure that each and every student has the resource and support that they need for their brightest future. And this matters because all of us are D51. And with that in mind, it's our pleasure to introduce you to two more of our very wellestablished partners to briefly share how they partner with D51 and why they partner with D51. So, I'd like you to go ahead and introduce yourself if that works and uh share those two. Roll this way so you all can hear me. So, thank you for having me. Good evening. My name is Tabby Britt. I'm the youth employment specialist at the Mesa County Workforce Center. A large pillar of our mission at the Workforce Center is to promote safety, stability, and meaningful employment for our community. And as you well know, as school

125district 51, the journey to success starts young. My aim as the youth employment specialist is to introduce students early and often to the tools available to them in our community in order to find that successful and meaningful employment. I assist students with career exploration, job searching, resume creation, and interview preparation. Our partnership with D51 allows me many opportunities to get face tof face with students. I'm invited into classrooms to present workshops, given the chance to collaborate on school staff hiring events and career fairs, and many students are referred to meet with me by adults at their schools. I administer licenses for the Pathful Explore virtual job shadowing program that many students and teachers utilize within D51 to explore career options and determine their personal path to success. Since February of 2022, we've collaborated on six

126career or hiring fairs, eight on-site workshops, and several mock interview days. We are currently working on an additional career and hiring fair at Central High School and the first summer job and activity fair on April 18th at the Workforce Center for all high schools in the district. I'm looking forward to seeing how our partnership with D51 grows over the coming years and impacts as many students as possible through our collaborative work. Thank you. Thank you so much. We appreciate the partnership that's been going on for such a long time. And now we've asked um Raul Deier Hos Decker who's with the school district 51 Foundation to share a little info with all of you. So good evening. My name is Rahul Deie Zcker. I'm a clinical and organizational psychologist and a small business owner. Over

127the last 10 years I have partnered with the school district in many ways including serving as president of the D51 Foundation. I've been a member of the strategic plan steering committee and now as a head coach of the girls varsity soccer team at Palisate High School. As a member of the D-51 Foundation board of directors, I saw firsthand the value of connecting our business community with our school district. As many of you know, the D-51 Foundation has raised funds to support technology for students and professional learning for D51 staff. This past weekend, we celebrated our 11th Whiteey celebration with 890 registered guests. This is quite the growth from our two 2013 guest list of 78. Moreover, the foundation with support from community partners has awarded over $100,000 to educators in pursuit of professional learning opportunities.

128As a business owner in the behavioral health field, I notice an increasing demand for staff to recognize and stress mental health issues within schools. We've all seen initiatives like mental health first aid, social emotional learning, and suicide prevention implemented in school settings. Despite the education and structure that comes with these initiatives, I have witnessed educators struggle with the toll of these demands on their emotional well-being. As a result, my business has offered lowcost consultation services to educators and mental health professionals who work for school districts. This partnership has been satisfying and gratifying for me personally because it allows me to equip and empower staff to take on these additional but important responsibilities. As a member of the strategic plan steering committee, I voice the importance of ensuring the staff receives the necessary preparation and support

129from the district and our community. To truly support staff in the complex work of educating our children, our community will need to com come together and develop dynamic systems to provide educators with the financial, physical, and emotional resources they deserve. these posters. This is one from uh 2017. Uh you will see here and do you mind holding the other one for me? Thank you. Uh so you'll see from 2017 to where we are in 2023. There are many more business partners on this and we are very grateful for their participation and support of the D51 Foundation. They just illustrate just how much the D-51 Foundation has achieved in connecting our community partners with the school district. I am certain that through the work of the strategic plan, the school district will develop many more engaged

130and supportive community partners over the next few years. I am honored to serve members of the D51 family and appreciate all that they have done for my daughter's growth. It is in large part due to our teachers, coaches, principles, and support staff that she and over 20,000 students have the opportunity to reach their potential. I have been humbled and amazed by what our educators do and who they are. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Raul. And I just want to thank Tabby and Raul and also Eric who has been here at all of our presentations. We really appreciate your involvement um in coming out to celebrate this. Thank you for your time this evening. And uh are there any questions? Are you um so when you first went out to ask for

131sponsorships um I'm guessing you had to kind of search for businesses. Are you now having businesses seek you out to want to sponsor? I mean just tell us maybe how that's the the tables have have switched. Yes. I've been in this role now for six years and I have to tell you that is exactly where we are now and it's been very exciting with the foundation where I receive calls. I had calls even the week of White Ice Celebration because I'm sure people heard of the promotion and said, "Hey, we'd actually like to sponsor." And and while the uh uh those opportunities might not present themselves, as you can imagine, I I came up with a few other ideas of how they could uh help and we definitely connect with them next year. But that

132has been exciting. I have a question. Um so as we map out who are our community partners and what they are doing to support D51 or engage with D-51 and ultimately somebody had said that you know the ultimate goal is actually to figure out where the the gaps are and figure out where those holes are. That's not part of the year one goal right or is that part of the year one goal? It it actually is um at the end is looking at those gaps. So while we have 171 partners identified and really in th just in those four areas because as you can imagine there are hundreds and hundreds of partnerships. We've dialed it down to just those and we're seeking input from everyone. we've um sent it out in DT weekly because it's

133hard to um imagine all the different partnerships that are going on and so we need input things that we don't even realize are happening um with partnerships with businesses but that is one of our goals is to identify gaps in partnerships so um our final presentation I'm hopeful we'll be able to present that have we started to think like how do we what how do we identify a gap in support. So, are we looking at are we are we aligning it to our, you know, performance and growth or student wellness, like the other parts of the strategic plan? That would be my thought, which was why we had Bo um update you on what percentage of each of our partnerships and I feel like by looking at those and and uh just kind of evaluating

134that and making the the decision from there, it looks like we are missing some partnerships. And so that's that's our hope and plan. Yeah, I look forward to that. I feel like it's a really challenging endeavor to wrap my head around how we identify the gaps. Um, yeah, what is the what is a gap in a in the community versus what are we working on within the district? And of course, those things should all align, but I I really look forward to what you guys put together. Just have no idea what's going to come out of it. I'm so excited. Well, the big job has been identifying who our partners are right now. And actually, yeah, that's been a rather big task. Do you think that in identifying the partners that might also be the

135um the I don't know the the words eluding me but just like that might help you identify the gaps like you know as you're going out and you're talking to the partners they might they might say well we should probably talk to this person. So it's I guess when I see it I I think it's a rather challenging thing. It's like what how do you know what you don't know sort of idea. But I think as you're identifying your partners and you're speaking to them, they might see something different where you're like, "Oh, we should probably talk to this partner." Um, you know, they might actually be the ones that help us identify those gaps. Great. Any other questions? Awesome. Well, well done everyone. Thank you. Thanks you. All right. I'm going to go ahead

136and invite Callie and Carrie and Estraa to come join me here at the table to go over our last um portion of our presentation this evening. Thank you all for staying and thank you for your time this evening. [Music] Good evening board. Thanks for having us tonight. Um, part of our year 1 goal was to seek a communications audit and review its current tools to see which ones could be used more effectively and determine if any any should be added. Our communications audit was completed back in September and last time we spoke we kind of gave you a 30,000 foot overview of the findings of that audit. After having some time to analyze the data that came from the audit, we have compiled that information and are moving forward based on the and this is

137a very long title, National School of Public Relations Association benchmark rubrics of practice. The rubric serves as a tool that will identify components of a district's communication system and divides them into the following five sections. Those sections are comprehensive plans communications, internal communications, parent family communications, marketing and branding communications, and crisis communication. So, tonight we're going to go over those five components and how the communications department is working towards implementing streamlined and effective communication in each of these areas. I'm going to go over here. So the first section is comprehensive planned communications. During the audit, it was advised that we develop a comprehensive plan that brings together multiple plans that we had in the department which were marketing communications, internal communications, and stakeholder communications. So developing a plan that brings all of these components together

138will ensure that as a department we are communicating consistent messages to all of our stakeholders. So the communications department has developed a strategic communications plan and within that plan the following five goals and objectives will be our overarching focus which will have uh strategies and tactics on how we carry out each objective. So those five strategies are going to be strategic communications, brand recognition and awareness, family and community engagement and partnerships, internal communications, and employee recruitment and retention. The next section in the NSPR benchmark rubric is internal communications. So we know that employee communication influences employee engagement. It influences employee productivity and it influences employee motivation and that is directly tied to the culture of a school or our school district. So a primary role of what Carrie and I will do is inform and

139inspire employees. It was evident through our communications audit that there is definitely a lack of consistency and difficulty finding information that has been shared or posted. So, we will continue looking for ways to streamline and grow our internal communications. And we aren't quite there yet. Um, but we are exploring some different ideas such as master event calendars that are going to be shared between the school administration and the communications department. um news or ways to communi communicate critical news and updates for employees and then employee shoutouts and recognitions and we do some of that through um different forms of communication that already go out but we like to enhance those and as a department we want to ensure our employees are informed and engaged with what is happening in the district. So moving on to

140parent and family communications. This is another ENSPRA B benchmark and it's also a high uh priority for our department and one of the top priorities that our communications audit outlined. So as we spoke last time, there is a pretty large gap in communications of the demographics that we serve. And in order to close that gap, we want to establish a new family welcome toolkit in both English and Spanish. This toolkit will contain valuable information and resources to welcome families into our district and to provide them with tools that will help them navigate our school district and also be successful. It will be available in print at all of our schools so that our school sites feel empowered as a resource to all of our families and can serve as an extension of the communications department

141no matter the language our families use. This toolkit is planned to be implemented for the start of the 23 24 school year after our focus area conducts visits with our families to determine what is going to be needed within that toolkit. And Tracy and Estrella will talk a little bit more about that in a bit. Section four reviews our marketing and our branding. We knew going into the communications audit that our website just keeps going in and out. Is it going in? It's green. That's okay. So, we knew going into the communications audit that our website was hard to navigate and a bit outdated. The audit revealed just how difficult it was for both our staff and our community to utilize our website as a resource. As we work to streamline our communications tools, we

142are working toward revamping our website platform. Data on the website from our communications audit revealed that our overall website was graded at a C++ scoring extremely low on usability and low on SEO or content searchability. We have formed a website steering committee composed of teachers, school administrators, IT personnel, curriculum, human resources, and personal development. We are working together to find what platform will work best for the district as a whole so that our website can serve as a primary source of information for our stakeholders. To help serve our school staff in a greater capacity, we will also be implementing Canva Enterprise. Canva is an online design platform that helps individuals without a design background create professional marketing content for their organization. The communications department will create branded templates that can be used for all schools

143in the district so that the communication and social media postings have the same look and feel on all platforms. Our crisis communication is a key topic of the Insper benchmarks. In the 2022 23 school year, the communications department sent out over 250 reactive communications. We would like to see our communications department transition to be more proactive in communicating with our families, including proactively communicating school safety protocols and how families will be notified of emergency situations. Our department will be working with the safety and security department to develop a better standard for crisis or emergency communications. This will include having incident benchmarks. As incidents in the schools hit certain thresholds, the level of communication will match the incident and this will be standardized across the district. For example, what we send out for a shelter in

144place for a medical issue at a school will be different from the communication we send out for a lockdown of a school. Training of district staff and leaders is essential to understand the implementation of the crisis communication plan components. No plan can cover every crisis scenario, but an understanding of the plan components is foundational to delivering highquality communications during a crisis. As we head toward the finish of the first year of our strategic plan, the communications department is working on all areas that we have presented to you this evening with the goal that we will be able to effectively tackle our two-year goal of the strategic plan, which is to develop and test a portfolio of communications tools that meet the diverse needs of the community it serves. By working on the foundation for this

145goal now, we will be able to build that portfolio and reach more of our families. Tracia and Estraa will now speak on how they are working on their one-year goal serving families that speak a language other than English. Thanks, Carrie. So, um I have some exciting information to share with you tonight. Um first of all, the Colorado Statewide Family Engagement Center. So the the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado Education Initiative, and the National Center for Families and Learning have partnered to build the capacity of families, schools, and communities to address learning recovery, as well as implement practices and systems to improve student development and family well-being across the state of Colorado. Because of our commitment to improving how we connect with families in our strategic plan, we've been given the opportunity to participate in

146this 5-year program. It's called the Colorado Statewide Family Engagement Center. This will help us design and build family partnership infrastructure based on the dual capacity building framework, which really is the gold standard family engagement practices. The first step in this process is to utilize a $150,000 RISE three grant to create a roadmap for family partnership and to develop a voice visit program which is kind of like a home visit program but I really like the terminology voice visit better because I feel like there's like a negative connotation to home visits. So, we're going to create this um voice visit program to help us gain a thorough understanding of our family's strengths, hopes, dreams, and needs. After our roadmap is developed, we will work closely with the other four school district members as well as the

147excellent partner organizations um to make sure that we're on track to meet our year two and year three goals. this homework. Okay. So, I'm Estrea. I'm the culturally and linguistically diverse education family coordinator. Um, and so the road map that we will be working on starting March through May will build a foundation for family partnership. Uh, we will be conducting voice visits during the summer to learn from our families what their needs are and the supports that are available in our district and community. Uh knowing uh what our families need will give us the data that we need to build a family toolkit that will outline all the resources and services that we as a district offer and that we are lacking. Can we answer any questions? Thank you. I have a quick question. Um

148is there a parent on the steering committee for the website? Okay, I missed that. As a parent trying to navigate our website, I feel confounded a lot of the so glad about this endeavor. What did you say? Yeah. Um I also I have a question about this is just so minor about the name of voice visit. I wonder how people when they hear that I wonder what they think because I wonder um you know a few things. This is so specific but you know for folks who [Music] maybe can't speak it feels a little abbleist but just no just to note that but I also wonder if people who um speak different languages if they if that reads as though there's some expect you know I just wonder what that means to people who it

149doesn't seem very descriptive to me and it doesn't explain what it is that that that means in a simple way that if there's a language barrier or anything like that that it would overcome that. So um that's a great point and that's and we we have not decided to call it voice visits. I think that's was a recommendation coming from some of the organizations that have used it um because they they did some community engagement and learned that um home visit is typically I totally agree with that. Yeah, I totally know where you're coming from with that one, but it it seems to me that we could come up with something that that's still better described what it is we're doing than voice visit. We absolutely can. You bet. Well, even just like face to

150face or like a welcome visit. Yeah. You're It means you're I know what you're trying to say is that it's not just going to be a virtual visit, right? It's actually that you want to visit in their home. So, yeah. And we're going to invest. We're going to try to have parents um alongside educators involved in the process and and really do some training and make sure that we are doing this the right way. Yeah. Yeah. Great. No, that's great. I love it and I love that you're doing it doing it. I'm sorry that we had to. That was good, but we need your feedback. Absolutely. I also just really quickly just for my own clarification I don't have the slide but for your there were five um outcomes of the audit was that hierarchical

151or were those just like randomly numbered because you said at some point you said that like oh the community the parent conversation was was found to be a high priority. Can you walk me through the priorities? Sure. So within the National School of Public Relations Association, they actually gauge school districts communication departments and those are their five um rubric. That's their kind of what they grade the communications department under those five sections. So within that last section which was parent and family communications through our audit that we did which was not related to NSPRA that was one of the top findings within our audit was to make sure that we were um addressing that demographic gap that we have in our communications. And so our audit broke down some of the top priorities which were

152you know crisis communication. what we outlined in our communications plan were the five top priorities that were outlined in the strategic communications plan. Does that make sense? That does make sense. And so, so that came back as one of our highest priorities is is engaging communicating with families who speak a different language. Yes. Yeah. So, the welcome toolkit would be available in both English and Spanish at schools to kind of serve that demographic gap that we have. Um, but we could also make it available in some of the other languages that are spoken throughout the district. It's just it would start with those two languages. Great. That feels like a really important um identified need that we're building the capacity to address that. But currently, right right now, it was identified as a need. That's

153a real place for growth for us. That's a that's great out to understand. Can you remind me moving forward um what after you have this communication and connection, are we then going to continue to work with some of our other families that maybe are a little harder to reach so we have a good connection with them as well or what what's kind of the the plan there? Like I'm I'm sure this is probably our first big gap, right? is to getting to those who don't primarily speak English, but are you guys are identifying other areas where we have gaps of connecting with families? Yeah, you know, I'm really excited about the opportunity we get to participate in this 5-year program because it's a it's a um the organization that is coming in to lead the

154work is working in conjunction with the Department of Education and the Colorado Education Initiative. and you know they come with some some real expertise, but we are going to really build some infrastructure um with goals and objectives um that we're going to, you know, we're going to make sure that we meet. Um and it's going to be fun to be able to work with other districts across the state that are doing the same work. Um we schedule convenings and get together um throughout the year to to learn more about from each other. We're doing a whole co-creating model. It's really fun. Um, our next one is actually we're hosting it here in Grand Junction in May. So, um, it it's really going to be great. It'll it'll help our multilingual families. It'll help all of

155our families. And really, the idea is that we we really make family partnership. Um, like I said in the intro, it really has to be a key ingredient if we're going to re reach those goals in our strategic land plan. We need to be able to support our staff because um I don't don't think historically we've done a excellent job um supporting staff, figuring out how to work with families. Um you know there there's going to be a lot of recommendations that come out of it, but um it's exciting work and we're definitely going to focus on supporting all families. Well, and isn't one of the organizations tied to that? It's the national parent teacher um organization. So there's there's a lot of partners that are a part a part of this and that's um

156Tracy mentioned that roadmap or maybe it was Australia that mentioned it. Um the road map is a lot of it is it's almost like a strategic plan but for family partnerships. So I think there will be a lot of pieces that get pulled in on how do you partner with families in general. Um but because of the strategic plan goal around reaching families who speak a different language in English that's why there's such a emphasis on in this presentation but it'll be a larger roadmap. Yeah. No, I I think that's one of our first biggest gaps is we've got to connect with our families um you know that do not speak English primarily, but I also think of maybe some of the socioeconomic challenges we have with other families where we need to try to

157work and connect with them and help them and you know and then it kind of so on and so forth. So um no, I think this is is great work. I think having the families involved only helps the student and it definitely helps our our staff and our teachers and just gets everybody engaged and on the same page moving forward. I think that's excellent. And just to clarify too, the voice visits, home visits, you know, we haven't whatever we decide it's for, you know, right? It will be for all of our families. So, it's not just our multilingual families, it's all of our families. So, that's our focus is the district in general, all the families that we serve. Wonderful. Thank you. Just go ahead. Go ahead, Carrie. No. Okay. I was just Yeah. I

158was just gonna say I just I just realized what I I always need processes to understand like to to make sure that my that I'm doing what I need to be doing. And I was just thinking that this I feel like this relates back to what I was wondering about your um part of the strategic plan in terms of like there's an audit, right? They didn't like this is much more developed than community partnership, right? There's science behind this. There's groups that have done it. There's all this organization. What you guys are doing is so innovative with community partnerships. And I wonder if there's any lessons learned in terms of like conducting an audit and coming up with a roadmap and a strategic plan to, you know, borrowing from other fields. I don't want to

159tell you how to do your thing, but I was just um trying to figure out what my how to think about identifying gaps. And as they're saying like this is how we're going to identify gaps. I wonder if there's any crossover between those. I really like and appreciate the process. Well, and the and unless you're going to talk about the road map, but the my understanding is a road map. We're actually going to be utilizing an outside partner that's done this in other districts to come in and help co-create that with us. So, I just wanted to say real quickly, they are um humbly professional and I absolutely admire the two of these. And you talk about the partnerships that they have and the the opportunities that they're creating for our families. Neither one of

160them spoke about the fact that they just presented the very first class for our adults, for our for our family members, for our parents to come in and learn English as well. and they are now in the process of also setting up classes for our teachers and adults that are English speak speakers to come in and learn Spanish just to continue to bridge those gaps with our families and they don't talk about some of the things that they do. But that is a huge thing to be one of the school districts to be able to provide classes for our for our parents to come in and learn English that are so excited to be able to have that opportunity and I think that's remarkable. Thanks Carrie. you know, our goal is to be the best

161um have the the model um family partnership program in the state. And so, uh I think we have the capability to do it. We have the I hope I gather that we have the community support and we have the leadership to do it. And so, I'm excited about the work. So, I'll just unless there's other questions. Um, so one, I know we joke about the website a lot as I do too, but Carrie does a really good job with taking a tool um, that maybe isn't the greatest tool and doing the best we can with it. So I do appreciate the comm's team for that. Um, and I just want to mention again thanking the folks that came from outside the district tonight. Um, but also thanks to Tracy for spearheading this focus area um,

162team. So appreciate that. Um, and I just want to point out as I'm listening to this, like this is not normal, I would say, for districts. Um, not to say that there aren't other districts that take a strategic plan and actually put it into action, but a lot of times they live on shelves and we don't do anything with it. So um, so I would say this is not normal. I also just want to um, thank the board for the support that they're providing us in this and giving us a little grace as we figure out how to take a strategic plan strategic plan, actually operationalize it. um knowing that we're going to have to change some things along the way and make adjustments. Um and then just back to Alex's model that he showed

163us that one time. Remember, we're beginning of the year we're in inputs. Right now, we're in outputs and then when the groups come back at the end of the year, we'll talk more about outcomes, but I think you're seeing some of the groups are already hitting some of those outcomes uh at this point in the year. So, and it is a three-year strategic plan, but I think a lot of great work's gone into it already. So, I appreciate everybody who's been working on this. Yes. Well done. So, that concludes our presentation this evening. We thank you for your engagement and excellent questions for us to consider as we continue to work on implementing the strategic plan. We hope that you're as excited as we are about the progress we've made so far. We know that

164there's a long way to go um to create the necessary trust and confidence with our community and family partners so they feel encouraged and empowered to invest their time, energy, and passion into supporting our learners. But I feel confident that the dedicated individuals on our implementation teams are committed to accomplishing this challenge and I'm proud of the work that they put in so far. Thanks. Well done. Thank you. And thank you all for staying and for your time this evening. We really appreciate appreciate that. Good job, Tracy. You're leading a good team. I'm lucky. Alrighty. Uh next up we have Mesa Valley Community School Application Review. I'm going to grab some water real quick while they come up. Red on. She has the little thing in her and then you don't have to flip it

165around. You don't have to. It just makes it so much easier. Alrighty, take it away. Hello again. And lucky you. I get I I'm here for the next one, too. I'm here all night. Yeah, you're here all night. Oh, perfect. Oh, good. All right. She like has a book with a binding on it of all the presentations. She really is here all night long tonight. Jen's just really organized. I try. Yes, I try. Thank you, Cassie, if you're looking or watching. All right, Dan, take it away. All right. Well, um, we're here again and and as many groups have come in, uh, tonight, they've handed you some tasks that you are responsible for working on. And unfortunately, we are going to hand you a task tonight, too. So, you have more to work on in

166the next couple weeks. So, anyways, we've done a lot of the work. A lot we have. We have and hopefully we've done it thorough enough job um with these two reviews actually that it will make it much easier on you over the next couple weeks. So, um I just want to thank all of you for the opportunity to share uh the new application review for Mesa Valley Community School and the renewal process for Independence Academy Charter School. Um really just to quickly explain the reasoning behind the new application request for Mesa Valley Community School. Um as you guys know, Mesa Valley Community School has been a part of our community and has been a district charter since 2014, but their history goes even farther into the the 2000s when um they were a contract school

167or contract program. So they've been around for quite a while. Um we we did uh require them this year instead of going through the renewal process to go through a new application process. Um as many of you remember uh last spring CDE had reached out and had really um come in and taken a look at how uh Mesa Valley Community School was programming in their current charter and they deemed um their K5 program uh was not going to be allowable as it was structured at the time. So, some significant changes had to be made. Um, they've gone through really quite a bit over this last year. Uh, and then to be able to come forward as they have uh with their new application and and that was part of why we asked for a new

168application. We knew if we went through a renewal that that we weren't going to or possibly couldn't see all the pieces to the new restructuring of of their plan. So, um, we're here tonight to present that restructure, uh, as they presented to us. And then really, uh, the difference between a new application and a renewal. Um, we have been lucky enough this year to get a brand new application in the fall and go through obviously this new application with Mesa Valley Community School and, uh, a renewal with Independence Academy at the same time. So, um, hang on to your seats. We've got lots of good stuff for you. and we're going to go ahead and start uh as a two-part with Mesa Valley Community School application and then we'll move into the data regarding uh

169Independence Academy. So, um as you can see, our outcome tonight really is to present you, the board, uh the timeline of the review process as we started um turn over all the review materials, the data, the rubrics, and the findings from our review and to answer any questions in order to help you make that decision here in the next couple weeks. Um the next slide really shows you the timeline. really we did follow this timeline for both uh charter schools but this one in uh particular is Mesa Valley Community School because it was a new application. Um so both schools uh were required to turn their uh intent to apply uh on December 1st or by December 1st. Um so both uh in particular Mesa Valley Community School and Independence Academy turn their charters in

170or their intent to apply on time. Uh so in December uh they turn in the new applications. Uh the application was distributed to all the board members. If you remember, you all got those nice thick uh binders uh to review uh at your leisure. And so you've been doing that uh since the December 1st application turnin. Uh the admin team and if you remember the admin team is made up of senior leaders uh within the school district uh started to do their sectional review of the criteria rubric in December. uh we move into January and the admin team continued rem uh reviewing the application. Uh this is where district accountability, if you remember on our fall uh review, the district accountability committee plays a part in that and they started their review on their preferred

171sectional areas. Um that process uh back in January went very well. um a team of folks on district accountability that had gone through it once before and it really the efficiency of that team and how they dove into that work uh really was impressive. We were able to turn that around uh in one session and not two sessions of DAC as we did earlier this fall. Um uh once again in a new application we go through what's called a capacity interview in which uh you guys have the transcripts of that capacity interview, the video, the questions. And so we were able to as an admin team sit and ask some pretty poignant questions to Mesa Valley Community School uh and their members. And then uh something that was a little bit different, we conducted two

172site visits, one at each school during this time. And so members of our admin team, some had never been into uh our charter schools or at least Independence Academy and Mesa Valley Community. And so that was a pretty enlightening experience for our members uh to be able to go in look at building structure programming and also to be able to ask questions of of staff and students and and also those principles. So uh we moved into February uh where we're at right now. um we have had in the last two weeks uh are required uh by policy our board of education community me uh which just happened uh about a week ago. We had one last Wednesday here. Um and then we also had a community coffee and fruda at Shel on Saturday morning. So

173uh we've gone through that piece of the process. Um the admin team has completed their review of not just Mesa Valley Community School, but we've also completed the review uh with Independence Academy. Um the Mesa Valley Community School application review and materials uh presented to the board tonight. And then you have full access and we'll have and continue to have full access to all those materials and all the data that that we've turned over uh to you after tonight. Um and then of course you'll make your final decision here in two weeks. Um, but you have that opportunity along that two weeks to reach out to the admin team for questions. You also have the ability to reach out to those individual schools if you have questions as well. Okay. All right. Uh, the rubric,

174the criteria rubric, once again, we're using a rubric to um to score that is a collaborative uh rubric put together by uh the Colorado Charter School Institute, the Colorado League of Charter Schools, and CDE. So it it is a real best practiced uh aligned rubric and that is why we've adopted that and and we've used it in now all three of our reviews this year. Uh you can see the criteria rubric as stated really we are shooting um as as a district. Obviously we'd love to see our applications come in that are completely fully developed and all their ratings show at a developed mark. But you can see uh that's a pretty high bar and mostly developed is really kind of where we shoot for, right? it's at if we can get in the mostly

175developed area within those reviews, then we're in a pretty good spot. Um, and then we've got partially developed and then not developed. Okay. Um, so let me just jump into our district accountability committee as they reviewed uh Mesa Valley Community School. Uh, these are the areas of the rubric or the application that they review. Um, which is exactly the areas that they had jumped into in an earlier review. So each pairing and how we grouped ourselves in the DAC uh review really uh they were real familiar with that process. They were familiar with the section that they were going to review and I believe that's what helped in the efficiency of this particular review. Okay. So here are the results of of the DAC review ratings. Um so evidence of support uh they rated this

176at fully developed. And if you remember, this is Mesa Valley Community School, uh, a program that's been in existence for a while. So, I think that played a lot into it, knowing that at least the 612 model has been very successful, and here's the addition of a new restructured K5 model. The enrollment policy was solid, got a fully developed rating. Parent and community engagement was high at a mostly developed. Uh, their waiver process fully developed, uh, discipline expulsion suspension, uh, mostly developed, and their dispute resolution process was fully developed. So, uh, overall the DAC reviews were very high. Uh, the admin team, uh, reviewed and and as you remember, the admin team goes a little bit deeper into some of those heavyhitter parts of the application, really, uh, what are called the deal breakers by

177the state of Colorado. And so, these areas really have to have a fine tooth comb gone through. And so, uh, the members of our senior leadership that are on the admin team really share the workload within their departments sometimes. So they can they can share the parts of the application to multiple people within their department to do the review. So these are the key areas the real heavy hitter uh areas on the Mesa Valley Community School review. And here comes the results from that in our next slide. So you can see uh as we reviewed educational programs uh pupil performance we've got mostly developed around programming. We've got fully developed in the pupil performance uh serving students with special needs mostly developed. governance fully developed. Uh the employee section uh mostly developed evidence of support.

178They have a a huge number of uh supports out in the community. Um and they have waiting lists to get into their program. So they are a really a fully developed and have a ton of evidence of support. Budget and finance is is really good. Um um Mel went through that obviously as she does with a fine tooth comb and and to pull a fully developed rating out of that um means you've really got your your ships in order, right? So, uh facilities and and operations. Yeah. Yeah. Uh facilities act together. Yeah. Well, uh facilities and operations. Hey, it's been it's been a hot been a long night, right? All right. Facilitations and operations. Clint and his team did the review there. Fully developed school management contracts fully developed. So overall between DAC and the

179admin team, you can see um some pretty good data and some pretty good developed programming uh coming out of Mesa Valley Community School. Okay. So any questions in regarding um this new application process with Mesa Valley Community School? And we can answer those now and then we'll jump into the renewal of Independence Academy. Um so thank you for doing that. Um those the the ratings for both the DAC and from admin are those before or after the interviews? So the DAC uh the DAC did their review prior to the capacity interview. So they were about a week ahead. Okay. Um so we were able to obviously develop questions and if you remember and I'll I'll refresh you. um uh any questions that come out of the review um can land on or out of the

180rubric can land on the capacity interview. So we actually did and were able to pull questions from the DAC review part of it and put it into the capacity interview. So I know two for sure made it out of they didn't have a lot of concerning questions or questions that came out of DAC but we did have a couple that landed in the capacity interview and then of course uh as an admin team we we go through and if there are are more things that we need or some clarifiers that's that really makes up the basis of the capacity interview and so I would say with the admin team um I had questions before that I was prepared to ask at the capacity interview and then when we did the tour um I asked some

181of the questions there. I actually let them know here are some of the things that I need to know more about. So when you look at the video um one of the things I really wanted them to articulate during the capacity interview is what was the difference between now and then with programming and they were able and I said so be prepared because we I wanted a a thoughtful response and ensuring I read it um in the the manual or the book or the application that they gave us but we wanted to hear them articulate it. So, I would say um my I didn't give them all the questions obviously for the capacity interview, but I my my responses definitely change the um the more we had the opportunity to engage with them. And does

182the rating that we can see reflect before or after the interview? After. After. Okay. And then in when you did the um walk around with them, was there anything in there that you learned that wasn't captured in the interview? You know, like would we miss anything? Does that make sense? Um I really tried. We might want to ask Mel, but I don't know if she would have if there were any additional information that she asked. I really wanted to make sure if there was anything that I didn't see or didn't read. I I did ask them during that. I don't think there was anything. I just want to make sure we explicit or transparent or obvious. Yeah. I just want to make sure that that like there's not something that you asked the question. I've

183got the answer of feel great about, but then we don't get to see that, you know. No. Okay, great. So, it sounds minor. No, nothing. Mel says no. Mel says no. Yeah. You know, when it comes to the money, when you have your ships in order, it's really important. Yeah. Thank you. I would just say when I'm glad you He's the admiral. I'm glad you guys did the walkthrough. I love that. I would I would just make sure that on the walkthrough there's no like anything you guys learn in the walkthrough we gets captured somewhere. Sure. Just for sure. There were some definite special education questions and Tammy and I walked through together and so just for clarity there were it was written in their application but we got to then see the actual the

184classrooms and then what does that continuum of services look like and that really is the point of the walkthroughs. Um it is a part of a review process that really should happen every year as we go in. um even on a five-year contract with a charter school or a three-year contract, there should be and will from this point forward, we will take we will take part in those site visits where um not only the admin team, but any of you that would like to go along just to see does programming does the facilities does does the school that we see on paper line up with what we see in person? I I think I garnered a lot obviously. Um, but I think Clint really as a facilities manager and as someone who needs to know

185construction projects and needs to know how things have been expanded over the years within both these two schools, Clint was able to really get a good idea and he asked a lot of questions just about, you know, safety and and code and and all those things because uh right now Mesa Valley Community School is still in some remodeling because they're they're having to with with the restructure of programming, they've had to change some of their physical structures within in uh their building. So, um as authorizers, we have access, you have access to these district charters anytime that you would like to go in and take a look. So, I think that's something that I know all three of our charter schools are really starting to find an interest in is we are uh we're more

186visible and we're around and and um and we're more thorough obviously in in what we're doing and how we're we're going through this process. Can I ask two two more really quick questions? one. I think that's a good idea. I feel like a board member should be just even if it's one board member should be on those tours, but just put that in my to-do list for later. And then did Tim, as we're talking about safety and building safety, did Tim Leon go on any of the go on that? No, but those are the questions that um Clint definitely asked. So, okay. And I actually in the capacity interview I I I know that's been something that you guys have asked for in the past three or four months is are our district charter schools

187participating with safety and security? Our safety security team are they participating fully? So that was a question you'll hear in the capacity interview that was not a question that was on it. But I just I thought it would be good for you and the community here that Mesa Valley Community School has always and will continue to partner with our district safety and security team and they will participate in all the drills. They participate in in all facets just like any of other schools do and they're pretty proud of that partnership uh that they have with us. So great. Thanks. Is that was that it? I'm just encouraged to hear that um from the district level that we're I'm I mean so to speak that we're kind of stepping up to uphold our end of the

188bargain with charter schools and I think getting in and looking at those buildings will only help us get out in front of um situations or or just give more help to our charters and so I think Dan I love hearing your plan moving forward with our charters. So I've actually visited all of them. I mean, obviously I'm in Mesa Valley already, so um but that one, yeah, I think it's a great idea for us to just go in and review and and let them know that we're there to help support them and partner with them, too. So, Okay. Well done. But also just specifically during the the the renewal tour. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And as we grow into and and I had mentioned I think back in the fall, we do have some work to

189do on our charter school policy and regulation. So, there's some redline work to be done on it here this spring, but now that we're through these renewals and reviews, I think that's the work that's ahead of us. But I think absolutely as we grow into those site visits, it would be great to have one of you or a couple of you along uh each and every time that we go in just to to see because they do they are ours and they do belong to us and and um it would be good for them. feedback is always good and they are I think they were craving a lot of feedback like oftentimes when you don't get feedback you don't know you kind of flounder a little bit and and they and right now they've all

190been really open to the feedback we've been able to get it helps us to do those tours with you guys I mean we we've gone out and and visited a lot of the schools but we're not looking for the same things that you guys know to look for so I think it would be pretty enlightening to be able to right along with that and start to identify and see the things that you see. Absolutely. Okay, we're going to uh this should go a little bit quicker just because it was a a renewal of Independence Charter Academy Charter School. Um board policy and regulation um LBDR states the renewal application must contain at a minimum a complete report on the progress of the school in achieving the goals, objectives, student performance standards, content standards, and other

191terms of the initial application. It also must include a financial statement that discloses the cost of operation of the charter school. We as a district authorizer have the ability to ask for more additional information needed regarding the application review. We did ask for more information and detail regarding students with special needs and educational programming. So in regulation, there are certain things at a minimum that we have to ask during the renewal. It's not as robust as an initial application. And I think um you'll see that as we go through the ratings, there's not as much there, but we still we use the same rubric and we go in um and and we try to review each and every section just as we would as a new application. Uh once again we use the same criteria

192rubric. Um at this point DAC is is not a part of a renewal. It's not part of uh our regulation to have DAC involved. Um so it's just the admin review team. And so as I mentioned uh the regulation states and so we looked at educational programs which was an ad that was something that we felt like we needed to look a little deeper into as Jen was going through the pupil performance section. And then serving students with special needs. That will always be an area that we will need to continue to robustly go in and look at because it's it's such a multiaceted area with with students with special in our special population areas. So we've got to make sure there's a lot of legal pieces that go with that and legality and and

193so we want to make sure we're in good standing there. Uh we look at governance, we look at legal contractual compliance, and we look at financial performance. Okay. So, as you can see here, uh here are their rubric ratings that that we were able to um go through and and find educational programs mostly developed uh evaluating pupil performance mostly developed uh serving students with special needs. We had we had some questions. Uh we had to go back uh for some clarifications over the last few days just to make sure that we are fully uh matching up with what is stated in a contract and in a negotiation around that. making sure that the services and and the legal obligations are being met there. So, um that was one that was scrutinized heavily by our team,

194but it's important that we do that, but it ended up being mostly developed. Governance fully developed, legal and contractual compliance mostly developed and financial performance mostly developed. So, uh Independence Academy, um as we handed over to you, uh favored well in their ratings as well. So, any questions around Independence Academy? So with these mostly developed uh areas, do they come up with a plan to get them back to fully developed or how do how do you hear about it? You know, if we if you remember, mostly developed was green. That's at a minimum of where we want. I would definitely say um specifically with serving students with special needs and the educational programs. Um I think that we had some healthy conversation going on and I would expect um fully developed within they soon. Yes.

195But they definitely have with the FA feedback that they have now received they most certainly can move forward and making um some adjustments or ensuring they're meeting when it comes to students with special needs ensuring that they're meeting those legal obligations. So, Jen, do we look at that more frequently or just wait until they're up for renewal before we look at those things? I think that's that's part of some change that we're we're kind of enacting now. And that is it. In statute, we are to go in and really um check on performance, check on those things on a yearly basis, not on a full review basis, but but not just wait three to five years before you are checking on some of these things. So, I think that's that's certainly a change in in

196some of our process and structure that we're doing now. Um, like I said, it's welcome. So, we'll be able to go in if we had concerns that were mostly developed right now, we can certainly work together side by side, try to support them to a point where we feel like and and we as authorizers get the ability to set that bar to say, "Hey, we need you there in one year. We need you there in two years. We want when you come back for renewal, we want to make sure that we're we're at a higher level." um than we were. It just seems that with a uh we're this school's been around for a while um that mostly developed to have so many things that are just mostly developed and only one that's fully developed

197seems a little bit odd to me and I know that that's that's a minimum requirement. Yeah. And I care a little bit why mostly developed with serving students with special needs. There are let's say there are five categories. So it's not just our students on IEPs. It's 504s, our our students, English language learners, homeless, um, economically diff disadvantaged. They didn't they don't have um, and this is why it'd be mostly developed. They don't have students identified as ELLL, so they don't have a full plan. However, they would they said, while we don't have any, if we would, this is what we would do. And of course, we would always consult with the school district. So that's why they were not I did not feel comfortable in giving them mostly developed when they would have some

198that would were just partially developed because they don't have necessarily those students that they need to serve at that. That particular section makes complete sense like educational programs or evaluating pupil performance. Those seem like those could be so evaluating pupil performance. They don't have high um not all of their they have a high number of optouts for their testing. And so, how do you really fully evaluate your pupil performance if you don't have full participation? But they have a plan. They have a plan on how they're trying to um encourage and promote testing. Okay, good. Thank you. And I don't know if this clears that up a little bit more. Yeah. So, so when you leave and and you've gone over this with them, do so you identify those areas of concern or somewhat of

199concern and then they they're going to submit a plan on how they're dealing with that, right? They submit a plan for further explanation. Yeah. You make them aware of why you can't Yes. why they wouldn't go full fully developed. Correct. they say, "Well, we've got this in place just so so currently they haven't seen they haven't seen the results of the rubrics yet until tonight. This is the first time that either school has been able to see what we rated them as we pass that on to you. They will get they will get the full rubrics with all the explanations within strengths, concerns, questions. They'll get access to that. But at that's after you guys have made your final decision, you know, in a couple weeks. So, if there's areas of concern, it's stated in

200there. And then obviously as a facilitator between or the go between really between the charters and the district, I'll be able to sit down with them and we can do some one-on-one feedback meetings, too. Um, just remember, and I I explained this Saturday at the coffee. Um, charters are important. District charters are important for us because it's another option for our families. These are schools that choose to do the how differently than we in district 51 do the how, right? But they still have to meet the same standards. So how they get there is completely up to them. But they are held to the same standards. Um the same ratings, the school performance frameworks, all that and their performance is is no different than than anybody or any school in Colorado. It's the how, right?

201And that's what makes a charter an option for families in the in the particular delivery of their materials. So sometimes that the programming when we look at programming yeah it's very different than what we traditionally look at in programming but we also want to make sure that there's the state puts out guidance on selected programs like that and our and I just got a reminder from one of our staff members that's watching from home I guess just a reminder that charters are part of our district performance framework as well. So, we have to make sure that they're performing well because if they're not, they they ding us as a district just like any other of our traditional public schools would do. As well, can I ask Dan, did you say that um they don't get

202to see the detailed rubric until after we make a decision? So, so the feedback that that our team has put together, now obviously if there's questions that come up between now and the final decision, we're going to reach out to them or we're going to ask them questions if we need more information. But as far as the overall feedback of the application, that does not that's not part of what they receive until, you know, after, you know, a resolution's been made either to accept or to deny. But I would think they have some pretty good idea of where when we are asking follow-up questions where they will probably land. I wonder so can you just walk me through why we decided that timeline because as I'm thinking about it I mean I know this is

203our internal process but as I'm thinking about it you know if I have a question you know like these exact questions right that just happened um would it be beneficial for us in making decisions to have them have access to all the information so they can say okay here's what we're doing about these things instead of us having to reach out and be like, "What are you doing about this? What are you doing about this? What are you doing about this? What are you doing about this?" I I would say that's that's really the role of what we do and and how we run that process. Obviously, um you have access you will have access to the full rubric, not just the the the summary of the rubric, but you will have full access to

204the questions that we ask. I think I think that's what you do. You entrust us to develop the questions or if we have concerns, go back try to find try to to to to find answers that that that will suffice what we're looking for and put a body of evidence forward for you to be able to go, hey, this, you know, as I go through the rubric or, you know, Doug looks at the rubric or any of you look at that rubric, you should be able to glean, you know, how how did things end up the way they they did at this point. Um, we're providing feedback. excuse me, on a regular basis throughout this whole process. Right? So, um they are getting, you know, if we reach out for more or there's a specific

205question that comes up and we need it, um we're we're able to open that line of communication and say that is an area that that we just need more of it, we get real specific about it and if it comes in at satisfactory, um then then that's where we go to that rubric and say, "Yep, they've met that and and here's the particular rating for it." So, um, I feel like and and obviously you guys, this is a we're growing into this process and and we're learning more each and every time we do it. Um, we can certainly look at what that feedback cycle looks like and and how it fits in and when it fits in because it sounds like that that might be a piece. And if there's a specific thing that a

206board member has a question about and is a concern and you don't feel like you can make a decision until you have it, then definitely we want to know that so we can go back and and touch base with the school about it. We want to make sure you have everything you need to make the decision. Yeah, I understand that. Thank you. I that's that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying I wonder if it makes more sense if these are all, you know, this is not about either of these specific schools. This is just our Yeah. So, if if we're saying, okay, well, these are not fully developed things, would it not make sense to to hand that back to them and say, these are all the things that aren't fully developed. What are

207what are you doing about all of these things? So, instead of just saying like, I have this question, I have this question, I have this question. would it make sense to say like here are all of the things that are not fully developed and what's your response to all of them? I I would say this um and we just started it in the fall. We're really designing the application process around the rubric so they have the rubric up front and they designed the application to follow lock step the the success criteria rubric. Um I I agree with you in in that it would be good to to go back with and I think that's certainly um what we try to do leading up to tonight is we try to you know push and push on

208that success criteria rubric to say and and I would say this we you know the green at mostly develop is acceptable at this point. I think down the road if it's not going to be acceptable then that's something that we can certainly you know move forward with to say it will take mostly developed you know in these particular areas of the rubric with you know mostly developed in these particular areas we can certainly we can certainly do that um I just feel like we do we do reach out and really pull apart if we need to pull apart if something's missing we we try in our questions to push them into that mostly developed or fully developed area, right? So, and I want to acknowledge Dan, I'm up here truly as that support. I'm certainly

209was a member on the the the admin team just like so many other people that are on the senior leadership. Um, but what Dan has done with this process, this is not their first renewal or application, but it's really the first time they've gone through a process like this. And because of this, because he's been so thoughtful, ensuring that we've got our our DAC input, um ensuring that we're using the rubric that the the state um that collaboration that's new to them as well. So, I think at the next renewal, they will be able to answer. They know what we're going to ask. they're being going to be more prepared and hopefully won't have to do the the back and forth like we've had to do. But and we're going to have to change some

210board policy now now that we've gone through and have really lived the renewal and that application the renewal application process and the initial application process. It was really interesting going through um Independence Academy because it was a it was a um a renewal but Mesa Valley was an initial but they had already p right so that you they were kind of a hybrid. It's new but they're not new. So we Wildflower was brand new. They hadn't been in here. They didn't have um data to look at. It merely was when you're evaluating people performance, we had to take what they said on a page. Yet, Independence Academy and Mesa um community, we could look and see they had data. I wonder if after we um approve reapprove approve a school, I wonder if it'd be

211worth having a little um interview with them about, you know, what about this process worked? What would I streamline Mesa Valley? I believe Mesa Valley's here. Yeah, might be nodding right now. Um, but I think that might be really important feedback as we're, you know, as we're all learning together. I'd be curious what would have helped you, you know, be more prepared or be able to answer or just streamline it. You know, I I I think the process is is I'm so impressed with what you guys have put together and how you've um done this and I know we can keep improving it and I I wonder what those ways are. Yeah, I would like feedback before reviewing or redoing board policy because I I want it to be mutually beneficial for the district and

212for charters coming in. Um I'm just really encouraged to hear that we're going to be checking in more often because I think we can then um run interference on schools that might be um dropping, you know, towards turnaround um because obviously we know that when charters have to go through turnaround, it's different than our other schools. And so I think if we can be their support and help them um through that process that's um I think this just makes us a better partner with them as well. And again like it says it all it all comes back on the review of the district too um because they are our schools. So well done. You guys have done a lot of really good work. And so yeah maybe if you can figure out a way to

213get some feedback after this process from Independence and Mesa Valley. And I know Mesa Valley is a fluke because they were an established school, but their charter changed enough that we had to have them do a reapplication process. I don't know if we'll ever see that again. I mean, maybe, but it's been a good process to learn through. Um, and and a new it was still a new application process. So, I yeah, even though it's a wild situation, it's a unique situation. um just because they offer such a unique service. Um I think we can still get the new application feedback from Absolutely. Yeah. And and we never know. I mean, if the state changes something that eventually could change a charter, another charter as well with their programming or you know, so not to

214say it would never happen again. Um but it I think it's been a good learning process. So well done. Thank you guys. This is great. Thank you. Thank you. Oh no, I'm staying. I think Jen, you stay up here. You never get to. Yes. Up next, we have the K12 early release update. I'm glad that um I do. My ships are fading. I'm glad we started at 5, right? It would be 9 if we We were here at 4. 6. You guys were here at 4. Thank you all for coming and staying. We appreciate your participation. I know Mesa Valley's in the back. So, which I guess I also probably should let the public know I have to recuse myself from the vote on Mesa Valley because my daughter attends school there. I can obviously

215vote on the renewal for independence and I'll make that reminder again um in two weeks. So, and I have not attended any of the DAC meetings or been influencing in any way. Although I do love the school and you all do need to go if you haven't had the opportunity to visit each one of those. Um and I will tell you Dr. Hill has been to each one of them and they um were very um they they love it was it's good attention. They love the attention that they have been receiving um this year from the district from Dan supporting them as a site director, Dr. Hill, other board members going out and visiting them. And then we went out as a team to to visit each one of the sites. It was great. It

216was really good. Okay, it's not the last, but we're getting member zoning out. He said, he said just keep going. The timer didn't apply to the other group. I just feel a little I don't think the timer applied to anybody tonight. So, so why start with medbed? All right. Um, we were with you guys about two meetings ago, a couple weeks, four weeks ago, and talking about that concept of early release. At our last meeting, we said that we needed to get some additional data. We have gathered that data and we're going to share that data with you. So much of the the front just real quick a reminder of why or that rationale and urgency for that 612 early release that deeper ongoing focus on student academic and social emotional success especially in our

217achievement gap groups um staff ongoing and in-depth collaboration providing that opportunity for time during the school day for our those teams to ensure that we're meeting the needs of all students of course but um certainly looking at our our struggling ling or striving students that opportunity for robust learning opportunities and business and community connections which you heard a lot about this um I was going to say this afternoon this evening with our focus area number three how can we bolster those um during during the day and our most viable way to ensure that MTSS our um multi-tered supports um is actually happening throughout and during um throughout the week and during throughout the year and during during the the during the day. So, we just wanted to remind you real quick, I don't think this

218is something that we talked about. What is MTSS and what are the components or we call them the pillars of MTSS and these are the five pillars um as defined by CDE and this is what our MTSS group focuses on. So that time to ensure that team shared um uh driven shared leadership that family and school and community partnerships, database problem solving and decision-m comprehensive screening and assessment and the layered um continuum of supports. Again, we begin with the end in mind, our um D51 graduate profile and our strategic areas that of course we would want to focus focus on during that time. Um let's get why don't you want you want to start you want to talk about the musthaves because I know you've you've we've really been focusing on this. So we uh

219we met with our leaders about two weeks ago. I don't know if that one's working. Uh about two weeks ago and just reiterated the must haves which are this is not in place of the learning community work that's already underway. Um some of those groups especially singletons can't have that in absence of this time. Uh we need to have an explicit focus on those multi-tered systems of support. So that's kind of what's tight. Um we are going to really let control of this to each school to design it, but it's what we would call defined autonomy. So we've got to have MTSS in that. Um if there is learning community time, it's outcomes based and guided and that we have a recurring cadence so we can get really good at something. This shouldn't change and

220hey have this week off and let's try something new each time. We want to really get good at focusing in on those kids that aren't being successful or extending the kids that are. And so next slide, here are the action steps we took with leaders. Uh primarily we sent out a survey to engage our community. We'll look at those results briefly. We got our leaders feedback on that because many of them had already talked with their school accountability committees. We did a a prep time for them to prepare to engage their school accountability committees to talk about the full plan. And then we started to have leaders say, "How close are you to your early release?" There was a decision made that gifted and talented and our multilingual learners, we do need to pull them.

221It was about half the leaders saying they wanted people pulled, half said they wanted them uh at their site, but we did make a decision that one time per month we would pull GT teachers across the district sound like a first Friday. Um as the same with multilingual and that's because they're shared across schools. Okay. And we also began conversations with operations um primarily transportation uh working with Clint and his team and then athletics as well when Paul came. So the survey that went out uh we had pretty strong response rate in 8 days. We got a 100 1,115 responses. Um there was an FAQ in there that gave a pretty decent rationale. It was over a page long. Kind of gave our explanation what we're going to do and especially how we're not going

222to waste this time. I think that was a theme. We'll look at themes here. Uh, and so the next slide, let's see the results. Pretty even distribution across grade levels. 12th grade was the least. That makes sense. They're kind of on their way out. Um, but representation across schools was also pretty balanced as well. 68% responded favorably at a four or a five, which was to what degree do you support early release, staff professional learning, and student support collaboration? And that was strongly support or support. Three is kind of your neutral category. So with your neutrals, we're at 77% favorable and neutral. We are going to share this feedback after tonight with each school leader. So they have their school community's feedback. Next slide. So here's some of the trends. I want to take a

223minute to preview those. This was what what what do you value? And so these were comments in favor of. Uh these were all people that have uh students in the system, right? You couldn't just be a staff member. Um many of those parents probably were staff members though. Um teacher collaboration and professional learning time was number one that came up. Student support and problem solving vertical teaming that they can't do especially in our smaller schools. LCT time. It was cool to see people actually say I want to design retaches. You heard that over and over again. And then just staff communication time to meet as a staff and connect. Uh it did support our unified curriculum and then alignment with the elementary schedule. Families noted that that was a benefit. There were some themes that

224we didn't plan for and these aren't really part of our strategy, but um some parents did note that students are kind of fried on a Friday, time to do homework, kids could get part-time jobs, student mental health, kind of a start to the weekend that came up. Athletics actually came up as a this could help with athletics and um Paul has provided data about number of coaches and when folks leave at high school. Middle school does not have athletics on Fridays, but high school does. Here are some of the concern comments. They're kind of organized into themes. Uh top theme was just loss of instructional minutes. Sorry. Uh relationship to inservice days. There was kind of a a a concept around we already have inservice days. Why do we want to do this as well?

225Uh we have five of those at middle school during the year and three at high school. A big concern was are folks going to be accountable for this time. Are we actually going to use it or is it just going to turn into um not efficient used wellus time? Childare and parent work schedules were expressed as a concern. Uh student and staff absences on Fridays. Is there afterchool programming? Can parents have access to office hours? And then we better have transportation. Those were kind of some big concern themes. And we unpacked those here as as we consider our district plan. That first one is is is big. Well, we're losing instructional minutes. And the big idea here is that learning community focus of going from what was taught or what was covered. I need more

226days to cover more content to really focusing on what did students learn. Um we need dedicated venues for teachers to collaborate. It can't just happen when you squeeze it in 40 minutes a week. We are over the CDE requirement for days and time. We will say that we're kind of meagerly over it. There are there's districts that are probably two to three weeks more, but those districts also often have that time for this work as well. Um, relationship to inservice days, those days are infrequent. So, when we talk about the intended purposes, those days are kind of infrequent. They're great benchmark moments to come together and those would align with early release, uh, but they're not as frequent as we might want. Uh, accountability, that is central to our plan, and we want to actually

227call it, um, oversight and support. We'll talk about that in a little bit. Transportation. Um, uh, Clint, Mr. Garcia has been working on that and we, uh, have come a long way with that. Um, we need a we need a 50inut split on that. Um, and then between elementary and secondary schools and then parent work and afterchool care, we will engage community partners on that. So some of the presentations earlier and then um absences we have talked with HR there that we would need some policy and procedure to um ensure that if there is a trend and a pattern folks can be addressed and HR says that that policy does exist. And then lastly a desire for parent office hours that would fit within the MTSS focus. Okay so those are kind of some of

228the considerations. Um we can come back to those. So here's our next steps. Uh it really is getting into the weeds of transportation and bell schedules as well as nutrition. Uh school plans, uh equipping our leadership teams to really do this. If we say yes, we're doing it, then they've got a big lift to start getting planned for to make the most of that time. Um, as far as intentional support and oversight, uh, we we have actually talked about our whole district instructional leadership team being out and present during these times, say on a Friday afternoon, and observing it in schools, giving feedback. And then, um, student services, we do need to really reorient to some state and federal requirements for special education. We also have an office of civil rights uh, guidance that we

229need to follow. And then communication. what will this mean to all of our stakeholder groups? Okay. And our timeline, we're actually right on track. Um, we just wrapped that up in January, so we're updated now. And should we move forward for an August implementation, it's really how do we get organized as district leadership and school leaders. Uh, and so the work groups that are pivotal right now are the in blue right there. some of our policies, procedure, operations, and then um some of our minutes, state, federal, and our association, making sure we align there. So then with that, uh two last things, just so you all know, our leaders have engaged with their school accountability committees, uh on those ideas, kind of what is the picture, what's that ongoing cadence, how are they communicating, they

230need to talk with their whole staffs on that. Um that was something we got feedback is you know how are teachers having a voice in shaping this and that is at each school level and then um beginning to bring us to a concrete concept would be our next step and that should be as clear as something like this. What are we going to do with that hour and 45 minutes and how is it recurring? It should be applicationbased. We should be talking about supporting specific students who aren't getting it who are um and backwards planning with that focus in mind and it should it should fit with our district inservice and and PL focus it should complement each other. So with that that is a very fast update. I wish the clock was going. I

231think that was like nine and a half minutes. Okay. I'm impressed with it. I I messed up names. I apologize but kind of tired here. questions. Julie noted. I have a couple of questions. Um, okay. So, I'm really curious. You noted that um we're really lean on meeting our state requirements. Can you talk about that really quickly? Do you remember the number of minutes? um it's 10086 if you have professional learning in there in service days. Okay. So, 180 it's,56 with professional learning. Okay. Built in intentionally. So there's a there's an acknowledgement that that that professional learning time directly benefits students state level and so they have discounted the instructional requirements because they think the quality because we know the the quality of the instruction is better. It is I am concerned. So, you know,

232we all know Colorado has the fewest days of all of the states at 160. Most states have 180 instructional days per year. How do we do we know do we have like a you know how we looked at the budget relative to um performance of students? Do we have like a days in school relative to performance? Um, yeah, I I I yeah, with other districts in Colorado, with other states. So, if you remember, Danny did pull that data and talked about how many districts have early release and how are they using that time. We didn't add in how many days they have in their calendar because we in Mesa County have like many less days than a lot of other schools. So, that doesn't answer that question for me. Um, I think what's val valuable

233to think about is this is that um that shift the learning community shift of what was taught to what was learned, right? And you can actually if you'll be intentional meet learners where they're at. Think if you had your own private tutor, you're going to cover more ground with less exposures. We want more days and I think that's the work of us with talking about mills and it was kind of abysmal to see that we were the least funded, right? And those mills buy days. But it was also when I think about our district focus on learning communities and aligned professional learning last three years and we've seen that uptick that's counter to districts that don't couple as clearly. So if you give us days and we had the early release in the professional learning

234home run um I think it's pretty critical that we have this time to make the most of it. Yeah. Um so students don't lose ground. It seems like it's a paired It seems to me like it must be paired. Yeah. And those are it's a it's a really good question and it is a concern that we heard through the survey and and talking to folks. Um so yeah, I think it is a bigger question or conversation for the board as we move forward to looking at um re-uping on that 2017 mill at some point. Um it was 5 days enough. um should we be going back to the because essentially it just comes down to paying teachers for those extra days which does end up meaning that their salaries go up because you're paying them

235for more days and then we get a benefit of more day more days with kids in the school. So it's a good conversation to have. Um I would agree having both would be awesome as a I'm thinking back to when I was a teacher we didn't have early release built in and so to do the work that you're talking about doing if you had that And it's not a half day, it's a it's a couple hours on a Friday. Um to have that built into your week to be able to do that planning with your team versus what we had to do, which was stay after school for two or three hours and and plan because you don't have enough time during the day. Um there's a lot of benefit if you can structure it

236in the right way and actually make sure it's not wasted time um to to actually have an impact on students. But yeah, if we could have both um and and have that conversation about does the community value having more instructional days for our kids, then that's something I think we need to bring back to them. We were having that conversation last year, I think, around, you know, our contract negotiations and such that why are we so many fewer days than a lot of other districts in Colorado, but certainly then Colorado is low. So is there a way we can get some data on that where we can see what kind of outcomes how the outcomes are affected by the number of days or not that that the students are I think we can get some

237data and determine is it you know causation correlation but yes I do believe we can get that data that would be helpful for me. I love the idea of the ear sorry we love the idea of the early release and and I'm on board with how it it benefits the students and and the staff. Uh but I'm also concerned about enough instructional time for the students. Just in just in that vein, I and again I'm wrong with this. Someone correct me, but you know when we added the five days in 17, they were to make up for the days that were lost due to the recession. So it wasn't we were adding anything more than we were trying to get them back. So when you look ahead and if I remember one of the statistics

238we use is that our kids by the time if they've gone through our system K12 they've missed because of the comparison to other districts we're comparing ourselves to in terms of their calendar and how many days they have the when you add it all together which may or may not be the best way to look at it but we were we were one year behind of instruction. Am I right with that? Cumulatively. Cumulative. Yeah, I'm not sure if it was I don't know those exact dates, but I'm definitely those significant. We're not only behind because we lost those days due to the recession as we did other things, but to your point and K's point is is to make these gains in in the staff development and and training, you need those contact days as

239well. It should be one or the other. It should be in our in our community can can do that. just have to make that case so they understand that which they did in 17. Yeah. Pardon me. Yeah. And I would Yeah. And make it part of the same argument. I, you know, as a parent I I think it is a hard cell to say we're just we're taking this instructional time out. It's valuable and it contributes. I I think it just makes sense to be like and we're we're we're just exchanging this time. We're it's quality time. we're doing great work and we're providing more instruction, more quality instruction. Um, it just seems like an an easier link to me. But I understand like the funding is different and the whole the the context is

240the same, but the mechanisms are totally different. Um, but to me, it just seems like we have to find a way to link them. Agreed. Yeah. And I wish we could solve both of them right now. Um, this the charge we gave Dr. Medvid and his team was within the given days that we have would this be a benefit to the system to our students um and um and if so is that something that we want to pursue so yeah I'm I completely agree I wish we could solve both right now and say go back right now and say do we want to do we value more days of school or days in school for our families and students. Um, so right now they're they've just been charged with what can you do within the

241days we have and is this worth us exploring and actually moving forward with as a district? And then yeah, I think we do need to come back to the community and say um and I wonder if this feels I mean to me this feels really pressing. This feels really pressing. I mean, how do we improve outcomes and achievement by doing more professional learning and creating more instructional time building that collective efficacy is really and and we believe the growth that we have seen in the work that we have done is with our building leadership, those instructional teams and here's an opportunity during the week that these teams can meet. Yeah. And what would happen if we had more days in our calendar instructional time for our students? How many more days would you would we

242want or need? I'd like to see Sorry. I'd like to see the data first before we before we would even look at that. I'd like to see what those other schools are doing and what their outcomes are, how that correlates, and then we can have a better idea. I mean, it might be five days. It maybe it's more than that. I don't I don't know. You'd have to see where the breakover point was in in the outcome. I mean, at the end of the day, if we're if if the board is serious about this, then a mill levy has to go on the ballot by the fall, right? I mean, if you're talking urgency, then this is I mean, it's a it's a it's a big ask. I mean, if I know you guys are

243already busy, but um you know, I mean, who's not right now? Um, but I just I just think that um it is it's it's a bit of a double-edged sword. I mean, I like that the early release will coincide with our elementary schools already. So, I know that that helps support families. I'm encouraged to see the data. Angela and I popped into um was it school the school leadership meeting? Yeah. So that was great and just kind of did a informal survey. But as we heard them present on their struggles is they they don't have the time. And so what I think we're doing is by like what Dr. Hill said when he was a teacher is we're burning our teachers out by having them have to stay more time after school. You know, they

244have families, they have things they need to do. um and but they know that they've got to do that time, you know, with other teachers um and to work on those things. And so, um yeah, I think this is at least a good step in the right direction. And then I think as a board, we we need to see if if there's an ask we have for our community as far as instructional days. I find it interesting that like 42 of the states have a 180day requirement. So 20 more days. Wonder I wonder if there's science behind that. I would imagine that there is. Right. I would. Yes. Well, if you guys would be able to get the board or Dr. Hill, could you see if we the board could get some data on that

245and then I guess then we'd have to assess what we think would be a reasonable ask because then we have to put dollars to those days. Yeah, I was going to say that we could also look at how much those states fund public education, too. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I understand. Um I know that there's a lot of moving parts. Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts, but I think these are questions. I think this is a great opportunity to ask these questions and to think about what what we want to look like and how we would do that. I I would say as we get ready to make a decision and whatever level that decisions made at that the timing is kind of ideal. You've observed our leadership teams are poised. They're ready to

246lead out at that next step. Um we've been able to fund that capacity building through grants over the last several years. Um the the resource cliffs that we saw earlier do kind of impact this. So, one of the the keys in all of this has been the role of the instructional coach. They've played kind of a glue role um in this to build the capacity of their peers to be a bridge from teachers to administrators and um and unfortunately about half of our coaches right now are funded through grants. So, we have one last year with coaches to be a part of helping lift this work um and build capacity of those leadership teams. And so um kind of being able to spin this up and get that muscle memory built for our school teams

247next year while we are a little more resourcerich um would go a long way I think in making it be effective for years to come. So kind of from a more strategy point of view like the time is probably right to to act on implementing. Um, so will we have some numbers on what we're going to need to retain coaches or are you working with Melanie on that or so that the board the board can understand what that also looks like? You know, if if if we don't have the funding for that, what are we losing or what is the funding needed to keep that? Absolutely. Okay, that would be helpful. Work on that as well. We have a big spreadsheet. We have lots of spreadsheets, but there's one just for those. Does the board

248have any other questions? Thank you for your work. Thank you all. Yeah, thank you. Great information. All right, I'm at the end of my stay there. That's policies. I I They're not my policies, are they? No, I don't think so. Not I had nothing to do with these policies. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Jen. All right, so the board has just two policies um for work session tonight. This is just the first reading for the board to get familiar with them and then uh we'll vote on them on the 21st. Uh the school board meetings, uh we just changed some of the language here because as you recollect our first meeting in January was while everyone was still on break. It was January 3rd. um because of the way our policy read it, it

249didn't give us some flexibility to move that meeting. Um we have flexibility to move other meetings like when it gets closer to Christmas time. Um but that was kind of a little inconvenient for our staff. Um some were obviously still taking some days off. So this change in this policy is just changing changing some of that wording for the board to have some flexibility in our scheduling. Um and then the other one is the recruitment and appointment of the superintendent again. Um not much actually. Oh, a CASBY update. Okay, thank you. That's what I thought it was. So, um that's pretty much it. And then um for board open discussion um could you guys just briefly share from the community meetings from Mesa Valley just just generally what kind of uh feedback you got from

250those community meetings just so all the board members can hear uh what was shared at those meetings. Yeah. And ours it was the board coffee on Saturday and um it was great. We had Mesa Valley Community School there and then we had Dan there and um yeah, they just kind of laid out the situation and the timeline and the history and people were really supportive and um I think for a lot of the folks there, they hadn't heard much about Mason Valley Community School. So, I think it was an opportunity for them to learn and they seemed interested and we didn't really get any it was just a nice conversation that was supportive. Um it said I think for Angela and I met here and uh there was a lot of support for him and

251and very little you know we we offered scenarios and we wanted to hear some negative stuff as well but there was really wasn't really anything negative um how they've overcome issues and complaints or but uh the majority of it was just how close of a family they are and how you know their kids have in uh increased and how they wouldn't change it for the world. Uh there was a lot of support for her and lots of parents that just you sang their praises about what a great option it was for their kids and and probably keeps kids in school rather than dropping out or doing something else. So it's really such a different model and it really addresses some needs of a lot of kids in our community and it's growing. So that was

252very good to hear. Great. All right. Is there anything the board has else to discuss this evening? Um, for me really just just the importance of uh, you know, we we talk about parent parent involvement and uh, you know, it's very positive to know that we've had the surveys and and other things, but just to employ people to really get involved because it's kind of like that analogy when you're a kid. If mom askked you what's for dinner and you don't say anything, you can't complain when dinner's on the table. So, you know, it's it's one of those things that we just really employ people to get involved and give us your input, whether it be, you know, surveys or coffees or anything like that because your your your opinions do matter, your voices matter.

253So, we just ask that you get involved with it. Very good. I just just follow up with uh the strategic plan when Dr. Hill mentioned earlier. Um, you know, as as as a person who worked in the district for for many years and had more than one strategic plan rolled out that subsequently ended up I don't even know where they ended up at to be honest with you. They they were meaningless to to me as a teacher, to me as a principal, to to many others. And it's it's when you when you listen to the presentations, not just tonight, but the ones we've had really show a uh a focus, an alignment of of where we're trying to get to and the work that it takes to get there and the leadership that makes that

254happen. And and it starts uh you know, I give Dr. Hill tremendous credit and Dr. circo before about starting that process and having something and being upfront at the very beginning that there are going to be things that are not completed or or we've tried this and didn't work. Just that that uh for lack of another word that transparency that we're really working using the resources we have using the talent we have uh for for for the uh ultimate thing of what are we doing that's helping our kids be successful and our staff and our parents. So, I really commend you, Brian, for for your great work on that and and you you've put together tremendous team that that and I know you're still looking for an assistant superintendent, which I know we need as

255well uh to help help with this work. So, so good job to you and and your team, I think. Tammy's gonna say thanks. That That was all for Tammy. Did we lost her? Did I say that correctly? Yeah, I I I Yeah, we Sorry about that. Don't ding me on that. Yes, I know. She's like, I should know better. Well, thank you all. I know we've had it's like really significant stuff. I feel like every time we look at the agendas, we try to keep them as streamlined as possible, but this is a lot of important work um for all of us to do. And I mean, all of all of the things we heard tonight are are really important. Um they they mean things to different people in our communities. They mean something to

256the whole as the the district community. Uh so we appreciate um really the time that you guys give to these to prepare for them and then to stick around afterwards uh to you know take all of our questions and to present to the community. Um I think it's I've been getting a lot of good feedback from the community that they feel like they have a better grasp of what's going on with the district and what we're doing and what we're um you know moving forward with. So I think it's been really good. Go ahead. Yeah. So I want to thank uh Andrea Christensen and the D51 Foundation. The White Ice event was awesome. It was a great thing to go to. So, we had a lot of fun, a lot of dancing, a lot of

257nice outfits, um, a lot of good shoes. Fine. But, um, it it was it was a blast. So, but I I look forward to next year. So, good job. And that was great. Thanks for witnessing it. Yeah. I was just going to mention I since we've switched to five, I haven't had any complaints from anybody. Have y'all are y'all good with keeping these at five o'clock? I've heard good I've heard positive feedback about it. Not just a couple comments, but five hours. I think the only Yeah, good point. Now, if we could just get it below five five hours. I know. Um I just only had one concern when I think it came to public comment, but I cleared that up because I told them that they didn't have to be here right at 5

258in order to sign up for public comment. I think that was some people were worried that they wouldn't be able to get off work and come and I said it'll probably be 7 o'clock by the time we get to public comment. So, you know, they had plenty of time to still get here. And then and I think that answered their question. So, um I mean the good thing is is you can start streaming it and listening to it if you're out and then you could get here and we still let people obviously sign up for public comment up until that time. So, I have had a lot of feedback about people being annoyed at how long our meetings are and how they want to be more engaged and how but they just can't because the

259meetings are so long. I don't have a I don't I don't know what to say about that, but that's the only other feedback I've got. Yeah. The reason we did the co we started the coffees back up was so that it gave people another opportunity to do it in a smaller environment and and not surrounded by all the presentations and all the other business and work that we have to get done during those meetings. So and in in all honesty community we would really love to have more participation in our coffees. they seem to they tend to be smaller than they were last year. And although we don't have maybe some of the more exciting topics going on, it's still important that people come out to those so that we can continue to do them.

260I wonder would it I've not thought of this until right now. I wonder if it would be worth It's probably not as I'm saying those. We'd have to have we'd have to have two work sessions, I think, to make some of these shorter. Um, yeah. I was just wondering if like if we could limit public comment to like 30 minutes, so to encourage people to come to our board. I don't I think public is sitting through all of the Yeah, I agree. If we could I mean if we want to do public comment first which we've had problems with earlier saying there's just for for people to stay for the sometimes the presentations are lengthy. Yeah. To all of our staff's over there going oh yeah they're lengthy. So the ones Yeah. the ones that

261they have to present. Um and so that that's what makes the meetings really so long. the public comment. Even when we've had a full full house, we haven't gone over an hour. Yeah. Maybe we just need to meet every week. We need meetings daily text ready to go. Daily meetings daily. Yeah. If the if the concern is if the concerns you're hearing are from folks that want to comment, but they don't want to sit through the meeting, then that is a conversation we've had before of um I guess what does the board and you don't have to answer. This is a rhetorical question, but does the board value um having folks come in, say something, and leave and not be a part of the process, or do we want folks to see because ideally they

262may have stuff they want to comment on from the presentation. So, we I think we we had that discussion. We thought it probably better that we get through our work and our business and the reports. Then you can allow for comment, but you have to have the comment before you take a vote on something. The other option is, and again, we don't have to decide this now, but if the board wants to change up how public comment is done, I mean, there's other districts that have moved towards having a call line that you call into and you record your public comment and it's more accessible for people and then we provide the audio for the board and they can listen to it later. I want to see the whites of their eyes. Okay? I want

263to see people or we and I want them to be able to see us. I mean, I I want to be face to face with our community. That's for me that's the whole reason for public comment is to for people to be able to present to the board in person. I don't want to take that away from our community. You could also do it somewhat like um city council does where once a a certain topic is presented then there's only public comment only on that topic at that time and then they reserve time at the end um for anything that's not on the agenda. So it you know again I do agree with Dr. Hill though. Um, for instance, the night that we did the presentation on the Orchard Mesa pool, um, I one of

264the, uh, Orchard Mesa pool, you know, uh, uh, employees. No. Yeah. Employees, but that wants to save the pool. Um, came up afterwards and said they were ready to, you know, come and give us an earful. Um and then once they heard the presentation and they had a better understanding of it, I mean they still commented but I think it gave um some obviously yeah information and history of where all of this had come from and so I think it just helped them obviously in their feedback and in their understanding. So, um, you know, these are our meetings. Um, and we do, you know, I I do value public comment, but these are the meetings for the board for us to work through the information. So, I know they're long for everybody, and I we

265every time that Dr. Hill and Bridget and Will and I sit down for agenda setting, we are literally racking our brains to try to figure out how to make these more streamlined. But even just looking at the information tonight, some of these we've tried to move some of them, some of them we can't move because we have to get some decisions. Now granted, some of these things we won't be looking at probably on next year's agenda. Uh but I mean I'm I'm always open for the conversation, but I think we just have a lot of stuff before us that our meetings are just kind of lengthy for for now. I I think that it I think it will eb and flow. Um but I I hear the same thing Dr. difficulties is that the meetings

266are long. Um I also think that we're we're kind of in a we're just in a different climate for a lot of things coming out of COVID having to do a lot of things with our students and um er funds and finances. A still a a board that's only in it one year, a new superintendent, a lot of new um senior leadership, a new strategic plan. We're getting a lot of stuff done. We're getting a lot We're getting a lot of stuff done. Yeah. I think that also comes with, you know, um when we talk at the beginning of our public comment, we say if you're gonna if you have something different to say, you know, say it, but if you're going to say the same thing, you can maybe ditto and then go on

267to it. But we have an abundance of people that say the same exact thing. and they make sure they say which is fine because we I know they need to be heard but that's a lot of the issue that I see is when you have 60 or 30 to 35 people that want to public comment at three minutes each and then 30 people are saying the same exact thing that kind of adds to the you know so I mean just if we can figure out a different because they do need to be heard but at the same point if you're going to say the same thing that you said it kind of makes it kind of well I think I mean that seems to me that the last time we had public comment People were

268pretty good about that and many people didn't use their three minutes. Yeah, we got they did say, you know, yes, I I agree and here are my two additional points or whatever because we we thought we were going to be well over an hour and we were under an hour. I mean, I read all I read all the feedback that comes in via email. I don't think the problem is is the one hour once a month of public comment. It's that we're it's the other we have just so much agenda. There's just our agenda's so full that really that's I don't think the problem is public comment. I think The problem is the with the public having to spend so much time because we've got so much other work to do. And well, I would

269say go home from work, have dinner, and then come get your comfy clothes on, and then come to the board meeting and comment about 7 o'clock. Yep. I mean, I I don't know how else to I mean, that's just I think that's about when we've been hitting it. And then, you know, and I and we see people here. Look, look, there's people here that have sat the whole time and they are they are taking the time to be here and so, hey, I wish our meetings could be shorter as well, but I don't know how we could get through it without because you you like you asked really everybody asked really great questions and I think that is our job. Our job as a board is to drill down. The community is wondering these questions.

270I feel like it's all we're doing our due diligence and so I I think that's just the nature of the work that we're doing and you know well mark that we just spent 15 minutes talking about how long meetings are. Yeah. And you know what meetings are and and I just want to take another 15 minutes to just like sit here more. But um that was my fault because I asked the question I asked was is everybody good with five o'clock and then it turned into this? So, so we're thinking about it. We hear you and we're we can't do anything. Come to our board coffees. Yeah. Good job. Thanks, everybody. All right. Good night, everyone. Do we need to do we need to adjourn? No, it's just a work session. Oh, right. We adjourned

271earlier the business meeting. Yeah.