001There you go. Call to order and the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome visitors. Item 3.03 move to approve the regular board meeting agenda as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. I second. Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Okay, item 4.01, we're going to cover gifts now, so 4.01, um 4.02, 4.03, uh Mr. Clint and Chamblin. I'm Clint Chamblin, the athletic director at Pueblo County High School. Uh we have a few gifts we're seeking approval for. We have a donation of $1,973 to Pueblo County High School JROTC from Midway USA Foundation. We have a donation of
002$800 to Pueblo County High School baseball team from Carl and Jessica Ellie. And we have a donation of $500 to Pueblo County High School wrestling from Bank of the San Juans. Thank you. Item 4.04 donation, Laura Coronado. Hi, I'm Laura Coronado, CTE Academy coordinator for Pueblo County High School. And I do have a donation this evening um from G4 Paint and Coatings. Um they have graciously sponsored us $500 towards our Seeds Academy award night, so we'd like to thank them for that. Thank you. Item 4.05, donation to Rye High, Matt Beeman. Uh good evening, members of the board. If you can give me just 30 seconds before Mr. Beeman gets into his sermon tonight with all of his uh donations here. >> [laughter] >> Rye High School, we were able to start a uh business
003program this year. We got CTE approval over the summer. We just uh finished state FBLA. We were able to take seven students, which was above and beyond what we were even hoping for this first year. San Isabel Electric, they were uh gracious enough to be a partner with us uh donating $500, and hopefully I will be back as we still are continuing to build community partnerships. Thank you. >> Thank you. Items 4.06 through 4.17, Mr. Ethan Beeman. Good evening, board. Um I'm Ethan Beeman, I'm the ag teacher and FFA advisor up at Rye High School. Um I was I was un- unable to be here to invite you guys to our oyster fry this year. Um I did have little packets for you guys. But just so you guys do know, we do our annual
004oyster fry every year, and our oyster fry and member labor auction and silent auction, all of the funds go to fund our entire school year. And because it is such a suc- successful night, we are able to make sure that if the kids are representing our program, that they do not pay their way. Um and we have been fortunate enough to make that happen. Um they do pay for their food, but we pay hotel, travel, and the registration fees for state contest, regional contest. If they qualify for nationals, we cover their trip to nationals in Indianapolis, and it's all because of our generous sponsors. Um so I huge thank you to all of them. In front of you, I put one of our dockets from this year's sale, and inside of there has our sponsor
005um docket, platinum through bronze, and part of the little deal when we hand out our sponsors on our sponsor day is the mention of the platinum and golds get mentioned here, but I do like to give you guys these so you can see who else is sponsoring us. Um so going down the list, um High Country Fence was $1,000, so platinum sponsor. Worfel River Ranch, $1,000. Paint Construction, $1,000. Phoenix Eye Consulting is a new sponsor this year, so thank you to them. He's uh bought a couple kids' labor from us in the past years, and they worked so good for him that he wanted to sponsor us. Um C&E Affordable um Used Parts and Cordova Towing are grandparents of one of my students, and they were both $1,000. Uh Becker Pitt was $1,000. Rustler Implement,
006$500, and they also give $500 worth of items for the silent auction, including a little riding tractor. Um Four Rivers Equipment was $500. Mountain Disposal, 500. Um that one was listed twice, that should only be once. And the Bank of the San Juans was a 500. But there are a couple others. Um Copper River Entertainment out in Pueblo West, the gentleman out there, Trinity Smith, for the last 2 years has bought all of our food. Um well so the beans, the coleslaw, and the chicken that we do. And then he also orders our oysters, but we pay for the oysters cuz they're extremely expensive because they are a delicacy, and there's not as much of them as all the other meat on the animal. So therefore, um we do pay him for those, but he
007covers everything else. It's an incredible partnership, makes it real easy. Um removes the headache of ordering. Um General Air every year is insane, they donate all sorts of items. This year we had four welding or three welding helmets, plus oh, there was probably close to $2,500 worth of items from General Air. Um Colorado Native was uh $500 and then a $500 worth of gift cards to their lumber yard. Um PMC is listed there. Um I've already been here for them, it's from earlier in the school year. They donate for our um green hand buckles. We get officer buckles, so they're listed there, but we always list any sponsors throughout the year. And the Clendenin Ranch is also listed, and they donate um beef to our homecoming barbecue, so that's why they're listed. And the Decios
008do the uh watermelons for our homecoming barbecue. And the Stars and Bars Custom Design, they did a mold inspection for our silent auction. So and it was valued at 500. But that is the Yes, sir. Hello, Mr. Beeman. Hi, Mr. Emery. How are you? Good to see you. I'm great. So nice to see you. Uh I just hopefully the whole audience knows what an incredibly successful program you have. I just wanted to know how many kids you have in your program. So this year I have 93 um active members, and then I have Oh, that's a great question. I have five or six that are active in college, cuz they are FFA members, they can be until they turn 21 as of January 1st. So after high school, they have the opportunity to get their
009state degrees, American degrees, and this year I actually have four of my past students getting their American degree. Wow. Which throughout the whole time we've only ever had three. Go to Rye High School. Mhm. Two 223. 223. >> So you have almost half. Yes. Way to go. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. So All right. Well, thank you. Yes, good to see you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. >> [applause] >> Item 4.18, acceptance of the gifts. Do I have a motion to accept the gifts with proper acknowledgement? I second. Second. Sorry. >> [laughter] >> You're good. I was just so enthralled by the ag program. Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Good news, item 5.01, Prairie Winds Elementary has earned the recognized ASCA model program, national
010recognition. So Cindy, Lisa and Kate. Good evening, members of the Board of Education. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share our program with you. I'm Katie Brown and I will always lead with this as my favorite part. I am so lucky that I get to be the school counselor at Prairie Winds Elementary. In order to do that work though, I am licensed through CDE as a special service provider. I additionally hold a licensed professional counselor credential through the Department of Regulatory Agencies. Though the work that I do in the schools is far different than that of an LPC. I'm also nationally board certified, but again, my favorite part is working at Prairie Winds Elementary. I'm going to turn it over to our principal, Cindy Burrell, so she can tell a little bit more
011about herself. I'd like to start off just by saying how proud I am of the work that's been done at Prairie Winds to achieve this certification through RAMP. It speaks volumes about the counseling program at our school. And from an administrator's perspective, it is the dream. I joined Prairie Winds this year and one of the things that I was most grateful for walking into this school community was the strong foundation of collaboration between admin and counseling because what we want to see in every discipline office is no students. And when we have such a strong collaborative foundation with counseling, we get to be proactive instead of reactive. That means we aren't running around putting out fires in behavior all day long. We don't have students in the office in trouble all day long. We have
012students in the classroom who are learning, who feel supported, they feel safe, they feel like they belong, and you can find many students making sure that other students feel safe and feel like they belong. It also means that Ms. Medved and I are not in the office all day having to deal with discipline. We get to be in classrooms focusing on instruction. And we get to make sure that our students have the support that they need. And And all of this, there's so many things I could say about what's happening with our counseling program. So, this is just one aspect that really benefits me a lot because I can do my job better as a result of of what's happening here. Um but really what it means when we're proactive rather than reactive, it means
013that we're teaching students the skills that they need to be successful. Not just in school, but they're learning skills like self-regulation and problem-solving and conflict management. They're learning skills that are going to help them become healthy adults later. And And that means a lot and you can imagine the impact that it has on our school culture. Especially when it's allowing students to feel safe and to be in classrooms learning more often or more throughout their day. But at the end of the day, the recognition is not just about a program. I just really want to emphasize that this is about impact and what has happened to allow our students to be successful in in more than just behavior, but also in their academics. Every student has the access that they need to have the support
014to grow and be successful and to feel confident about themselves. And so again, I am just so proud of the work that Ms. Brown has done and the outcomes that we get to see in our kids and the foundations we're seeing there for their success later on in their lives. And this is Lisa Medved who's our Dean. Hi, I'm Lisa Medved. I'm going to begin by reading a letter from Sherry Maison who is one of our parents and also an advocate for ESS. She wrote a very extensive letter and I want to share certain parts of this with you. She apologizes for not being able to be here, but wanted to make sure that you heard from her. She said, "I want to take a moment to recognize something extraordinary. Prairie Winds Elementary earned RAMP,
015Recognized ASCA Model Program recognition in 2026. RAMP is awarded by the Association, excuse me, American School Counselor Association to programs that demonstrate the highest standards in school counseling practice and it is not easily earned. This recognition reflects a 5-year comprehensive counseling program that was built and continually refined to align with the ASCA National Model and the ASCA Mindsets and Behavior Standards. A rigorous, evidence-based framework designed to support the academic, career, and social-emotional development of every student. RAMP accreditation is not a trophy on a shelf. It means that our children are served by counseling program that is data-driven, accountable, and aligned to national best practices. It means that when our school counselor advocates for a child, she does so with the backing of a fully realized, professionally recognized system of support. For a parent, that is
016profoundly reassuring. I encourage this board to recognize, protect, and invest in this work. Counseling program at Prairie Winds Elementary is a model for what school-based support can and should look like. The results, students who feel connected, >> [snorts] >> families who feel supported, and a school community built on inclusion and relationship are the results every child in this district deserves. So, to add on to that, I really can't say much more and certainly not as eloquently as Sherry did, but I wanted to say just a few more personal things. Um I want to recognize Katie. She makes a real difference at Prairie Winds every single day. From the moment I met her, I have been and continue to be impressed by her passion and unwavering commitment to making Prairie Winds an incredible place to work
017and learn. Katie has a special way of connecting with students and helping them work through challenges. Whether it's guiding them through loss and change, which unfortunately happens more often than we would like, supporting them in managing interpersonal conflict with kindness and respect, or encouraging them to work together as a team to offer support to others on the bus or playground, her impact is felt throughout our entire school community. We are incredibly, incredibly proud of Katie's persistence and we're proud to celebrate Katie and our counseling program for earning the RAMP award. This recognition reflects the dedication, care, and professionalism she brings to her work and it highlights the strong student-centered support system we're fortunate to have. Because of Katie, our students are not only learning, they're growing into thoughtful, respectful, and resilient individuals. Thank you for
018your continued support of programs like the counseling program that Katie has developed over years of hard work and dedication that we see at Prairie Winds. And thank you for recognizing her important role in school counseling. >> [applause] >> Oh, thank you so much. Um So, we're here tonight, of course, to celebrate the earning the RAMP designation and it is, as was mentioned earlier, the highest national standard in school counseling and I want to share what it means to our students cuz that's always the most important piece. So, before I tell you what RAMP is or what earning it required and it was extensive. It was a lot of work. I want to start with the real reason any of this matters and that's our kids. And I say ours intentionally because that is exactly how
019we approach this work. We are supporting all of these children together. Last year in the 2024-2025 school year, the number of kindergarten through second grade students who received a consequence of in or out of school suspension dropped from 21 to 7, a 66% reduction. And that means that 14 more times a young child stayed in their classroom, stayed connected to their teacher, and stayed on track instead of being sent home or sent to the office. I'm presenting this to you now because RAMP requires you to apply the year after collecting the data. So, while this recognition reflects last year's work and the systems that have been built over the last five, the outcomes it represents [clears throat] are live and growing right now, this school year. And that's what we're here to celebrate today. So,
020so proud of that number, 66%. We can go ahead and move on. I I want to take just a moment to tell you too who I am beyond my credentials because I think that matters to how I do this work. I'm a school counselor and I'm also a mom and I know what it feels like to drop your child off at school and hold your breath a little bit hoping that they make good choices, hoping they feel safe and connected while they're away from you. I'm going to take just a second and blow my own children a kiss. Thank you for being here. I love you. >> [laughter] >> When I sit across from a family, whether things are going well or whether we're navigating something really hard, I always say this, I could be
021on the other side of any of these conversations and we're all in this together. That shared experience is why I built the program the way I did, not from a framework alone, but with a genuine love for every child at Prairie Winds and every family who trusts us with their children. Go ahead. Okay. So, what exactly is RAMP? It stands for Recognized ASCA Model Program, a national recognition from the American School Counselor Association. It's not an award um, that people win. It's it's essentially like an audit, an accountability framework. Um, and in order to earn it, I had to prove with real documentation and real data that our school counseling program is organized, community informed, and producing measurable results for students. The application has 10 sections reviewed by national school counseling experts covering everything from
022how we gather community input to how we measure student outcomes. This was a 10-year goal and a 5-year process, the most rigorous work of my professional career, and um, there are more than 1,500 schools nationally who have earned this recognition, and right now, Prairie Winds is one of only 20 in the state of Colorado and the only one in Pueblo County. Very proud of that. >> [applause] >> It wasn't a single year year effort, and over 5 years we built each piece intentionally, forming an advisory council, identifying a clear data-driven goal, designing and implementing tiered supports for every student, collecting and analyzing data throughout the year, and ultimately submitting our application as documented proof of what we built and what it produced. Every step was accountable, and every step was measured. Um, RAMP is designed
023to be a whole school, whole community effort, and that is exactly why what it was at Prairie Winds. Our advisory council brought together caregivers and families who shared what they were seeing at home and what their children needed. Classroom teachers shared what they were observing and learning and behavior every day. The principal, dean, and I met regularly to align the program to school-wide goals, and community partners enriched our work with resources and expertise beyond our building. This program was not built in isolation, it was built with the people who care most about these kids, and it belongs to all of us. Um, every student I got a little bit ahead of myself. Did you go ahead and send me forward? There we go. All right, every student in Prairie Winds receives classroom lessons from me
024once every 3 weeks. Universal access built into our school schedule because every child deserves these skills, not just the ones who are already struggling. For the RAMP application, I submitted a specific example of that work, a three-lesson, um, kindergarten unit focused on self-control and calming skills. 72 students, three lessons, 30 minutes each. We used age-appropriate picture books and practiced three concrete physical tools, balloon breathing, butterfly taps, finger tracing. It's really adorable when you see them all do it together. It's so cute. Um, these skills help a 5-year-old, um, when they're actually able to use them in the moment, when their body feels out of control. We practice through stories, play, and movement because that's, of course, how young children learn. For students who needed more, I ran small groups. For those needing the most intensive
025support, I worked individually, connected with their caregivers to outside clinical resources when appropriate, and built collaborative plans through our MTSS process. Our partnership with caregivers is not an afterthought, it's woven into every layer of the program. We hosted a caregiver engagement night, um, where we got to actually practice some of the things that we do during our counseling lessons. We got to practice that all together with families. Um, there was a school-wide needs assessment to hear directly from families, and um, keeping caregivers informed through our counselor corner and our principal's newsletter, sharing a exactly what each grade level was learning and why. We communicated through BrightArrow emails and texts, maintained a counseling website and brochure with what you have in front of you, and um, maintained a booking link so families could reach me easily
026and extend special invitations to caregivers for career [clears throat] day presentations. Um, and what families said back to us means everything. Over on the right-hand side, those are two quotes pulled directly from our um, our parent needs survey that was submitted. Um, I was very touched. Uh, the work so often gets recognized, and especially when you work in an elementary school, we don't get to see the outcomes all the time. I don't get to be part of the graduations, and so those words mean a whole lot, and seeing how our our children, um, grow is incredibly important. All right. So, here's what happened. Before our kindergarten unit, only 8% of students could name a single calm-down skill, and after three lessons, 94% could, and 94% could also demonstrate one of those skills. Disruptive behavior logs
027dropped by 44%, and our headline number, the goal that we set for the whole school year, K through two suspensions, fell from 21 to seven. Goal achieved. Now, I also want to say, just a moment, we were also looking at intermediate suspensions as well and putting in interventions in place for that, but for this purpose, we were just focused on that subset of students. Um, I want to be honest with you. We actually tried to hit that goal the year before, and we didn't. Um, so we went back, we looked at the data, figured out what was not working, and we tried again. And that is what an accountable program does. They measure, reflect, and improve. That is exactly why RAMP requires us requires us to prove. These systems are built to last, and our
028advisory council reviews every fall and spring, tracked counselor time, and adjusted plans when data calls for it. >> [gasps] >> This recognition is more than a word, and it is a proof that the school commits to knowing its students, listening to its community, setting measurable goals, and doing hard work to follow through. Children are better for it. We are proud to be a school where every child feels safe, seen, and ready to learn. Now, what's next? Um, we're not slowing down. Uh, coming up this spring, we have a CTE Pathway Day on Wednesday, April 29th. This is a collaboration between Pueblo West Career and Technical Education Pathways and educator Tanya Odell, who always works with us, um, where the students actually get to explore real career paths and connect their everyday learning to where they
029want to go in high school and life. When we can like light a light a fire for them in elementary school, hopefully they stay in our district and and they get to engage in that really exciting learning. Um, then, we also have Dress for Success Day on May 6th and Career Day on May 7th. All of these experiences are designed intentionally to help students find work that aligns with their passions, goals, and skills. Board members, you are warm warmly invited to join us on April 29th or May 7th to see our program in action. Now, this is big news. We have secured mini horses. Yes. Thanks to my good friend Mrs. Grab over here, we got we got the mini horses. So, I'm just saying, you're definitely going to want to be there. Our next
030counseling goal is focused on i-Ready pass rates directly connected to CMAS success and grade level standards attainment. When students are managing their behavior, we can shift our focus to academic development and executive functioning, while continuing monitoring those behavior referrals so we stay ahead of emerging needs. And one more dream in progress, our therapy dog in training, Clementine, is working towards her certification to provide support in our building and to support crisis teams across the district. These are the things that are possible with a full-time counselor, and none of this happened alone. This was a community effort, and I want to honor the people who made it possible. To former principal Brenda Lay Drury, her early support laid the foundation for everything that followed. To principal Cindy Burrell, thank you so much for believing in this
031work and seeing it through to the finish line. To Dean of Students Lisa Medved, your fingerprints are on so much of this program and the work that we do together in the building, and this recognition reflects your work, too. To our Prairie Winds staff who showed up to advisory council meetings on the promise of just snacks, your commitment to our kids showed up in that room. And to our district administrator, Dr. Martinez, who has supported our entire counseling department, holding regular meetings, planning meaningful professional development, who read and gave feedback on my whole application, and it is long. Um, when I wanted to give up, he also encouraged me to keep going. So, thank you all so much for your support, and what we're asking, um, this board to do is to make school counseling
032a priority so that we can continue to see these kinds of measurable gains for all of our students. Every child at Prairie Winds deserves to feel safe, connected, and ready to learn. We help children develop the skills, um, to get the most out of their education, and that is what this recognition represents. We are proud of this recognition, and we are even more proud of what it means for our kids. >> [applause] [applause] >> Do you have any questions for me? Yes. I figured you might. So, my question is, is all this these activities and the uh, once every 3 weeks visits, are those mandated, or is that all you? Do all our counselors in the district do this? That's a great question. So, all of our school counseling programs function differently, and as I
033shared with you, I was looking at building data to specifically plan interventions, and so, um, it may be more based on what their need is. I will say that part of, you know, working, um, or or developing the ASCA National Model does require that there is tier one support. So, something that everybody gets um and I think that we are moving in that direction. Back to Martinez, do all our elementary schools have counselors? We have some half-time counselors in some of our buildings and full-time counselors in other but yes, every school has some school counseling happening. That's important to note because my friend who is working between two buildings at a ratio around 1 to 900 would not necessarily be able to do this work. But you're >> to feel successful though. >> rock star.
034Oh, thank you very much. Any other questions? Okay. I did leave you with the brochure so you can learn more about it. You can see all the things I have laid out and and please let me know if there's any any other questions that come up. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> If we would like to attend on the 29th or the um 7th, would you just please send us like times so that we can be there. Thank you. Thank you. >> [cough and clears throat] >> I'm moving on item 5.02, PCEA update. Yes, thank you. I'm Keith Pietrzak and I'm here to do our PCEA spotlight um recognition for this board meeting. So, first we have Kimberly Richardson is a RBT behavioral specialist at Liberty Point International. I think she's actually was
035recognized last year even. That's how amazing she is. Just to note, um so here's what was said about Kimberly. When we [clears throat] talk about dedication, we often think about showing up. But Kim Richardson shows up in every sense of the word. As an RBT behavior specialist at Liberty Point International, Kim doesn't just manage the situation. She transforms them through patience that never wavers, creativity that meets student needs, and a daily commitment that never falters. Kim produces change. Kim doesn't just do her job, she does the job students need. She teaches PE when needed, she mentors, she listens, she provides friendship, and when necessary, she will be the disciplinarian. She has played every role, worn every hat, and never once complained. That is dedication. When What makes Kim truly stand out is not just what
036she does, it's how she does it. Kim consistently takes time takes the initiative to improve team communication across Liberty Point International. She proactively identifies potential behaviors before they escalate, equipping the entire staff with better tools and strategies. She brings a positive attitude every single day in a building that in any building that faces real behavior challenges, that kind of consistent energy matters more than people realize. Kim is also set the standard of excellence for everyone around her. Her colleagues have noticed, her administration has noticed, and most importantly, her students have noticed. Some people come into a child's life at exactly the right moment and become exactly what that child needs. Kim is that person. And the kind of impact and that kind of impact doesn't just change a school, it can change a life. >>
037[applause] >> Um and our next awardee um it our PCEA spotlight is Lindsey Moore. Lindsey Moore is a social studies teacher at Pueblo West High School. This is what was said about Lindsey. There are teachers who >> [laughter] >> No, I'm just kidding. High schoolers can get a little We won't go there. There are teachers who do their job and then there are teachers like Lindsey Moore who do their job and more. Helping others to manage their jobs and somehow still manage to do it all with a smile. As a social studies teacher at Pueblo West High School, Lindsey brings 110%. Math teacher, I don't know if I think that's possible but [laughter] to every task she takes on and that is not an exaggeration. It is simply who she is. Need coverage for a
038class outside her subject area? Lindsey's there. Need someone to step in on short notice? Lindsey's there. Need a colleague who will stay late, dig in, and figure it out? You already know, Lindsey's there. Her willingness to show up, fill gaps, and never make anyone feel like they're asking too much is the kind of dedication that quietly holds a school together. And at Pueblo West High School, her colleagues know exactly how much that means. Lindsey's finger pet prints are all over Pueblo West High School and in the best possible way. She helped reorganize the social studies course offerings at Pueblo West. She's also built the student council class from the ground up, organizing it, structuring it, and giving students a real space for leadership and voice in their school community. That's no small thing. And on
039top of all of that, Lindsey is the person her colleagues turn to when technology gets complicated. She's the go-to guru, patient, knowledgeable, and always willing to help. She's the rare kind of educator who elevates everyone around her. And Pueblo West High School is a better place because she is in it. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Okay, I know >> [laughter] >> 0.01 information from the board and the superintendent. We'll start with Mr. I do not have anything for tonight but would like to congratulate Katie and the staff at Prairie Winds for their accomplishment and great presentation. Congratulations to them. Yeah. Thank you. I Congratulations to Katie and to Lindsey Moore and to Kim Richardson. They're all very deserving of recognition so thank you to all of you. Uh spring break was very much needed by
040by all and so uh I hope everyone took a little bit of a rest and enjoyed their time. But we haven't had anything major going on. Well, I mean we have but like nothing we can't handle. That's okay. We got it. Yeah. Um I think we have awesome counselors in our district. They have done phenomenal jobs and I'm still waiting for some adults to learn some of these skills but uh it's easier said than done. The students probably learn it quicker than than I would so. And that's all I have to Oh wait, no I do. Um the award ceremony or the anniversary awards for our staff are right now and it is awesome to see how many people are loyal to our district and how many people have been here for you know, 5,
04110, 25 years is is really cool to see. So, thank you to our staff for being dedicated to our district. Yeah, on that note, AJ, I had the privilege of attending the anniversary awards at Prairie Winds and I saw all of these lovely faces and you can tell walking into the room with all of the staff there, um there is an environment that was intentionally created that was really precious and sweet to witness. Um I can just tell um the love that's there for each other and the students and clearly that shows through with this wonderful recognition. Congratulations, Katie. This is really great. Um I'm not going to say a lot because we have a very hefty agenda for tonight but I want to echo my congratulations to you all. Good job. We're proud of
042you. Um and what Susie said regarding the award ceremonies, I have not yet had the privilege of attending but I do have some coming up. I'm looking forward to it. So. Mr. Jimmy. Thank you. I just have a couple of things. I had the pleasure of spending many hours at Rye High School today and uh worked with Matt and Matt and Ian and and uh got to experience wonderfully polite and awesome kids. I wish the gentleman were still here but it was a great experience. I've been there a lot of times but I just wanted to uh let them know how much I appreciated them. Uh on a sadder note, we had uh two very very fine educators my colleagues uh who died recently. Lauren Chambers who was was a good friend uh and colleague
043uh passed away recently and Jody Robinson was the librarian and she was always there to help me and and uh lend me a computer before we had computers and those are two wonderful people. So, if you could would keep their families in your prayers, that would be great. Um I had the opportunity to teach with Warren and Jody and also they were mentors to me at the very beginning of my career and I'm so incredibly grateful and they will be missed and I also mentioned please keep them in your prayers. Um I have I I want to make sure like during these board comments that I share all the great things going on in the district and so if you have something you'd like me to attend, please reach out. I'd love to be there.
044Um over the course of the past couple of weeks um I went to Cedar Ridge and um it was it's always exciting to uh you know, share those milestones with these amazing um uh educators in our district and I've often like when I sat around my own department long ago and we talk about the number of years of teaching collectively wow, right? And I thought that when I was at Cedar Ridge just an amazing staff um an amazing school and I was so honored to be there with Chris um Slobodnik presenting those um those anniversary gifts. It was really nice. Um I also uh right after our last board meeting there was a Make-A-Wish um assembly at County High and I had gone to something at West before so I was like I want to
045go to County. I want to go to see something at County so I went to the Make-A-Wish Make-A-Wish assembly and it was amazing and I mean it like just the staff, the students and everybody involved it was absolutely moving and uh little Cash um seeing Cash and you know, knowing that his >> [clears throat] >> uh wish to get to go to um on a Disney cruise was just so incredibly moving and finally the last thing I'm going to share is I um the opening of the District 70 art exhibit um happened this past Friday at the Rawlings Library and I strongly encourage you to make your way over there. It's really impressive. It's high school all the way through middle school and it everything from I mean it's it was incredible. Um I want
046to make sure I um there were drawings, there were ceramics, there were photographs, there were mixed media pieces and it was incredible to see what our students and our teachers are doing here in District 70. So I just um amazing. Amazing and I I really enjoyed uh the presentation um you know, and and receiving that ramp um certifications is is incredible. So so many great things going on and please keep sharing. Um this is such an an exciting um it's exciting to be part of it and to to get to celebrate with you. So thank you. Thank you. Item 7.01 discussion presentation of the district's strategic plan. So several months ago we joined forces with Colorado Forum and um I don't want to get the name of your company wrong. Posono. to build a strategic
047plan and they volunteered their time, they volunteered their efforts. They've been strong cheerleaders for our district. Uh this has not cost our district anything. It's been nothing but very productive for us in the development of a strategic plan. Uh and it it's still in development because we still have to have our board uh tell us where your priorities are and tonight at around 8:00 you'll receive my email with uh your part of this and you're answering um some survey questions similar to the ones that we've put out to staff. I have not released the results [clears throat] of the staff or the student surveys yet but we're going to talk about that right now. As well as uh all of our community meetings that we had throughout our entire district. And we know our communities
048are vastly different. Beulah is vastly different from Rye even though some people lump them lump them in together. Um they're very much different communities and then Pueblo West is vastly different from the county and so we met in every single area so that we could get a better perspective on what our community wanted from us. Uh I sent those same questions to our teachers and our certified classified staff, administrators to find out what they would like from us as well as our students because our students are a huge piece of this because they are our future. And so with that I'll introduce to you Andrea and Tookie who have been helping us throughout this entire process. Tookie is with the Colorado Forum, Tookie Wilson and Andrea Polis Styles. I don't want to mess that up
049either. Uh she is with Posono and they have just been an amazing support structure for us. She's going to present some of our results from our community meetings. Great. Um well thank you Rhonda um and team and uh board members. It's a pleasure uh to be here with you tonight to share out um the summary of um these community conversations that were held uh earlier this year and so that's what I'll be sharing out. Um I do want to note all of you have received I'm going to be jumping around this deck and one of the things I need to figure out is who's driving. Just look at me and I'll >> So I have I've noted take us to slide this slide or that slide. So um and you have the slide numbers once
050we get to slide number two you'll see them. >> see is what I see. It's completely on the screen. Yeah. >> So great. So I'll just tell you please take this to slide number X and uh we'll wait for you to get there. It's fine. Um we'll do this together. But I did want to note for board members you received this full presentation in your board packet um in advance of the meeting um so although we're going to be jumping around a little bit um tonight just given time um um you do have you know, the full results. Um in those full results if we go to the second slide there if you just scroll down one um just noting the table of contents so you have the full results for all of the questions
051that were asked in all of these facilitated conversations as well as the results for each community separately so that you can really see what was you know, expressed through each community conversation um to see those on on their own um and you have all of that in the appendix. Um so tonight we're sharing the results of this structured community listening sessions um process that D70 leadership um conducted in partnership with the Colorado Forum. Um our relationship with the Colorado Forum is is we're contracted by the Colorado Forum to conduct these facilitations and to design those facilitations. Um and so the goal of this process was straightforward. As D70 kicked off its strategic planning process the leadership really had a goal to hear from all of its key constituencies including community members across the vast D70
052footprint. And so that was what we set out to do. Wanted to hear from parents, from community members, from staff, from alumni, from partners um in these conversations. And so the summary that I'm going to share out tonight is by no means a referendum on any one decision. It is a directional snapshot for you. Um it's a way to understand what community members across the D70 footprint value, where they see strength and where they would like to see progress um moving forward. Um we're sharing what we heard from community members honestly and that was a really important part of this process. Transparency was offered to community members and it was what they asked for and so that's what you're going to see in the results um that we're sharing. Um some of the you know,
053feedback received um was a direct challenge to the status quo and that's an important matter of consideration for leadership and for the uh all on the school board. So in terms of the process that we followed you can see here on this slide it sort of outlines we conducted five total community conversations um in January and February of this year. So we conducted four in what we're calling the subregions across the district footprint. We conducted a conversation in Pueblo West, another in Beulah, another here on the Mesa and then a fourth in Rye, Colorado City. And then for a fifth session what we did is we invited representatives from each of those individual community conversations to come for one final combined conversation because we wanted to do two things. We wanted to hear the specific
054inputs from each community recognizing that they're all so different as Rhonda um pointed out but then we also wanted to see well where are there shared priorities and themes that are coming up from community members and so that really was the purpose of the fifth conversation. We followed the same facilitation plan in all of these conversations so our results between them are comparable. Um and then finally if you look at who attended we had staff members, parents, community members, partners um you know, student alumni, um school board members attending some and so it was a great mix [cough] um of folks that we had and I think one of the resounding things that really stood out to me um doing this kind of work around the state was the number of years that folks who
055came to the conversations had been connected in some way, shape or another to this district. That truly is remarkable and it's something that's really special that you have going on it here in the D70 community [clears throat] the commitment and long enduring legacy of the connections that people have to this district and how much they care to show up to a meeting like this really stands out. Um, so congratulations for that. Um, let's talk about the limitations of this information. Um, if you can go to the next slide, please. Um, so while we followed best practices for, you know, participatory community engagement, um, we know that there are always limitations to what we hear from these kinds of facilitated conversations. The people who came and who showed up to participate in these in these events
056came voluntarily and are likely to be more engaged just because they came. And so who we heard from in these conversations are the folks that are likely somewhat engaged with the district. Who we didn't necessarily hear from are those that are less engaged. So there's likely we need to keep that in mind when we hear these summary [cough and clears throat] results. We're hearing from there's likely an overrepresentation of people who are engaged. Um, the other thing that we know is that given the number of participants that we had, so 85 voices across the five conversations, that is not statistically significant. We cannot draw any conclusions from this information because we don't have a statistically significant sample. However, what this information does provide to us is directional focus. These are themes, um, that we can,
057you know, provide some directional indications for. And the fact that similar themes, unprompted, came up across all of the conversations is an important signal for leadership as you're going to formulate your strategic plan. Um, so okay, with that said, let's get into the results. Um, if you could, uh, go to a couple slides down. We want to skip down to vision. So in terms of vision and values, we asked each group about, you know, what is their vision for the future of education in the D70 footprint and what values are most important to them when they think about, you know, what D70 needs to deliver on. What are the values that are most important um, when it comes to that work. And so if you skip down, um, let's see, three slides. There. Keep going.
058Uh, perfect. Okay. So the current vision statement of the district reads as follows. Our vision is to educate each student to achieve their full academic potential. Um, you know, while that while that vision is perfectly fine, what we heard from community members was a desire for something a little bigger. Um, so when we asked folks, well, what do you think is important in terms of when you think about the future of this district and what the education experience might deliver on, you see up there this sort of combined vision across regions. We envision that students in D70 will learn and experience strong academics, essential life and workforce skills, character, critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to navigate challenge and change so that our communities become connective, innovative, thriving places where students grow into engaged citizens,
059families choose to stay and invest, and opportunity continues to expand for generations to come. Wow. They So it was really interesting how community members went way beyond the current vision statement and also how they made this direct connection between what the district is doing and community thriving. Um, that connection was very clearly made, um, by, you know, each of the and each of the different community conversations and is an important thing to note. So essentially, what they were saying is that when schools thrive, communities attract families, retain talent, and expand opportunities across generations. So recognizing the essential role that schools play in helping to, uh, shape community thriving. Um, next in terms of values, let's go down a couple of slides here. Um, this one. Yeah, so what was striking in our community conversations, we
060asked each group, you know, what are the values that are most important when you think about the work of D70. How when D70 is at its best, how do D70 staff, um, partners, how does everyone show up to the work? And, um, what we saw here was a really strong convergence between all of the communities on the values that are highlighted here in dark green. So values of community and belonging, character and integrity, and a student-centered focus. Um, again, you know, this was unprompted, um, and it was just really interesting that each community, in spite of their differences across all these subregions, um, responded to that question in a similar way. So I would take that as leadership as in a strong signal of expectations from community members in terms of how D70 shows up
061to its work. Now let's go on to We asked in each community conversation about strengths and areas for improvement. Um, if we go down a couple of slides here in strengths, um, the areas where strengths converge, the top six you see on this slide, um, by frequency of mention were culture, reputation, community trust, breadth of opportunities and well-rounded education, student success and post-secondary readiness, student-centered culture of care, strong, stable, high-quality staff, and efficient use of limited resources. So there were a lot of strengths, um, and it was really fun in these community conversations. [clears throat] Participants did not struggle to come up with a long list of strengths of the district. And again, I want to note here that the strong legacy of connection to this district is so remarkable and an incredible strength that
062you all have going for you um, here in District 70. Um, the last one I I do want to note, efficient use of limited resources. So this was interesting that this was brought up as a strength and indeed it is. I think that it lends credibility to the district, to district leadership, to be an effective steward of resources. And yet, it was strongly acknowledged in every conversation that, you know what, there are limits to how well we can use limited resources and we definitely feel in certain areas that we are at a breaking point. So I want to note that there are two sides to this being a strength. It was also noted as a potential threat, um, for the district of needing to do that, although the district has been very competent in figuring
063out how to use limited resources over the years. Um, in terms of improvement areas, let's jump down to that section. A few slides. One more. Great. Um, so the pro-improvement areas and where those converged across the uh the different conversations. So the top improvement area, by a notable margin to all of the others, was this idea of equitable access and enrollment. Um, and, you know, this was something that was talked about in different contracts contexts across the subregions. A huge concern about the loss of students, um, in schools in the district and the the, um, dynamic of declining enrollment, what that means, concerns for the district's future in terms of how it needs to compete now, um, with, you know, a lot of different school options and how D70 is, um, is really, you know,
064showing up, um, in the midst of all of those forces, um, at work. And so what community members expressed is they want to be able to maintain, um, you know, lots of options for students to support their learning and stronger access, um, you know, to other potential students that might be interested in coming to D70. I think one of the things that was noted here is people maybe don't know how great we are. Um, and, you know, indeed, I think that that's definitely something to consider. The second top area of improvement that was brought up was communication, trust, and community connection. And that, you know, followed with 16 mentions. Um, this is not about social media strategy, um, at all. What it was about, in terms of what community members were expressing, is they want
065to know what are the district priorities. They would like to have, um, you know, understand how decisions are made, to have that be more transparent. And they would love to help to build a stronger sense of identity and shared purpose in the district. And so that was what was really communicated relating to those themes. And then the final one that showed up as a top improvement area is workforce capacity and leadership. Um, and so what respondents were speaking to there is greater staff and leadership presence, um, in schools across the district. A huge a big desire especially for, um, district leadership to have the capacity and time to spend, um, across the different schools. And that was particularly something that we heard from the smaller schools, um, across the district was a desire for that.
066Um, so really interesting. Um, the next section, future priorities. Um, so this really these are the inputs that probably have the most strategic significance as you're thinking about how to formulate the district strategic plan. Um, these definitely are inputs to pay attention to. So across all four subregions, future priorities really converged around three things, three themes. And these largely mirror what we heard in terms of strengths and areas for improvement. But the top three themes were, um, you know, financial sustainability, student readiness, and trust. Um, what's interesting is that these themes popped up as priorities across all of the four regions. So what did not happen is they didn't necessarily show up in the same order of importance across the regions, but nonetheless they showed up everywhere. And so that's an important signal. Um the
067number one priority across subregions was enrollment, funding, and financial sustainability. And so this is important because I think that there's um you know, there was a desire to understand where community members at in terms of knowing that that's essential. And I think what we heard is that community members are very aware that the district's health is inextricably tied to the financial health um and that that is foundational in order to deliver um on all of the things that the district needs to deliver on. Um second theme, trust, communication, community engagement. Um you know, community members see this as not just a nice to have, but they view this as a prerequisite for executing strategy. There must be shared trust um and understanding of how decisions are being made and then clear communication about how things
068are going. Um and so that was a strongly expressed desire for the future. Um in terms of student safety, well-being, and learning conditions, that came in as priority number three. And um nearly equal to student future readiness and workforce preparation. So um what this tells us if you look at all of those three together, that's basically those priorities are all about the learning experience um that students are having in District 70 and wanting that to for there to be a very clear strategy that the district has um for the next few years of how to deliver that. And so communities your community members care a lot about the learning experience that students have and all of the things that that's connected to. Um when we look at the combined group priorities, so we asked each
069subregion, what are your priorities? And then we asked for the combined group, you know, uh the fifth conversation, okay, based on what you've heard, what do you think the top priorities are? Again, uh what came to the top was addressing district funding needs and financial sustainability. What came up second in that combined conversation was retention and pay. And then the third was programming and curriculum. What's interesting to note in terms of the combined conversation was that group had more of a chance to get into the how. So it's one thing to say, we need to prioritize financial sustainability. Well, how? How would you go about that? And so that group reflected and we can see those insights here. What they talked about is, you know what? Maybe our district stakeholders, maybe we need to do
070some education um basic you know, building their literacy about how school funding works. Maybe we need better marketing about the offering of District 70 um learning experiences now that, you know, we have a school choice environment. And so uh schools and districts are basically competing against one another. Um perhaps we need, you know, what is needed here a sustained community awareness and information campaign for um district stakeholders and voters to understand how funding works. Um it was brought up, you know, maybe it's time for us to really work on passing a mill levy override. Um working on building other partnerships and sponsorships. Perhaps it's time to revisit the idea of a district foundation. Um so those were some of the ideas that came from community members in terms of how to address the critical financial
071sustainability needs um of the district. The last thing I'll I'll mention here was the combined group flagged that they were surprised um in their comments that mental health supports was not more explicitly named in the community conversations. Um what I will say on that topic is is that in our experience having these sorts of conversations with communities across the state, the topic of mental health is extremely complex and often gets converged with other topics such as safety, behavior regulation, student well-being, mental health. These four topics often are commingled and in a district's practice are part of their practice in terms of how all of that is dealt with across the spectrum. And so my suspicion is that while that was not explicitly named in the previous conversations, what they did name was a commitment that
072student safety needs to be a priority as well as student well-being um and learning. And so I think that, you know, uh that would be my my best educated guess in terms of how all of those things might converge. Another thing that we asked in each community conversation was we asked the the participants after they had, you know, communicated what they think the priorities are. We asked them, well, do you feel like you have all the information that you need um to be able to answer this question? And and the answer was no. Um no, we don't feel like we have all the information that we need necessarily. And so uh community members um were able to weigh in on that and uh communicated across subregions what specific topics they'd like to hear about. So
073the next slide shows some of those topics. And uh just to, you know, go through the most common information needs were school funding mechanics and constraints, enrollment trends and their implications, how the board makes decisions and sets priorities, the difference between local control and state mandates, and student learning outcomes and what success actually looks like. Um those were the top themes that we saw across the four um subregions. And so in the report, um two slides down, starting two slides down, we outline uh you know, based on that uh a recommendation. Um one of the things that we heard from community was a desire for more communication. Um one of the ideas that we heard from community members is, you know, maybe we should have a sustained a sustained community information and education campaign. Well,
074here you have the key topics that people want to hear about. Um and so you might um consider this as a starting place um for that community campaign. I believe there are eight different topics that came up of critical interest across your footprint um that community members want to hear about. Um and so uh the other thing too to note about these topics is that each subregion had its own flavor of what they wanted to hear about. Um and so all of that is, you know, included in the appendix of the report. Um I'm going to ask you to go backwards. I apologize. Um we're going to go back up a little bit. If we could go back up to the future priorities section, um and at the end of it, oh, stop stop stop
075stop. Uh go down right uh Let's go up two slides. Perfect. So when in the combined conversation, when we presented all of the priorities out to that group, um we asked them to reflect, well, how did this sit with you? What do you think about seeing all of these priorities across the subregions? And it was really interesting to hear what the group had to say. One of their conclusions or one of the things shared in that combined group is, gosh, these four subregions are all so different. And indeed they are. Um that it's really interesting if you look at the, you know, specific reports for each subregion, they all have different dynamics going on, different community characteristics. And that is indeed one of the critical tension points that the district navigates is, how do we
076best serve students across what is it, a 2,400 square mile footprint across four subregions in the best way? One of the key challenges that the district navigates and that needs to be addressed in the strategic plan. The other reflection of the group is, it seems like we want to grow and yet somehow we want to stay the same. Hmm. How do we do that? >> [laughter] >> Um an important reflection. Um another tension point that I think uh you know, is critical to address in the strategic plan. Uh another reflection of the group is when it comes to funding and financing, the state is not going to come and save us. We need to figure out how we can address this locally. That was an important conclusion of the group and thus began the brainstorm
077of, okay, well, what would that even look like? If we wanted to start addressing financial student sustainability right here in Pueblo, how do we do that? Um and so that that's where that list of ideas came from. And then finally the one I I've already commented on that the group felt it was surprising that mental health was not expressly named, but my suspicion there is that um it was in some ways through these commingled concepts that often come up in school district settings when it comes to mental health. So with that, that was a very quick review of all these results. I know I'm racing through. Again, you have the entire deck. Um I think three key takeaways um you know, that I would really mention. The the values, the convergence on those values, community
078and belonging, character and integrity, and student-centered. Those are the expectations of community members um in terms of how D70 delivers um in the future. And so I would really put focus on those. Those are a strong signal. Um the second thing in terms of the priorities, there was strong convergence on priorities um on the three priorities, enrollment, funding, and trust. Um those were the three priorities that really rose to the top through all of these conversations um and are an important input. Um now, community member inputs, this is one input of many to consider for the strategic plan process. Ronda's going to share the inputs from your other stakeholders, but what a gift um to have all this this input from community members across your footprint. And um you know, it was wonderful to partner
079with you all in in doing this. So thank you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> I would also like to share the data from uh both students and from our teachers, uh support staff, administrators, and just other staff because uh we also have maintenance staff which which chimed in on some of this which I think is extremely important and sometimes we forget about. They're a part of education as well as our custodial staff. And so I have a broad range of individuals. I had more than 100 people um answer the staff survey which is pretty good comparatively cuz most of the time people only answer surveys if they have something to say. And so um they they said a lot and it it aligns very very much so with what the community had to say as
080well as our students which I think is a very key voice. Obviously, you know, students sometimes think about food is pretty important. And it kind of is in in the big scheme of things because it is something that is important to them. And teachers overarchingly thought about pay. And that's a huge that's a huge reason why they come to work every day. Not just children, they have to pay the bills. And so that is a one of their priorities and we understand that especially whenever our district next to us is is paying more. So the the first question that was asked is similar to what we asked our community and that was, you know, where do you see District 70 in 15 to 20 years from now? And our staff said that they see that
081what was important was our core fundamental academics, reading, writing, math. That is that's extremely important but then also advanced technology integration, career technical education was extremely important and making sure that we expand our offerings. Um personalized and flexible learning, life and durable skills, critical thinking, problem solving, hands-on real-world experiences, and and a supportive inclusive environment. So that's what our staff felt like was extremely important. And to mirror that, the students when they were asked, you know, where do you see our district in 15 to 20 years, they they felt like success equaled students graduating as capable, confident, independent adults with practical life skills, solid academics, and real-world experiences. They wanted to see they want to see a shift to things that actually is put to use after you graduate like how to do your taxes,
082finances, cooking, communication, work ethic. And without sacrificing the core academics and school spirit. And whenever we asked about what are the strengths of the district, you know, what is the district doing well? The staff said that we have dedicated, caring staff and teachers and that's evidenced everywhere we go. We do have that. Student-centered and focus. The focus on safety, prioritizing students first is a is a strength of our district. They felt like that we communicate strongly with staff and families, parents, and communities which was kind of opposite of what our community said. So that was one thing that was kind of in not exactly the same the same level. CTE and career pathways, they thought that was a strength. Our community relationships, the high expectations that our district has, that we offer a variety of
083opportunities for students, and that we create a supportive environment. And when we asked the students what they thought that our district excelled in and what our strengths were, we provide a a range of opportunities for them like academics, technical, artistic, athletic, extracurricular. We we allow them to explore their interests to gain real-world exposure like through DECA, concurrent enrollment, hands-on classes, and they felt like they were generally in a safe, welcoming environment with caring teachers. Their feedback shows a genuine pride in the variety of pathways and the supportive culture. When we asked what could we do better, sorry, I have to align my data here. The staff said that the first thing that number one priority is compensation and benefits. And that does somewhat align with what was said in our community outreach. The facilities and
084resources are deteriorating and need to be updated. Communication again and transparency, improve district-wide communication between administration building and schools with staff and families. Um teacher support and workload. Those were all things that were a top priority for our teachers that we could improve upon as far as our students. Um students really want a practical and tangible improvements that enhance their daily life such as better facilities, food, stronger life skills education, more proactive counseling and support for college and career, consistent and fair discipline, increased funding for programs that make school engaging and worthwhile. They felt like the district did well with opportunities but need to address the basic quality of life issues like meals. And close the gap between obtaining school credits. They put school credits and offering real adult preparedness. I thought that was very
085telling. Um when we asked our district uh our our our staff the top three to four priorities that they felt were um something that we could look forward to for the future, they said competitive compensation and staff retention, better facilities and infrastructure upgrades, and uh strengthening core academics for curriculum and instruction. Students, their key priorities were um the district should prioritize preparing students to thrive as capable adults through practical life skills while creating a more engaging and supportive and enjoyable school experience including investing in facilities and resources and high-quality caring teachers. So they want to see our teachers get a raise too. Um some important core values from our staff. They think that the highest is respect. They consistently emphasized [clears throat] this was a foundation as well as community and integrity and pride. And
086when we asked our students about core values, they they said that District 70 is at its best whenever it demonstrates a caring, close-knit community where students feel valued, safe, and supported. Um this shows up through high school engagement I'm sorry, high engagement and school spirit actions and decisions focused on student growth and real-world readiness. They they really appreciated things like Make-A-Wish, their strong teacher relationships, and their sense of pride and belonging. I think we do a great job at that. Let me see if I skipped anything. I don't want any of their data to go uh unnoticed. You're still going to send that to us, correct, Rhonda? I sure can. Anyway, I believe I covered everything. I I think that much of what was said by our students and our staff aligned with what was
087said by the community and I think that even long after I'm gone that this strategic plan is something that can be carried out by this administrative staff who was a huge part of putting it all together. And then our board giving us their priorities so that we can put it all together as one and create a long-term strategic plan. I was saying that I've been in this district for more than 20 years and I don't ever recall us making a big strategic plan. And so I think that this would be a great stepping stone for us for the future. Any questions or comments? Thank you. Rhonda, thank you for all your time and effort and your vision. And thank the wonderful folks at the meetings. I see you. Thank you. It was a pleasure to
088be a part of that. And so I really appreciate you guys. And if just to clarify, I think that the rollout of this the implementation was meant to roll out in the fall of this next school year, is that correct? Does that sound right? It would be nice to do it over the summer so that we could begin the year with it. Right. So so we we would work on it and then but it's it's like so the plan is I'd love to have it completed before I leave. Excellent. That's great. I think that kind of brings up a good point though as far as let's put this on an agenda item to brainstorm and like dive a little deeper in there cuz there was a lot of information to digest. Maybe a work session.
089Yeah, something something to that effect. I do think that it's going to be important for you guys to look through all of this information and take a few weeks to even I know you have other jobs besides this. So but to look through all of this data and this information in order to formulate what you see as the priorities from your standpoint as well. Absolutely. Any other comments or questions? It is kind of ironic how people want to stay the same but yet change and grow. It's like I We saw that with the cell phone policy though. Parents didn't want their kids to have cell phones but yet they wanted their parent their kids to have cell phones and it's like They want their cake and eat it, too, but it's you know, it's it's
090tough when it comes to questions like >> Nobody loves change. >> Oh, no, I'm included in that. But we have to have change in order to grow. [clears throat] Yep. Thank you, Ronda. >> [applause] >> Okay, item 7.02 through 7.04. Um, presentation of Pueblo West High School JROTC. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is First Sergeant John McMaster. I'm one of the Army instructors at Pueblo West High School. Before I begin, I wanted to share our Raider team's accomplishment accomplishment down in San Antonio on 21 March. We competed against 30 schools spread across five states, 16 teams competing in our division. We finished third place overall, so thank you for approving that trip. Um, I had a student create a short video. I promise it's short uh, to help show you what we do
091for Raider competitions. I'm trying to get the video to play. If it plays, for time's sake, if it doesn't play, we can go on. >> on my end. When I tried it on my computer, it works. Thank you. That's okay. It's thinking. It'll probably start blaring music here shortly. Okay. So, uh, I am seeking your approval for three upcoming trips, two for Raider and one for archery. Our first trip is to Fort Knox, Kentucky uh, 16 to 19 April. Uh, we are competing at the Raider Nationals. This trip is fully funded by Cadet Command. I will be traveling with 14 males on this trip. Our next trip is to Rapid City, South Dakota to compete in the 2026 Black Hills Raider Challenge, which is 8 through 10 May. I will be driving a mini bus
092to this competition, so say a quick prayer for me. Uh, we will be staying in the barracks and the cadet cadets are responsible for their meals for both days of travel. I will be traveling with 10 males to that competition. Our last trip will be to archery nationals at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I will be taking a team of eight cadets. This trip is fully funded by uh, Cadet Command as well. I will be traveling with four males and four females. I will be taking a District 70 employee, Ashley Richardson, as my chaperone, my female chaperone. I wanted to point out that our archery team took first place at our state tournament on 7 March. We were one of the top 80 teams to be selected to shoot and compete this year at the archery
093nationals. Hitting your questions. That's Yes, sir. What's the range on archery? What distance are they shooting at? >> 10 m and uh, at 15 m, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. I want to try it again with it not blown up, see if it works. I hope it does cuz I've I know and it worked on my computer. explain to y'all what Raider is and it's kind of hard to I watched it earlier, it worked. I just don't know why it's not working on this. Well, I so I think I've seen the Raider team more than a few times and how many how many days a week do they train? Uh, so [clears throat] great question. We uh, [clears throat] we train Uh, and then our archery team, they train 6:00 in the morning till 7:30.
094Uh, we do that two days a week. So Where at? I try to build the teams. Uh, we shoot in our aux gym. Uh, so I I set up a net as a backstop and we fling arrows at targets. So, normally it's a bull's-eye target is what we train on, uh, but we've since recently purchased some 3D targets and uh, getting better every day. And you And you're at school um, after school >> I know. All the time. Like every day, all the time. Yes, ma'am. I think I work more now than what I did when I was in the Army. It's okay. It's worth it. It's absolutely worth it. The kids are worth every minute of my time. But hitting your questions. That's all I have. All right, thank you. Thank you. I hope
095THAT VIDEO WORKS. >> [applause] >> 7.05, PRESENTATION of the Pueblo West High School DECA trip. All right. Uh, good evening, everybody. Uh, my name is Jared Purvis. I'm one of the CTE business teachers at Pueblo West High School. Um, I'm coming to you guys today. We have the opportunity to take nine students to uh, DECA Nationals in Atlanta, Georgia. Um, you know, one of the great things about Pueblo West is we have uh, four fantastic CTSOs. If you don't know what CTSOs are, they're our career and technical student organizations. Um, they're opportunities for literally what they were talking about, for kids to apply those skills. Literally what we're learning in the classroom every single day. Um, they get to go put those on in forms of projects or activities, role plays, etc. Um, one of
096the architects of our DECA program is right here in Mr. Wagner. Um, you know, Miss Allen here in just a second is going to talk about another one. Um, but we I have the opportunity um, to take nine students, uh, five five girls and four boys, um, to Atlanta. Um, we are going We are combined with Pueblo East. Pueblo East has a female chaperone that we combine cuz she has one male student. Um, and we're going to go out there and hopefully, um, present our projects, um, that we have done. Um, some of these have now become Pueblo West staples in the community. Um, our hygiene drive, um, our Junior Achievement project, which is now in five of the elementaries and we're hoping to expand it to the middle schools next year, which is a
097financial literacy project. Um, will both be presented out there, um, in hopes of hopefully bringing back some hardware. If you have an opportunity next year, um, cuz they're done this year, come on out and come see those. Um, they are fantastic events that the students have created. We are just there to facilitate. Um, they are doing all of the work. They're planning, organizing, connecting with our community, um, connecting with the students within our schools, um, and organizing, training them just to be able to put on these events um, for our community, for our students, for the younger generations that are going to ultimately come through District 70. And so, um, if you guys get an opportunity, we would love to have you out there to support those events and just to see what these students
098are doing. Um, whether that's DECA, I'll be up here in a couple weeks again for FBLA, um, cuz we have several more that are going to be going for that. But, um, hopefully we get the opportunity to go out there. So, thank you guys. You guys got any questions? Thank you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Item 7.06, presentation of the Pueblo West High School HOSA trip. Hi. Uh, my name is Ashley Allen and I am one of the HOSA advisors at Pueblo West High School. Um, I was here back presenting in early February and I was talking about how we were getting ready to take over 90 students to our state competition in Denver that happens every single year. And so, we were fortunate enough to have some students qualify to go to now the
099international competition this summer in Indianapolis. And so, um, there was about 21 students that qualified to go. Of those 21, we are going to take five students, um, and we're leaving in June. And so, um, I'll just reiterate for those that don't know, HOSA, um, is uh, like uh, Mr. Purvis said, it's our um, career and technical student organization that goes along with our biomed program, our biomedical um, science program at Pueblo West High School. And so, um, students take biomedical courses. Um, it's a four-year pathway that they can take and then alongside of that, they can join our HOSA program, which formerly stood for Health Occupations Students of America. Now they just call it, um, Future Health Professionals. And so, it's just a chance for them to again apply what they're learning in the
100classroom, um, but also get out and shadow um, health care professionals in the community and apply those skills in the real world. And then our competition is just meant for them to just learn what they are take what they've learned um, by shadowing in the community and apply them through presentation, very similar to DECA, um, through presentation or projects, um, or showing skills um, in front of judges. And so, now they just go compete um, in Indianapolis and we're hoping for success there, too. So, any questions? Well, that's great. Good luck. >> [applause] >> Item 7.07, presentation of the Pleasant View Middle School Technology Student Association. Hello, board. Uh, my name is Carrie Sweet Sipe. I am a music teacher at Pleasant View Middle School, but I'm also the uh, tech technology student association teacher
101and advisor. Which is the same line as DECA and HOSA and FBLA and all of those things. It's that career and tech student organization that students have the opportunity participate in. Um, TSA is the only opportunity that middle schoolers have to participate. Uh, none of those other programs have a middle school um, component. So, TSA is what we use for our students at um, Pleasant View and throughout the district. First, I'd like to thank Mr. my principal, Mr. Gene Padilla, um, for giving me the opportunity to be the TSA teacher and advisor. Um, I'm a music teacher. That That's my hat. That's my who I am. But, as a parent, I got to see what TSA did for my kids. And as now a an advisor, I've talked to and been in touch with many
102students that have gone through our program at Pleasant View. And some of them are working in quantum computing. My son is getting ready to graduate in robotics and and mechanical engineering. Um mechanical engineering structural design. Another student is going to fashion design college. All because and these are all kids that have gone through the TSA program at Pleasant View. And they're now working in careers that got them ready for those that they got their start at TSA. And so I I'm glad that Mr. Padilla has given me the opportunity to wear that hat because I find it just as equally artistically creative as music. But, it's incredibly challenging but a very rewarding experience. Tonight, I'm here to ask the board to approve our trip to the national conference. TSA is a strong CTE program that
103helps, as I said, get kids ready. You've heard plenty tonight how much kids are begging for career ready skills to take out of the classroom that helps them be better citizens and helps them be ready for a job in the real world. Core subjects are do that, but they also want to know how to cook and sew and measure and be able to design things as well. And CTE does that and TSA does that. Um TSA's been a part of T PV for 13 years. This is our 13th year. Um this year I have 48 students involved in my program. Um we participated in our District 70 regional event from Pleasant View, Vineland, and um Skyview Middle School. We had well over probably close to 120 students competing. And that um we also at Pleasant
104View, we took our students in February up to the state conference. I took 16 students. Um in our 16 events that we participated in, we got in the top five in at least 14 of those events. And because of that, of their placings, we are able they were invited to participate in the national conference. Um this will be the eighth year that Pleasant View has taken students to the national conference, which is pretty exciting. Um four of our students have taken up that challenge. And they're going to take their projects to um National Harbor, Maryland, which is just outside Washington, D.C. Um June 22nd through the 24th. So, we'll be in our nation's capital this summer very close to our birthday, so it'll be a lot of fun. We're hoping to be able to get
105into D.C. and go explore some of the monuments while we're there. Tonight, I'd like to ask the board to approve this trip so these students can not only represent Colorado, >> [snorts] >> but Pueblo, District 70, and Pleasant View Middle School at the national conference. Are there any questions? Sounds fun. Congratulations. Very exciting. Thank you for your time. >> [applause] >> Item 7.08 presentation of the school calendar revision. So, when I visit elementary classrooms, um one of the things that they always love to ask me is how do you how do you call a snow day? Well, thankfully, I have not had to call very many snow days this year. Um more rain than snow. Uh and when I do call snow days, uh let the online bullying begin. Um It's never the right decision,
106as you know. So, that being said, I think students were they're going to be pretty happy about this because we have not had any or not many um snow days, we have plenty of contact hours. And so, I would like to propose that we allow students out on May 28th and do not make them come back on June 1st. So, we would allow their student contact day to be their last day to be June 28th. This would not change June 28th. I'm sorry. I I'm dreaming of June 28th. I'm May 28th. Here comes the snowstorm. [laughter] We still have plenty of days. It'd have to be really snow hard. So, May 28th, I would like their last student contact day to be May 28th. And then on June 1st, this will provide our high school
107teachers an opportunity to grade. It will provide an opportunity for makeups and to it gives our teachers a little bit more time to submit their grades at that high school level because that is a lot to do in 1 week. Um and it will also at our middle school allow for some training opportunities. And at our elementary, since we are adopting a new math curriculum, it will provide an opportunity for us to provide at least a half day of introductory training on here is the new math curriculum that we've chosen and give them the chance to actually look through the curriculum before they start the year next year. Um and so, that's what we're looking to do for June 1st and then the June 2nd would remain the checkout day for teachers. Um I'm asking
108for this change because we haven't had very many snow days, which I'm pretty pleased about. Any questions? Thank you. I'm not clapping for that one. >> [applause] >> ITEM 7.09 presentation of the ESS social worker job description. I I think what Miss Ryan forgot to say, we have a very strategic plan for calling snow days. It's called the magic eight ball. Like >> [laughter] >> shake it and see what it tells us. I get cur I it's it's been it's been great not having those early morning phone conversations. Uh so, hopefully >> We really do get up at 3:00 in the morning and we start fretting about it and talking about it. We talk about it all night, all morning long. Um we look at that we constantly look at the reports at the weatherman
109still maintains their job even when they get it wrong. We just get bullied over it. So, Either way. Either way. Um Uh so, what uh we have uh for you is a a new job description and although it's a new job description, it's it's really not a new position. Um it's more of an adaptation or a different version of a a job description we already have. Uh we do have social workers uh in our district. Uh just a few. Uh they do work under the student services department. Most of them uh in fact, all of them are grant funded to support a few of our programs that specifically work with at-risk students. And and general school social workers, that's that's pretty much what they do. They they are generalized to work with all students and
110particularly those students that are at risk. Attendance, absences, chronic uh you know, grades, failing grades, discipline, uh things like that, home uh life, community connections, those types of things. Um over the years, um we've been struggling to fill certain positions within our ESS department specific to uh special service providers who provide services related [clears throat] to students' IEPs. And those are psychs, school psychs, uh speech language pathologists, OTs, uh PTs. Uh over the last few years and and Jennifer can answer any questions that that you may have as well, but we have struggled to uh maintain uh adequate school psychologist uh number and we've we've had people leave and we haven't been able to fill positions. And when we do fill a position, then it seems like somebody else leaves and then we're trying to
111fill that position. And so, we are we are currently or will be currently two short two school psychologists. We've been short all year long. Um we have another one who's who's on leave and so, we we are we're struggling to fill those positions. We are contracting out services. Those contract services are at a higher rate than uh what we currently pay our employees. They're remote services. And so, they're just they're just not as as good as having those individuals in front of kids. And so, when we met with our psychs to talk about how do we how do we manage the caseloads? How do we manage what you guys are dealing with? One of the things that they came up with is they are dealing with a lot of um discipline and a lot of
112what we call functional behavioral assessments or FBAs. And then from those, those those bring about behavior and intervention plans. And those take a lot of time to do. They take a lot of time to to uh review and then implement the plan, meet with staff, support those students. And so, one of the things we talked about, there are other ways to meet those uh needs to then free up our school psychs to do other uh things pertaining to IEPs and services. And and one of those is social workers. Another one is BCBAs. And uh so, we decided, well, maybe we need to start looking for a combination of of people to try to fill these roles because we just we've had a school psychologist posting all year long and we've had no qualified applicants. And
113that's been the that's been kind of the the norm for the last few years. Um The the problem with our current school social worker uh thing, it is written for general school social work. So, again, what what our current people do. What we're going to be looking for with social workers pertaining to the ESS department and would work under uh Jennifer's department, they're more specific to what they would have to do with an IEP. And and so, the job description looks different and the duties would look different. And so, we we can't put one job description out there and and try to hire for an individual when they're looking at well, okay, I can do that job cuz that's what I've been doing or that's what I'm you know, my specialty is and then we
114come back and tell them, oh by the way, you're not doing that. You're doing this and so the new job description is simply just a job description that has kind of crossover. There are certain things on both job descriptions that are the same, but the ESS job description that gets into that more specific things such as conducting FBAs, writing BIPs, supporting IEPs, participating in those types of meetings. And so that's that's what that job description is is for and so it's again a new job description, but just kind of focusing on what that job would be versus our other job description. Yes. Is this an additional site? Is this person in charge of the psychologist? They'd be additional. They're they're on the same. Oh, okay. Yeah, so what's social workers are considered school special service
115providers like Katie had mentioned that that she holds a license school counselors hold a special service provider license. They're already on our They're already on a pay scale. We already have individuals working as school social workers. So they are just another school service special service provider that would provide services to our students and in this case this would be specific to providing IEP services. So would it be in lieu of those psychologists that we're going to >> be. So our hope is this and and this sounds crazy, but we have a psych posting open right now. We have a BCBA posting board certified behavioral analyst. Did I get that right Miss Alfonsi? So we have a posting open for that and once we get this approved at the next meeting, we will then look to
116post that and our hope is between those two postings we find our those three postings we find two people. That's That's that's what we're hoping because right now we do not have anybody in the school psych postings. I don't know what the BCBA posting looks like. So we're just hoping that trying to come up with ways in which to solve that that gap and Miss Alfonsi, do you have anything? We actually have a psych posting for years and not been able to fill and so we're So we're down a school psych and we have a psych who's leaving us. So we're down two psychs. So hoping to hire two people to replace those two positions. And this Social workers aren't easy to find either. So again, if all of these individuals are not easy to
117find highly competitive school districts are looking for the same individuals we're looking for outside agencies. Not as many people go into these types of professions anymore. So even with a psych or school social worker posting I mean the last ones we've had Mr. Salvani, have you drawn two, three if we're if we're lucky. So again we just hope that we can somehow bridge that gap that we're missing. Is that because school districts don't pay as much as private practice? In some cases, yes. And then unfortunately They're just I I think they're professions that a lot of people are choosing not to to go into as well. I just I don't think the numbers in the master's programs are uh Those special service provider they have to have a master's. So it's not just for our
118school psychs and social worker it's not just a bachelor's degree. They have to have a master's degree in school social or social work. They have to complete internship and practicum hours. So it's it's it's a lot of work to get that and so I think people just are choosing not to go that route. That's >> a question. So you mentioned that the contract labor is higher in terms of the cost. Is that higher based on an hourly rate or is that higher overall like what we talked about with the um the supervisor vice three position a few weeks ago. I don't know which one you want to address on. It's an hourly. Miss Alfonsi has some data. I think we're paying about $110 an hour Um for the contract services. Is that So the current
119school psych we're paying is $114.65 an hour. Um And it's remote. And it's a remote person. And it's And do we pay them full time? I mean are we using their services 40 hours a week? >> Um sometimes 40 depends on their caseload. So it's usually 36. Okay. But it is full time. It's not like we're sending kids to them 10 hours a week or whatever. No, they don't they don't work on Fridays and I don't contract with them for professional development days or anything like that. Um but sometimes their paperwork if they've had a a big week of assessments then they do work a few hours on a Friday just to get that done so they're starting Monday with a clean slate. Clean slate. The other piece out because they are remote then we
120we have to have individuals when when it's time for a student to receive their services especially if it's an elementary or younger student, we have to have a parapro or some other individual then be with that student help them get logged on, make sure that they're going through the thing and so it it's not remote services are not the ideal. Yeah. services that and of course they are costly to us. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Item 7.10 discussion of the appointment of an interim superintendent and transition planning process. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board. Our discussion item tonight is really with respect to the retirement of our current superintendent, Ronda Ryan. It is imperative that our community and our staff know the direction for the 26-27 school year.
121Currently, the timeline to complete the process for a posting, a search, and the hiring process for a superintendent is not available in order to have a person in place by July 1st. With that being said, there are some options for moving forward with an interim position superintendent position to begin July 1st. So for the board to discuss tonight some of those options in appointing someone into an interim position as a superintendent or going ahead and moving forward with a posting for an interim position for the next school year. For both positions for an interim superintendent, this would eventually lead to a posting and the full process for a search for a superintendent for the 27-28 school year. Yes, specific questions. I know we talked about qualifications. I'm happy to speak to that. You know, what
122our current qualifications for a superintendent is someone with a master's degree. At least 8 years of successful experience in teaching, administrative, and or supervisory fields. A valid administrator's license with endorsement of superintendent or a principal's license as issued by the Colorado Department of Education. And any alternatives to the above qualifications as the board may find appropriate and acceptable. We do have a job description that you would be welcome to look at and and make any updates to that we could bring back for approval as it is, you know, a few years old since we have not had to post for superintendent for a couple of years. So in in terms are we Can we ask questions now? Is that possible? So with interim that means that they're Can you explain what interim is for all
123of us? Interim is not a permanent position. It's just for a time period that you are are appointing someone into that position. But with the Colorado Equal Pay Act laws, employment laws, I mean that position can't always be interim. We do have to post for that position for a full-time position in a time frame. Okay. That was my first question. Can I ask one more question? >> Sure. Okay. My other question is um You mentioned I mean obviously we don't have much time, but also isn't there a more ideal time if we were to post and I mean what is it What is a traditional cycle like you know to look for a superintendent? >> Well, administrative contracts usually run July to June 30th, July 1st to June 30th. And so you know, I I
124would say at the latest you would want to post and begin that search process, you know, in January for a position to begin in July 1st. It It does take time. Mr. Emery. So why Why should we not start a search now? Again, I there's nothing saying you can't. I don't know that the timeline to complete a full search for a permanent position is available to you. It will still take time even in an interim if you choose to post and go through that process of a posting. >> of the process. Right. That's what I know. I know the answer. Right. So like January is kind of an ideal time to start looking. And all the good people are gone right now. Well, and yeah, people are signing you know, will be signing contracts in
125in May and June to begin the new year in July. And we're already in April, believe it or not. We just talked about this. >> [laughter] >> I I guess I have a question for my fellow board members. Um Do any of you see any reason why we wouldn't just appoint an interim? As far as the direct placement versus posting. Yeah, as far as a point, yes, a direct placement. I mean, is there anybody that I like the direct placement idea. Yeah, I think the sooner we can act on this, the better to ensure a smooth transition with Rhonda and um I think we have several great options. Um so, I'm for the direct placement option. Yeah. I Yeah, I am, too. I just I just think it's just If there are qualified people, and
126there are >> Yes, there are. Uh then it's such a smooth process. Yeah. Okay. So, any other questions for Ms. Russell? Do Do you want to set a time frame for doing an appointment or >> like to see us vote at our next regular meeting. That would be the 21st. >> That would be the 21st. Yeah. Is that acceptable? Yeah. So, I think the sooner we have somebody in that position, it's just it's hard for most of us to live with ambiguity. So, if we can um place somebody in that position, at least on an interim, I think that'll benefit the district as a whole. Any other questions for Ms. Russell? Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. Now, let's see. Item 7.11. Discussion on the development of a policy on fairness and safety
127in sports. So, I brought this issue forward for discussion for a couple of reasons. Um first, this issue was raised repeatedly by the community during my campaign. Um along with parental rights, it was among the issues that were most important to voters, at least the voters that I was interacting with. Um And secondly, I think that it's an issue that we just can't avoid. Um CHSAA has already been subject to litigation on this issue. As a result, it entered into a settlement with multiple districts, including District 49, where it agreed not to impose athletic penalties or sanctions. While that doesn't change the law, Colorado law, it does remove one layer of risk related to athletic participation. In addition, there's federal litigation and enforcement around Title IX. That enforcement is not hypothetical. Right here in Colorado,
128the U.S. Department of Education found Jefferson County in violation of Title IX and indicated that districts could face enforcement actions, including [laughter and clears throat] the potential loss of federal funding, if they do not come into compliance. Beyond that, this issue is being actively litigated across multiple states, and it's currently being considered by the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court heard arguments in January, and they're um currently in deliberations. For these reasons, I think it's important that we begin working toward a policy, so we're not reacting to this for the first time under pressure. Wouldn't it be nice to get out ahead of stuff instead of always responding under pressure? From my perspective, this comes down to fairness um and the original purpose of girls athletics. Girls sports exist to provide equal opportunities based
129on biological differences. I believe that allowing biological males to compete in girls sports undermines that purpose and creates an uneven playing field for female athletes. It also raises concerns around safety and opportunities, including scholarships. I believe we have a responsibility to protect our girls and those opportunities in a meaningful way. As I mentioned earlier, I believe this reflects the concerns expressed by many in our community. At the same time, I recognize that Colorado law does not allow for enforcement actions, or does allow for enforcement actions, including investigations and potential penalties. However, the state and CHSAA have not, to date, pursued lawsuits or imposed penalties against districts for adopting these types of policies. So, while that risk does exist, it has not been actively enforced in the same way that we are seeing enforcement at the
130federal level. When I look at all of this together, it appears to me that one approach may carry less risk overall for the district. Having a clear policy, rather than reacting case by case, puts us in a stronger position to manage that risk thoughtfully. And I just want to make it clear, I'm not suggesting we resolve this tonight. Um but I do think that we need to start to work on this and to kind of open the discussion. Um so that we can position the district to mitigate um litigation, legal action against us as much as possible. So, having said that, I invite um members of the board to weigh in comments, thoughts, feelings. Anyone? Nobody wants to discuss? Oh, I have a question. I just have a Do we Do we have any boys
131and girls sports right now? So, I We don't that I'm aware of, but again, I just think that it's important for us to get out in front of it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think that it's it's preemptive. And what I mean, I think my first question is, I mean, obviously, what is what's happening in District 11, but also, what are our current policies? Where does, you know, what I mean, what is the state law? What is the federal [clears throat] law? What is And you mentioned um the Department of Education, and I also read that, and I um I think it would be important that as a board, we work on this as maybe forming a committee and looking at what is the law at all levels, because I think that would be our
132due diligence to understand what is the law. So, that that would be my question and suggestion. I think that's what makes it tricky, too. Especially when the laws are different for state versus federal. Right, but that And that's like constitutionally, what is the right of um you know, like the United States Constitution versus the state constitution versus our Like we have an anti-discrimination law in the state of Colorado that is partly what, you know, has raised some of these questions. And then also, um fairness and, you know, So, I I My suggestion is if we could form a committee or work on it as a board to understand to understand the laws, because I No matter what, like we whether you have a state law or a federal law, you still have to understand I
133I I would want to understand the laws. For sure. Yeah, I think that's important. Yeah, absolutely. Um I've also spoken to many people where this is a big issue. Um actually, one of >> [snorts] >> the main issues they talked about pulling their kids from sports in public schools and putting them in club sports, because this wasn't as much of of an issue. That's happening all across the city. Um where our sports um teams at the at the public schools are suffering because parents are choosing to take them out and put them into the club sports that are offered. Um so, I I did prepare something for this, because this is something that um I also think we're going to have to deal with. I've been watching um all of these lawsuits happen, both at
134the state level and the federal level. Uh we definitely Oh, wait. to our district to make sure that we are um creating policies that mitigates that risk. Um I just want to say, my duty as a school board member is to provide every child, uh male and female, the fairest, safest, and most equitable athletic experience possible. I recognize this is a sensitive issue with strong perspectives, but our role is not to resolve cultural debates, but in to ensure fairness, safety, and equal opportunity for students. The question before us is whether participation in girls sports should be based on biological sex or gender identity. That decision determines whether female athletes retain a level playing field. Biological males have experienced male pu- that have experienced male puberty retain physical advantages that create unfair and sometimes unsafe competition.
135We separate sports by sex, because these differences matter. Title IX was created to ensure equal opportunity for girls when it was originally created in 1972. When categories are not protected, those opportunities are reduced. Um in contact sports, these differences can also increase risk. Safety is a part of our responsibility. When policies are unclear, confusion follows. Our job is to provide clarity. Clarity is not harmful, but confusion is. Our responsibility is to protect fairness, safety, and equal opportunity. So, I I feel like I'm aligned there with this issue. I would love more discussion on this. Um and I I would love to take action on it as well, creating a policy for our district. We definitely need more discussion. We definitely need input on the legal stuff. I'm not um suggesting that we can resolve anything
136tonight. I just think that it's something that we need to that we need to engage in. Anything to add, Adrienne, or other? So, I guess we can discuss going forward if we would prefer a committee or if we just want to have a work session at some point. Um and do some of the footwork on the legal implications. Sure. Okay. I think Brad has a Mr. Miller has attorney Miller has a say. >> Thank you. Just to that end, as as probably is evident to a lot of people, I've I've been involved in the in the district and have been involved in the lawsuit, so I probably got some of the fundamental legal understanding and I could prepare something for the work session or something like that without much effort. That would be really helpful.
137Thank you. That that would be great. Okay. Item 7.12. Discussion of the litigation counsel for pending open meeting lawsuit. Um I'm sure that you're all aware that the the board was served with a legal complaint. Um Mr. Miller represents the board as general counsel, but because this is a situation revolving um involving litigation, we need to hire different counsel that specializes in litigation. Um to that end, we did reach out to several different law firms, maybe half a dozen, I don't know, um and asked them to provide letters of engagement with their fees and those sorts of things. Of the ones that we reached out to, we received two letters back. Um one of them is from a law firm called First and 14th. Um and the partner that provided the letter is a man
138by the name of Michael Francisco. Um so, that was one um Michael, based on the research I've been able to conduct, you guys can feel free to weigh in, is highly qualified as a litigator. He uh was a clerk for, you know, Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. He's been involved in cases coming before the Supreme Court. Um he I just feel like he's a highly qualified litigator. He is a little bit more expensive than the other letter that we received. Um however, he does have more junior partners that would carry a lot of the the weight, and so that would reduce our cost. Um I did ask him when I spoke with him if if he would commit to using the lowest rate person possible for an individual task um in order to keep our
139costs down. I should also mention regarding costs that Rhonda reached out to the insurance company. Um we do have a deductible and then [clears throat] they'll cover they do allow us to choose our own counsel. Um they won't cover all of the costs, but they will help offset the costs. [cough] Um so, that was our our first consideration was to determine what kind of coverage we had and how that would uh affect our decision. The second law firm that responded is a firm by the name of Gessler Blue Law. Um but uh person who sent the letter is Scott E. Gessler. He also is a highly qualified litigator. He was a past Secretary of State for the state of Colorado. Um he has extensive experience in open meeting law, which is kind of the heart
140of the lawsuit. So, um those are the two. We need to choose a uh a firm tonight. We were supposed to have a status hearing today. Mr. Miller was able to uh petition to have that pushed until tomorrow, but we do have a status hearing tomorrow, so it's really imperative that we choose legal counsel um so that we are represented. >> Mr. President Yes, sir. >> question. >> Please. Mr. Miller, uh just a question. Once again, I know the answer, but I'm doing this for educating the audience. Who is suing us and why? Yeah, thank you. Great question. It's the um the the nature of the lawsuit is uh um an allegation, broadly, that there was some violation of open meetings law in the past 6 months with the board. It's a little bit unclear
141because it's a bit of a meandering complaint, but that's the gist of it that that it's accusing the board of violations of open meetings law. And it's um brought on behalf of three candidates uh who were self-appoint self-designated as as candidates for the appointment that Susie Carnes was placed in. Thank you. So, I just um invite discussion regarding these two options before us. Um could you, for discussion's sake, uh give us the comparison of price of those two? Of course, yeah. So, um First and 14th, that's the firm with um Michael Francisco. Um Michael um in some cases bills at $900 an hour. For us, his rate would be $600 an hour. He has an associate, Andrew Nussbaum, um who would handle the bulk of our case, and his rate is $495 an hour. Um
142Monica Milly also works for the firm, and she's $150 an hour. So, it would depend on who was uh you know, doing the work on on how those hours would be billed. Um and there are other partners as well that might be called, but but Michael's the top tier there. Um the other law firm, Gessler Blue Law, their um normal hourly rate is $575 per hour, but for this engagement, they'll charge no more than $400 per hour. He says, "I may also involve other attorneys and legal assistants um to include those not directly employed by the firm. Other attorneys will be billed at 3 to $400 per hour, and paralegals at $175 per hour." >> [cough] >> So, um just for comparison, um with Michael Francisco, for work that he does, we would be billed
143at uh $600 an hour. Uh Andrew Nussbaum would be $495 an hour, >> [clears throat] >> but um if the paralegal, Monica uh Milly, was handling tasks, that would be $150 an hour. And then um the other one uh Scott is $400 per hour. Other attorneys would be 3 to $400 per hour with the paralegal at $175 per hour. Ms. Ryan, Yeah. could you educate us on what our deductible is and what we're going to be on the hook for? The deductible is $25,000, and it will pay up to $100,000. So, there is a limit, but uh 25,000 is the deductible. And if I understand correctly, the nature of this case it could be expedited relatively quickly, or it could take longer, so we could Is that correct? It could be expedited quickly or take
144longer? Michelle, >> [clears throat] >> great question. We don't I'm not a litigator. I'm not going to try to provide real clear advice here, but this is the sort of case that might run shorter than a normal case because of the nature of the claims. So, ultimately, the $25,000 deductible could maybe we wouldn't spend $25,000 [clears throat] trying to get to our claim. Correct. Yes. Very much. I I think um another consideration is that should it drag out or um take longer and the the fees increase, if we were to lose the lawsuit, then we would be on And if a judge were to award legal fees to the other side, then we would be on the hook for that. Our insurance does not cover that. >> That's correct. Um so, to me, for that
145reason, we should choose the firm that's going to be the heaviest hitter, you know, the the best chance of of delivering a victory for us. Um Yeah, I agree. And honestly, with that cost analysis there between the two engagement letters that we received, um I see the difference is almost negligible, especially if we have what a lot of this is going to be with the um paralegal here with a lot of the paperwork at $150 an hour. Um and the associate at $495. This makes the most sense to me. You only are able to charge the most I mean, you said he charges upwards of $900 an hour for some of his other clients. Um You only get to do that when you're top tier. Um, it's kind of incredible that we're able to possibly
146lock it down there. Um, my uh, you know, so if we're just comparing these two, >> [cough] >> Also, I didn't love that um, the Gessler Blue was going to use outside uh, people outside the firm. Um, I feel like I would want to approve that or have um, that knowledge prior to. Um, so for those reasons, I'm I'm definitely partial to First and 14th. I do think both are good options. I agree. Well, Mr. Miller has recommended both. Yes, he has. >> So, he has confidence in both groups. >> yeah. >> [snorts] >> I know First and 14th, it seemed like they were a little larger firm. Where they they might be able to handle the load a little different. It seemed like uh, Gessler Blue was a little bit smaller. I don't know
147if it was only the two partners and a paralegal. Um, do you know size comparison? As far as >> roughly. I know that First and 14th is larger substantially, but I don't know the numbers particularly. They might have more resource. And First and 14th, they have more experience in um, these kinds of open meeting laws. Is that correct, Mr. I I'm going to say I I I think both have substantial experience and I don't track, you know, their particulars enough to know the the specific answer. That's good to I mean, when I I did speak with um, with Mr. Francisco. I haven't spoken with Mr. Gessler cuz I just got this this morning, but um, when I spoke with Mr. Francisco, he did he had looked at the case and he said that it could
148be because of the the speedy nature of it that um, they could be facing really tight deadlines and he said actually, we spoke with him. He said um, that their firm really excels at that. That that's kind of right in their wheelhouse to to take things that are on a really tight deadline and put together a case and hit hard. So, I um, that's not an outside reference saying that. So, you know, I I recognize that, but that was his explanation. >> is it's a pity we're having to take money away from our students to do this. I know everyone agrees and I'd like to take as little money away from our students as possible. Uh, whoever the attorney is, it's going to be a lot of money. And uh, uh, I would go for
149the lower cost. And I think looking at Gessler the Gessler Blue and comparing it to the First and 14th, um, I mean, the cost, but also the fact that um, Mr. Gessler had been the Secretary of State and has a real grasp. I mean, he served you know, at the state level um, here in Colorado specific to our Colorado law and I feel like um, with open meetings, I mean, that's something that I just the cost. His Yeah, experience, yeah. If there's not any Well, is there any further discussion? If not, we'll go ahead and move to a vote, but You're going to move to open comment before you move to a vote. Oh, okay. You're right. Sorry. Thank you. Suzanne I arrived for a meeting with Rhonda at 3:00, so we've been nonstop meeting
150since 3:00 this afternoon. And so has Rhonda and and Bob. Um, Okay. So, let's move to open forum item 8.01. Do you have the forms? Yeah, I do have a form. >> [clears throat and cough] >> Uh, there's one participant. It's Brian Kelson. And uh, he signed the form and agreed to the elements. And I will tell you that I charge $0 an hour. And the reason why I am here is because every once in a while I think I need to be in a position of letting the district know that there are people out there who want to come alongside this district, the board, the staff, the students, the teachers and be a part of solutions, not a part of problems. And so, I'm here to remind the board and to remind you, those
151of you who are listening and who have been hanging in there, thank you for doing that. Um, that there are people out there in this district and I absolutely love this district who are wanting to come alongside and be a part of what's going on here because it really is pretty awesome. I'm a pastor at Christ Church Pueblo West and we are about family. We're about being good neighbors. Uh, part of what I do is I teach people to love God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves. And that is what we're about is being a good neighbor. And so, to that end, I want to remind some of you and I want to instruct some of you from the from the beginning about something that we
152do at Christ Church Pueblo West. We have an organization that is called Gear Up. Gear Up is where we collect new and used sports equipment from anybody, from any source and we collect it, we keep it in a shipping container and we make it available to students, athletes at no cost. Across the district, across District 60, throughout an entire in our entire county. If you came from Fremont County, I'd still hook you up. But here's the deal. We are part of the community that want to come alongside the district and be available. And so, that is why I'm here. I want to let you know that there are people like us out there. Many of them are you, but there are more than that than who show up at these meetings. Uh, I can tell
153you that in watching and seeing the numbers of folks that were in those community discussions, uh, that uh, it it kind of bothers me a little bit that more people didn't take advantage of that. Uh, because I think it is important for us to get involved in the district if for no other reason to let our board know that there are people who care. And I and I think that there are people out there who care who can't make it to meetings or who don't understand what's going on, but I want you to know some of us do. And so, I am very grateful to be included in being a part of what's going on in District 70. I've been here since 1987. Uh, I've been in and out of districts 60 and 70 for
154all sorts of different reasons. Many of you've seen me at a lot of athletic events and meetings and things like that, but I want to tell you right now, we're here to stay and we are very grateful for what's going on in this district. Sure, there's bumps in the road. Sure, things don't always go the way you'd like them to, but I want you to know we care about you and we are here for you to be part of your support system. So, thank you very much for letting me have my 3 minutes. >> [applause] >> Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, action items 9.01, approving engagement of qualified litigation counsel to represent the Board of Education in the open meeting law. So, do I have a motion? I'll I'll move. I move to approve
155First and 14th to represent the Board of Education in the open litigation. Is there a second? Second. AJ Wilson? I'm still thinking. There's lots of pros and cons to both of these, so. I'm going to say no. Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? No. Michelle Erickson? No. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion defeated. Um, so then I guess that means that we're going to So, do we have a motion? Yes, um, Is anybody going to Is it going to be Oh, okay. I I motion No, no, no, I'll um, I motion um, to approve Gessler and Blue. I'll confirm. Second. AJ Wilson? Yes. Ann Bennett? No. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? No. Motion carried. Okay. I will say even though I preferred um, First and 14th, I am happy with with Gessler. Sorry, I need
156to catch your signature after on it, too. Mhm. I need to catch your signature after on it as well. >> All right, okay. Item 9.02, approve the school calendar revision. Um, changing the final student contact day from June 1st, 2026 to May 20th, 2026. Do we have a motion? So moved. I'll second. AJ Wilson? Yes. Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Item 9.03, approval of the first student contract extension. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Sorry. That's okay. Writing. AJ Wilson? Yes. Ann [clears throat] Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Yay. >> [applause] >> Item 9.04, approval of revisions to policy JICJ, student use of cell phones. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. AJ Wilson? Yes.
157Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Okay. Item 9.05, approval of revision to policy JICDE, authorization to administer medication at school. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. AJ Wilson? Yes. Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Consent agenda item 10.01, approval of consent agenda items. Do you want to approve the consent agenda as presented, having been reviewed by the board? Do I have a motion? So moved. I'll second. AJ Wilson? Yes. Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Item 11.01, the next board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 at the Educational Services Center, 24951 East Highway 50, Pueblo, Colorado, beginning at 6:00 p.m. Can we make an an introduction before
158you bang the gavel? What? Can you Can we make an introduction? >> Oh, sure. Before you bang the gavel and we leave. >> Before we adjourn. Okay. Madam President, members of the board, before you adjourn tonight, I would like to introduce um Nicole Benavides, who has been serving as the interim principal at Liberty Point Elementary School this past school year. Uh Nicole has been selected through the hiring process as the principal position for Liberty Point Elementary beginning in July 1. So, she will continue in that position. And I would like to introduce her, thank her for coming tonight. Congratulations. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Good evening, Madam President, members of the board. I am honored to be here and just extremely honored to continue my work at Liberty Point Elementary as the principal. Um from
159the moment I set foot in Liberty Point Elementary as the Dean of Students, I immediately fell in love with my amazingly dedicated and supporting staff, um as well as our wonderful uh parents, community members, and of course, our fabulous students. Thank you for trusting me in this transition, and I look forward to continuing my journey at Liberty Point Elementary. Thank you. >> [applause] >> OKAY, ITEM 12.01, ADJOURN THE MEETING. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. I'll second. AJ Wilson? Yes. Ann Bennett? Yes. Mark Emery? Yes. Michelle Erickson? Yes. Susie Kearns? Yes. Motion carried. Okay. Susie. Mhm. Long day. So long day. Want to work too? Yes, I would.