001we have everybody yeah we do is okay okay now she's gone to get the all right we're going to call our meeting to order just a [Music] minute okay laury would you please call the RO St Boyd here Denise Chapman here Amy Doran here Don Kirk here Barbara Cruz here Alexander Lum here Nancy rumfelt here all right thank you Laur and um Nancy would you please lead us in the pledge I pledge aliance 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 okay steu would you please read um the mission statement the Thompson School District will be a school district that empowers challenges and inspires students faculty staff parents School leaders and community members to learn
002achieve and Excel thank you stu and our first item of business is the adop adoption of the agenda for today March 26 2025 are are there any changes to the agenda for today uh I move that we skip um item let me get make sure I have the right number sometimes it changes uh 5.5 the board committee reports in the interest of time we have just over 70 people who are signed up to speak however many are on the call and so I just think it that's going to be a big part of our meeting giving that time back would be great okay so I need a second to that okay so I have a motion from Don and a second from Amy is there any discussion or question about that no all right Laura
003Lee please call the rle St boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Lum hi Nancy rumfelt hi all right thank you all right the next item will be the approval of our minutes we have three meetings meeting minutes to approve the first is of um February 19th 2025 which was our regular February meeting does anyone have any changes or corrections to the minutes hearing none I will take a motion to approve the minutes for February 19 20 2 so moved second that was Don first from Denise and second from Don all right um Laur please call the all Stu Boyd hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander LOM hi Nancy ronfeld hi thank you the next one would be the approval
004of the minutes for February 26th 2025 that was our special meeting where we selected the committee The Firm for the superintendent search does anyone have any changes to or corrections to the minutes on the meeting of February 26 2025 hearing none I will take a motion to approve the minutes for that meeting so move second Ste and Don stew and Don and Laura Le please call the RO Stu Boyd hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Lum hi Nancy reld hi all right and the last one is the approval of the minutes for March 5th 2025 which would be our study session for March does anyone have any changes or corrections to the minutes I do I've already provided it to Laur Le to make it easy
005the minutes for item 7.2 need to reflect the following director Kirk asserted that director r felt violates the Constitution laws and board policies on a regular basis and that the honor of leading the pledge should not be done by director rumel director Kirk did not provide documentation to support the assertions made president Cruz directed director Kirk to maintain the list of violations pertaining to director rumfelt regarding the Constitution laws and board policies is there a second okay um I'll second oh we would what just happen I thought that's what you said I I moved oh okay I'm sorry yeah I'll second okay and we've heard Nancy's comments about it and because we don't provide detailed minutes when we put our minutes together and and they're all online and they're all published through the video that
006we have there um and that's based on councel from legal um that we're not going to do that request Nancy cuz we don't normally put that kind of a our our minutes are more General the details are in the videos then why do we do minutes and why do we ask if there are any changes because it's required and but the changes would be if there were changes of something that were was totally forgotten we just don't do minute by minute so what purpose does the minute serve it's just a record of what happens who makes the Motions that's it's a written record for us I see yeah okay okay all right next piece is um no no no we have to finish that job okay um so I need a a we need to
007vote on it so I need a first from 70 and a second to go ahead and move the minutes as they pres um presented so moved second okay so it's Don and then Alexander and um I'm gonna ask Laur to please call the rooll Stu Boyd hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Lam hi Nancy rumel no okay sorry all right uh next item is public participation and we'll turn it over to Dr Schaefer for the first part of it good evening Madame President members of the Board of Education and our guests in community parents students staff uh I am pleased to bring you my update for the month of March so National School social workers appreciation week from March 2nd through the 8th Thompson School District celebrated
008National School social workers appreciation week we want to honor the incredible School social workers who support students families and staff every day their dedication to mental health advocacy and Student Success makes a lasting impact on our schools and communities please join me in thanking these Heroes for their compassion and their commitment congratulations to namaka teacher Kimberly Alexander last month the MAA Elementary School fifth grade teacher Kimberly Alexander was recognized as part of the curriculum Associates extraordinary Educators 2025 class a program honoring and celebrating teachers the curriculum Associates extraordinary Educators program is an annual tradition of celebrating and connecting best-in-class Educators who demonstrate established criteria extraordinary Educators receive recognition locally and nationally a network of peers from around the country professional learning opportunities and the opportunity to ex uh to attend the extraordinary Educators leaders ship
009Summit so congratulations to Kimberly the eighth grade career expo at the end of February eighth graders across Thompson School District participated in the career expo at Ferguson high school and Thompson career campus students had the opportunity to connect with a variety of community professionals representing diverse Industries they also engag with students and staff to explore the different Pathways and programs available throughout TSD this provided an incredible opportunity for each student to discover new interests ask questions and start thinking about their future possibilities Destination Imagination uh Northern Colorado regional tournament on March 3rd TSD proudly hosted The Destination Imagination Northern Colorado Canyon Regional Tournament at Riverview pk8 School a total of 43 teams competed spanning early learning through High School TSD was well represented by five competitive teams in two early learning teams a huge shout
010out to the Cottonwood student teams uh which once again competed 100% in Spanish trust at elementary also impressed Everyone by competing in both English and Spanish TSD is so proud of all of our teams for their hard work creativity and problem solving skills love all the Applause that's good stuff okay let's keep going a day of music and learning on March 4th TSD fourth grade students visited Thompson Valley High School for two amazing performances by face Vocal Band this talented group introduced students to the magic of acapella music exploring vocal production and demonstrating how music can come to life without instruments it was an unforgettable experience filled with rhythm Harmony and inspiration during the week of March 10th middle and high school students spent a day at the beat Education Center in Loveland gaining hands-on
011experience with three different art mediums students had the opportunity to work alongside three professional artists Thompson School District provides this experience as a way to identify uh gifted students and the visual arts while also giving them the chance to learn from local professionals on March 10th students from Riverview prek-8 High plane School Loveland classical schools and Cottonwood Plains Elementary School put their math skills to the ultimate test at the math olympiads tournament with bragging rights and the coveted traveling trophy on the line each team tackled three intense rounds of high level math challeng challenges after a fierce competition High PL School soar to Victory earning the highest average team score and claiming the traveling trophy congratulations to all the brilliant competitors congratulations to our local kids pack program on their very successful CommunityWide food drive
012earlier this month the partnership event with local grocery stores brought in over 41,500 of donated food for the program a truly amazing accomplishment a special thank you goes out to our entire Community for their support of this event and the wonderful team at kidsac which works hard to provide nutritious meals to TSD students and Families in Need on Wednesday March 12th uh the Thompson School District Board of Education members and staff hosted an appre iation breakfast for our district school resource officer team each day Loveland Police Department and larer County Sheriff's Office SRO personnel as well as other members of our Safety and Security team work hard to help um keep each student staff member and visitors safe on our campus campuses we greatly appreciate all that they do thank you so I want to
013um um invite Lauren deetz for forward Lauren are you in our room and there you are Lauren come up come on forward um I'd like to recognize um Mountain View High School freshman Lauren Deets for her ongoing efforts to make our community a better place back in 2021 Lauren received the elementary kids can change the world award from the Thompson School District she had a vision to create a garden that provides community members with access to Fresh free food the only requirement participants must tend to their Gardens for at least 30 minutes every other day and complete a 2-hour volunteer shift with Loveland youth gardeners that program is still thriving today thank you Lauren for giving back to your community and for being a role model to other students who want to make a difference
014and Lauren Lauren don't go too far cuz we want to take a picture with you now so now now it's picture time so come up forward you can pass the moat and the and all that and com on up we stand [Applause] a bit later under um in our action consent for personnel you'll have uh two names that we're recommending to administrators so I'm going to invite um each of these individuals forward so we can recognize them so first I'm going to invite Brandon bird forward Brandon if you want to make your way up to the podium please and as Brandon is making his way up to the podium we are happy to recommend Brandon bird for the position of assistant principal athletic director at berth at High School Mr Bird's career in sports began
015with a one-year internship for Metro State athletics here Brandon was a multi media content creator in media relations for MSU athle Athletics following his internship Mr bird spent two years working in radio as a sports director in Sterling Colorado in this role Brandon broadcasted sports news called play byplay for a variety of sports and hosted weekly live interviews with coaches and athletes as a journalism teacher Brandon's previous roles also led to coaching at Erie High School in St vain Valley School District for the past 10 years as a head coach of both boys and girls golf Brandon has led his teams to State and Regional championships while also founding the Eerie tiger Network it's pre a premier student broadcast program that covers over 1,000 Live Events the program enhanced Erie High School's Athletics and performing
016art programs while providing students with real world experience his passion for both academics and sports makes him an ideal candidate for the assistant principal athletic director position at berth at high school and Brandon we are excited to welcome you aboard [Applause] I just want to say um thank you so much uh for this opportunity uh I'm really excited to be a part of the birthed Community um you know I come from Erie and it reminds me a lot of Erie and what that Community is like is like and so I'm just grateful for this opportunity and grateful for the the interview committee that put in a lot of time uh I know takes a lot of time to do all that so uh this a special opportunity and I'm grateful for it congratulations thank you
017next I'd like to uh welcome up to the podium Ken smich and Ken is being recommended for the new assistant principal athletic director at Thompson Valley High School following his graduation from Thompson Valley High School so we've got an Alum um Ken attended Colorado State University where he received his bachelor's degree in biomed science he began his teaching career at Corner Canyon High School with the Canyon school district in Sandy Utah teaching biology Ken held this position for 12 years during his time at Canyons Ken taught a variety of science classes including AP bi biology honors in general biology human anatomy and physiology and genetics it was here that Ken began coaching and eventually becoming the athletic director Ken returned to Northern Colorado and taught science for one year in the Estus Park School District
018before returning to Thompson School District as a science teacher and coach at Loveland High School Ken was in this role for three years after leaving TSD Ken went to Colorado early colleges and served as the interim academic Dean and stem CTE coordinator while pursuing his principal lure from Western State College of Colorado Ken's career has come full circle at TSD from student to teacher to administrator Ken welcome um I'm extremely humbled to be returning to Thompson Valley where I graduated a long time ago um and joining a great school leadership team there I just want to thank the board Dr schaer the uh District cabinet and uh principal crook shank for giving me that opportunity and I can't wait to get started go Eagles next we're going to move on to our top of Thompson
019and community champion Awards and as uh board is aware each month we recognize um a number of our uh amazing staff here in the Thompson School District from um several of our employee groups uh classified licensed and AP which is our administrator group and we also have the community champion award which is a new award we started to recognize um a local business nonprofit or other entity within our community that helps to support our school so first we're going to start um uh we have a Nomine are classified um we don't have the nominator or the nominate here but I will just recognize them by name so William Oakley uh was nominated he's a master electrician for the school district and he was nominated by Jeremy Koy um and so we'll make sure that uh
020William gets his uh plaque but we have our licensed uh and so I'm going to invite up Tiffany Lon um Tiffany is a music teacher at Cottonwood Plains Elementary School and Tiffany you were nominated by Susan Harding so if I can have Tiffany and Susan please come forward and here they come making the long walk up and then Susan if you would mind reading your nomination form which should be up there' be great actually couldn't get it open that's why I had the look okay do you want me to introduce Tiffany or did you already do that I I you can reintroduce that's fine this is um Tiffany Layman and she is the music teacher at Cottonwood Plains Elementary School Tiffany is a music teacher at Cottonwood Plains Elementary School she does an amazing job
021of teaching music she plans well in advance she incorporates the dual immersion program into into her lesson planning she always incorporates literacy in her showcases by merging a read-aloud book story book throughout her program using it to connect her repertoire of songs with the text of the book she has always Vol she always voluntarily has had outside school choir she helps and supports by reaching out to the students while she's not in the classroom and she runs and stocks the PBIS store for students to purchase items when earned with earned incentive tickets she is always trying to improve her music education program by applying for additional Grant funds to increase student engagement in her classroom items like ukuleles small keyboards African drums and puppets outside of her school she supports the elementary teachers by voluntarily
022supporting our traveling instrument Labs she creates schedules and inventory forms she goes above and beyond and deserves to be topoption award congratulations Tiffany and then yeah and Tiffany then we'll um when we're done we'd like to take a picture with all of you so congratulations thank you um next we move on to AP and I'm going to invite up our um nomin Leah Howard uh Leah is our facility use manager for the school district and Leo was nominated by key Garen um and so as they make their way up well let Keely read uh Leah's nomination uh good evening um so proud to be here and read this nomination for a very deserving um employee I'm honored to present Leah with this top of Thompson award as the facilities manager in our district Leah plays
023an instrumental role in ensuring the seamless organization and operation of professional development events and various district-wide initiatives her dedication strategic coordination and commitment to Excellence have impacted our District's ability to provide highquality learning environments for staff and students Leah's responsibilities Encompass organizing facilities for over 2,000 individuals on any one of our five district professional days in addition she plays a critical role in coordinating the facility needs for new teacher orientation T week and various learning um activities over the summer her role extends far beyond Logistics she is a masterful strategist she meticulously coordinates communication delivery and setup for each event across multiple sites on any given professional development day that could mean le as orchestrating space for 800 licensed or classified staff in a single location such as Mountain View High School as well as
02420 additional sites um accommodating up to 100 people or more she arranges the communication the management the setup the tear down and the logistics when staff and students are not in buildings Leah's unwavering dedication and acceptable I'm sorry exceptional ability to anticipate and address our professional development facility needs makes her a well-deserving candidate for the top of Thompson award Leah congratulations Le if you could grab your plaque your plaque it's on the podium yes there you go very very very ceremonial very okay next is our community champion award and uh this evening we're recognizing FCA all abilities and we have Angie Miller um and and FCA was nominated by Jill Fitzpatrick so if you could please come forward and thank you for being our community champion okay I just I just surprised Angie she didn't
025know so Angie Miller uh makes inclusion a priority by creating opportunities for students with and without special needs to play together as part of the FCA all abilities program she organized a unified flag football development day for all TSD District high schools to participate in for free it was a positive uplifting event that made an impact on our community she also organized a runathon to raise money to help support our unified programs her selfless efforts make our community be stronger more inclusive and one to celebrate we are incredibly grateful for her commitment to support our growing Community congrats and okay it is now picture time so I'm going to invite Angie Leah and Tiffany to please come forward okay um think three thank you [Applause] so each month we highlight and showcase uh one of
026our amazing schools here in the Thompson School District so I am inviting up Sarah rasmason who serves is our executive director of elementary schools Sarah has a pleasure of introducing our school tonight good evening Madame President Dr Schaefer members of the board I do have the privilege of introducing um principal Justin Blick and um I believe he's bringing students with him to present this evening e uh good evening Madame President members of the board Dr Schaefer it is great to be with you tonight my name is Justin Blick and I'm the principal of BF kitchen elemente school I have brought with me some fantastic guests tonight and we're here to present a protocol to you of something that has helped us to increase student engagement increase student ownership over their learning and then ultimately increase
027their reading fluency and so I'm going to turn some time over to well let me actually introduce them first uh Miss Richard is our fifth grade teacher we've got Miss Hardin who's a second grade teacher and Miss luren maard who is our instructional coach and then these fine dressed people right here we've got three second graders so we've got Sophia Nyla and Trevon and then on this side we have two of our fantastic fifth graders Elizabeth and Maddie and I'll turn some time over to miss Richard we could go to the next slide please awesome so our principal Justin encourages us to be 1% better every single day um and so we received our tntp report um at the beginning of the school year which is that we need to elevate our student ownership um
028so with that being said um partner reading increases the amount of time that students are read in the text independently and enhances fluency so we focused on Partner reading protocol because fluency is the bridge uh between the foundational skills and between comprehension uh if we want independence and critical thinking um then we need to start with fluency fluency um again is that bridge and then partner reading involves pairing students to practice rereading the text without that teacher intervention and then partner reading allows for interdependent productive struggle which means that students have a safe space to strive to be the best that they can I'm going to let the fifth graders go ahead and share the process so if we could go to the next slide for them thank you hi my name is Maddie hi
029my name is Elizabeth I like partnering protocol cuz a partner will correct our mistakes and make us better readers I like partner reading protocol because we get better at reading and learn from our mistakes it helps us flourish as readers partner reading protocol helps us grow in many ways first we pick who is partner a and partner B each student will get a copy of the text partner a reads a paragraph or a page partner B repeats it and if anyone makes mistakes the other partner will help him fix it here is our example a partner reading this is Trevon and Nyla from from second grade reading a history mystery the Dutcher people from the Netherlands call wooden shoes cromin many people think the Dutch invented this shoe however many other people don't agree the
030Dutch are people from the the Dutch or people from the Netherlands call wooden shoes Clen many people people think the Dutch invented this shoe however many other people don't agree good job guys hi my name is Maddie and I'm in fifth grade hi my name is Elizabeth and I'm also in fifth grade today we're going to be showing you partner reading protocol or PF PF PRP um I will read first and then she will read second I just drifted off to sleep again when I felt the wagon stop and heard the driver's boots crunching in the snow as he made his way to us he moved the pineapples and then the cloth oh he made it a Bo you made an oopsie where I didn't see uh he moved the potatoes oh okay so he
031moved the potatoes then the cloth and offered his hand now she will read I had just drifted off sleep again you made me see where I had just drifted off to sleep again I had just dripped it off to sleep again when I felt the rag and stop and heard the driver's boots crunching in the snow as he made his way to us he moved the potatoes then the cloth and offered his hand beautiful thank you thanks for watching you did awesome as well slide please okay so the the neat thing about partner reading protocol is that the students are reading at their uh instructional level so there is that level of struggle and um each student has a copy of the text so they're not having to look off of each other's papers they
032have the ownership of the paper um it is important that the partner B it's at that instructional level so that it can be modeled at a more fluent trait that's the that's the Hope um and the neat thing about error correction is we have a way of gently and consistently having the students have kind of a script so in second grade we say oh you missed the word the word is and then they say the word what's the word and then they repeat it now read the sentence again so everyone takes the feedback and gives the feedback well so it's it's kind of a neat uh situation and a lifelong skill uh the we have kind of had to morph it in our class because they've become such proficient readers so our Focus now is
033not just on fluency but read really digging into the comprehension and understanding what they're reading so that they can you know get their teeth into the content instead of just word calling so right Tada you could go to the next slide please so we just wanted to highlight some of the data that we have it might be hard to read on the screen but what I looked at was um below at or above grade level students based on our beginning of year I ready and I'll I pulled a couple from each band and you can see that um for a student who started below grade level at the beginning of the year only reading three words per minute they've increased to 18 words per minute which is a 500% increase um their accuracy improved from
03420% to 78% which overall is a 38% increase and this is um data taken from October to March um an atg grade level second grade student they went from the beginning of the year being 31 words per minute to 89 words per minute which is 187% increase accuracy going from 72 to 99 which is a 38% increase you can go to the next slide please this is our fifth grade data um to show that it isn't just a basic uh primary skill in fifth grade um a student at grade level reading 123 words per minute increased to 167 which is a 36% increase um the cool thing with with fifth grade is they looked at percentiles so how they're ranked nationally that particular student went from 31% to 66 percentile which is 113% increase and
035it even works for our strong readers because we had a student reading 180 words in October and they've increased to 250 so that's a 39% increase and their percentile went from the 80th percentile to the 99th percentile so they 24% increase and they're at the top of the tier um but the data speaks for itself but we also have some second graders who would like to share their experience so if you could go to the next slide please we're going to start off with Trevon Trevon what do you love about partner reading protocol um it is fun to read with someone else and to help them learn to read and spell words Nyla what do you love about partner reading protocol um I like to read in general but you can also help people read
036better in partner reading Sophia what do you love I like to read and wait I like reading with friends and answering the questions it is important because you could learn new words you can go to the next slide please so thank you for listening we just wanted to share a quick recap of the great work happening at BF kitchen thank you do the board members have any questions real quick go ahead and start Nancy um I love the idea of using the real paper and reading and just engagement so do you also somehow still incorporate the I ready or is this moving away um to replace it and you just use I ready for testing um so kind um so yes and no so I would say on a daily basis we use the partner
037reading protocol or PRP as we call it um and then I ready we use kind of as a oil check if you will so 20 minutes a week is what we kind of go for so that they're in the practice of it but then really you know having them take the diagnostic to assess how they're doing I think it's a fantastic program and your data shows that it's really working so kudos to you guys okay any other questions questions do this question is probably for Justin or for Sarah are there any other elementary schools in the district that are using this program what do you think [Laughter] Sarah we do have some schools that are engaging in a similar process um and it really is something that the school has identified as a need and
038something that they want to train their students in um it's not an expectation but we do know that schools are engaging in um a similar practice I'm glad to hear that as you know the board is very interested in transferring and making sure that if a program is successful in one school that other schools know about it have the opportunity to do it Etc and you guys did an awesome job thank you thank you guys it was great fun to listen to them so we would love to take a picture with the teachers and principal and most importantly the students so if you can come forward okay pretty good all right here for me 1 three one two three thank [Applause] [Music] you so last but not least for the um opening reports I'm going
039going to invite up our Athletics and activities director Kevin Clark who's going to provide for us an update on uh winter sports and activities Madam president Dr Schaefer members of the scoreboard uh thank you so much for having me here this evening I'm excited to uh talk about the wonderful things that our students accomplished this winter so again the connection is uh basically just to see the uh the success uh the performance and the growth targets that all of our students have achieved uh this winter so few things we'd like to uh call out on February 12th um all of our fourth grade students approximately a thousand attended Colorado State University and they got to attend a a women's basketball game uh versus Utah State and they got to see CSU win and just got
040to be part of a a great environment and uh most importantly we got our fourth graders on a college campus and I think you guys understand the importance of that on March 5th we had our high school leadership day uh where we brought roughly 300 students to Colorado State uh for a day full of leadership activities and speakers uh want to note on May 15th is going to be our uh second time we've done it so our second annual unified Elementary field day and the last thing I forgot to put on the slide but I definitely want to call out is earlier in January um because of the success that Thompson Valley experienced in the fall that we were able to recognize the Loveland City Council at one of their meeting read a proclamation and
041they declared January 22nd of 2025 Thompson Valley High School Eagles day kind of neat uh Laura Lee if you'll go to the Loveland High School Activities um to save everybody time and again to focus more on the students uh our student Champions that we brought here this evening I'd like to invite up uh two of our Deca students from Loveland High School in Abby Reese and Chelsea Kennedy if they could come up here please and both of these young ladies were Deca state champions uh Abby for sports and entertainment uh series and Chelsea for the marketing communication so I'm going to turn it over to them and then they can talk briefly about what all that entailed hi I'm Chelsea Kennedy thank you Bor and thank you Dr schaer for having us here tonight we're
042excited to talk about Deca and yeah so my name is Chelsea Kennedy I'm a senior at levelin high school and I competed in marketing Communications so I wanted to explain a little bit of what Deca is because a lot of people don't understand it so in Deca we have different role plays and objective tests that we compete in So at the beginning of the year we start practices once a week and then we participate in different competitions that prepare us for the district competition so at the district competition we have objective tests which are 100 question tests that we complete in one hour and they're multiple choice and they comprise a third of our score then we also have our role plays which are these business scenarios that are given to us we have 10
043minutes to prepare and solve these solutions for these business scenarios that we're given we're given a role that we play and we present to judges after those 10 minutes of prep time we have 10 minutes to present to them and explain what our Solutions are to these business problems so my event is marketing Communications so in my event we're expected to solve problems regarding how to Market specific products and services to specific Target audiences so that's what I did at District competition I did that at the DU invite and then I did that at state so that's how Deca works with us and I wanted to thank my adviser Mr Richie Lynn he's really encouraged me to join Deca and also helped me a lot with his business classes that's where I got all the
044knowledge I had that helped me with Deca and I also wanted to thank the other business teachers at my school because they helped me to also understand how to do all of it so yeah all right hi my name is Abby rice and this year at both Deca State and districts I won first place and I'm fortunate enough to have this experience because of Mr Lynn's attempts and persistence despite my adamant um resistance to this club and due to already being the speech and debate Captain the youth advisory council member FBA member and nhhs member and soccer player I truly thought I had no more time to spare but how Mr Lynn saw my potential and effectively forced me into Deco where I learned that I love business and this um aspect of presentation and
045I'd like to shout out to speech and debate for the last three years of my life which has pushed me mentally every weekend at tournaments but trained me to think creatively and on the spot in nearly every situation this was overwhelmingly helpful in my Deca event sports and entertainment marketing with only 10 minutes to create a pitch as Chelsea stated it we worked to improve the profit of a company we were working on a special sports team whether that be any soccer team or any other sport or that just be a movie theater and we look to how we can generate profit from them my first time per Performing in sports entertainment marketing as an event was at Deca districts and it was also the first time I practiced this um this was entirely um
046due to the fact I when I won first place entirely due to the fact of speech and debate and especially because of my coaches Patty Martin and Dina Pettit they are really the best uh at Deca State you first perform a preliminary speech and or what we call a role play and then pray on everything that you get into finals which is then you ultimately decide if you win Deca further solidified my goal of majoring an international business and then become a lawyer and as much as you are all aware my goal here today is to promote Deca one there's really no need Deca speaks for itself with over 60 events students are given the opportunity to research and educate themselves about skills that are truly applicable to their future truly though Lev and high
047school has prepared me for the future not only its classes but in sports academic clubs and speeches just like these to talk only about myself thank [Applause] you all right and Laura Le if you could go to the next slide we're going to highlight uh L High School athletics and with that specifically we're fortunate uh as a school district to have some individual state champions one is Isaiah Harrison from Mountain View High School unfortunately he could not be here but uh it made him a three-time uh State wrestling champion and he is committed to the University of Wyoming yeah on the uh girls side we were fortunate so I'll bring up the Loveland High School girls wrestling team at this time and coaches and here in a second I'll uh turn it over to coach
048Lis and hope and he'll probably give you a more indepth uh talk but two people I would like to uh recognize I guess two students are two freshman students and this is kind of a unique story at least from an Outsiders perspective um STI Leen hope is the son or sorry is the daughter of Troy the head coach at leveland Troy is a leveland high school graduate uh Bel Gerard uh attends school at Thompson Valley High School is a freshman and wrestles for the Loveland team her father is the head coach at Thompson Valley High School and a Thompson Valley graduate if you could imagine both of those uh fathers got to witness something that uh again it just it brings me chills to to think about being a parent and uh being able to
049uh help see their their daughter's state championship as freshman and uh it's just pretty cool uh the connections to their schools and uh again I'm probably not doing that Justice but uh want now I'll turn it over to uh to Troy uh coach Lis and hope to talk a little bit about the season all right thank you for having me um so yeah as he said Annabelle and stie both won a State title we also have Maddie here who uh qualified as a freshman and took fit this year so didn't quite make it um but just to throw that out there I never won a State title and she did it at 15 um Annabelle's dad is same thing always took fifth or third and uh Annabelle pulled that pulled that off as a freshman
050as well um but besides that nine nine state qualifiers uh heading into the tournament I thought we could win it all um found out Grand Junction Central had a little more Firepower than we thought um but overall it was a heck of a year uh great finish uh guys did well as well so both sides uh TV and lovelin so overall it was good uh we have not won the State title yet but we're we're we're closing in on it so hopefully we can get it done next year thank you guys any questions uh for the board why we have these uh students here uh anything you'd like to hear from them good job Audrey Audrey and neat to see the state Runner runnerup trophy here and uh so um that concludes my presentation absolutely
051so at this time uh bring up the DECA students and the student athletes okay perfect head here going do you want to do two separate ones or one total all of them no no we're doing we're doing separate okay so this first okay all right right on three sure I can see everyone okay one two three okay good [Applause] [Laughter] y you're good okay look right in between us actually here come over here I'm you ready yep you're good okay on three one two three awesome thanks [Applause] and that concludes my report okay thank you um it's time for a public comments and I'm going to just kind of talk a couple minutes about is everything is going to be limited to three minutes Don is going to run everything over there she's going to
052read the protocol that you follow um we'll have some of you are in here some of you are in the other room but she'll kind of give you a heads up of who's what who's up who's up next but we we're going to be very strict about the three minut time so if you go beyond I'll hammer away and we'll let you know time is up okay all right so do wrap it up within the three minutes okay all right Don because the board wants to hear the viewpoints of the public and also needs to conduct its business in an orderly and efficient manner it will schedule time during its regular board meetings for brief comments and questions from the public the board will set a time for public participation prior to the business portion
053of the meeting the time for each speaker will be limited to 3 minutes and each individual will only be recognized once if there is a large number of speakers the board may elect to take comments for 1 hour before the business meeting and conclude public comment after the business meeting public comments and questions at a regular meeting May deal with any topics related to the board's conduct of the schools speakers may offer such criticism of school operations and programs as concerns them but are encouraged to exercise their speech right wres responsibly Personnel matters will be discussed in executive session um so once you start speaking the green light will go on when you have 30 seconds left the yellow light will go on and you'll get a a little uh sound and then when your
054time is up it's going to keep beeping at you until She Bangs the gavel and it'll flash red and as mentioned I'm going to call up two people at a time so that we can keep everybody getting into the room uh our students go first so Maxine bzo blo okay and then um Next Step will be tan Schuster does it start when I start speaking or can I have my phone so I can see exactly how much time good afternoon I'm a senior at Thompson Valley I played for boys tennis I played on the boys tennis team I've been a member of our theater department and I play cello for our chamber strings I also happen to go by a different name than what's on my birth certific certificate and I also prefer the pronouns
055she and her when I'm being referred to if you think you know what I'm going to say and if you think I'm here to talk about which Viewpoint is wrong or right about who is or isn't a real woman you'd be m mistaken these two Oppo opposing viewpoints on gender are philosophical St stances on identity which by nature of being philosophical are subjective I'm here to tell you about a story and a dream here's the story there are two high school students one is very religious she believes that people at their soul are inherently the gender they were born as she is Head Strong passionate and unwavering in her beliefs the other is transgender she is secular she believes that people at their soul are whatever gender they identify as she is also headstrong passionate
056and unwavering in her beliefs they are friends they ask how the other is doing and laugh at each other's jokes and talk about life with each other in so many ways these two people are different for so many reasons we would believe them predisposed to dislike one another to hate one another yet they do not despite their differences the principle that they both believe in is kindness respect understanding that these ideals are more important than agreeing with each other it is for this that they are friends my favorite part about this story is that it is a true story I am one of these students I'm sure I don't have to tell you which one uh whenever I'm around this friend it still Sur surprises me how well we get along how these two people
057the antithesis of each other in nearly every single way are able to find are able to find compassion and friendship in each other I can't help but wonder what if the whole school was like that what if the whole city was like that what if we could be headstrong passionate and unwavering in our beliefs while at the same time being able to find compassion and friendship in each other what if America was like that that's the dream perhaps some of you share that dream and if this is the case if somewhere beyond that door or that door that is an America you wish to see then hatred contempt bitterness these will not bring us closer to that dream viciously debating in the comment SE section of a Facebook page yelling about how right we are
058and how wrong they are will not bring us closer to that dream what will bring us closer is kindness respect and understanding we will never be able to protect our kids until we can find it in our hearts to respect our kids is it not your responsibility as Schoolboard members to Aspire to these principles to Champion this dream I feel it is disrespectful to wear a t-shirt that advocates for my oppression that is not in service of the dream we may not agree with each other but we need to respect each [Applause] other tan Schuster and then next up is Maddie wilin good afternoon I here today to talk about the inequality in women women's sports and this inequality begins between the physical differences between a male and a female athlete and these differences are
059highlighted in statistics gathered from the National Institutes of Health where male where an average teenage male is seen to stand at 5'9 and have 40% muscle mass while your average teenage female stands at 53 and only has 30% muscle mass and ladies and gentlemen does that sound fair that your daughters are having to compete against boys that are taller and and stronger than them and this is extremely unfair for three main reasons the first is of course equality these these young women joined a women's sports League to compete against people who had equal skills as them but instead they're being forced to compete against men who have better abilities than they do to compete in these Sports and this brings me to my second Point opportunity because these men are being are able to outshine
060these young women in their own sports they are being stripped of opportunities including scholarships Awards and recognization because that because they do not have the skills of a male they are not receiving the recognition they deserve in their own sports and third this takes away their guaranteed safety once again these girls signed up to be in a women's league being assured that they would be competing against women but now they there are men on the playing field and in physical sports like wrestling Boxing soccer or basketball they could be hurt because a man once again is going to be stronger than a girl and if they come into violent physical contact the girl will always lose and end up injured and the second thing about safety is that I know for a fact many of
061the locker rooms in our district are not are not able to hold different genders I have on the swim team for about 4 years and I know that several of the locker rooms in our district have do not have private changing sections you have to stand out in the open and with if it was just all females or all males that wouldn't be an issue but when we begin mixing genders that becomes extremely unsafe especially for women so adding men into our women's sport leagues is completely unfair to our young female athletes who just want to compete in their own sports thank you Maddie wilin and then next up is Riley lock I am Maddie wilin and I am a female female athlete I have competed against biological males in our district female sports I
062know firsthand how unfair it is if you truly listen to me you will not hear hate because I do not hate anyone but competing in all female sports with biological males makes me feel less confident cheated discorded and tons more I don't know I don't understand how the district can't see how much of a disadvantage it is we have worked for years building all female sports why are we going to go backwards I remember when there was not an all girls team and I had a wrestle boys it ex it's it was extremely hard one time a boy even forfeited just because I was a girl I felt hor and I felt like I wasn't good enough looking back I know that it it's not fair I asked I ask for you to imagine that
063you have a 14-year-old girl a freshman female going against an 18-year-old biological male who was a senior how would you feel getting slammed on the mat in an instance with no luck and all the years of training nothing could prepare you for the strength you could say you care and want to make everything inclusive but remember that girls are a part of that too I can't make any changes but the district can please take time and truly see how special all girls sports are thank you for your time I appreciate [Music] it Riley lock and next up we have Arthur lamin my name is Riley lock and I am a freshman at leveland high school I a cross country swim and track athlete I believe in inclusion and I respect everyone's freedom to choose how
064they identify however I'm very confused why biological females including myself are now being asked to compete with biological males this fall I ran in a female cross country race with 184 other a athletes the winner of this race was a biological male in other words a biological male took first place in a female race had this individual run in the biological male race their time would have resulted in 85th Place the difference between first and 85th Place is significant and should not be ignored is the district okay with a biological female missing out on recognition because the competition was not fair from the start it is well documented that biological males have a physical advantage over biological females in athletic competitions a review of a track meet last spring in Colorado supports this every biological
065male that is 100% of the male athletes beat the top female athlete in the same event for the shot put the high jump in the 100 meter 200 meter 400 meter 800 meter 1600 meter and 3200 meter runs at this meet the data speaks for itself asking for fairness in competition does not make me a weak female or anti- any group I'm a strong woman asking for inclusion for all without jeopardizing my right to Fair competition female races should be reserved for biological females offering open events where any athlete can compete for biolog or for regardless of their gender identity provides an additional option for athletes that respects biological gender allows inclusion and protects the Integrity of competition Arthur lamin and then next up is K coxes Arthur lamin and then Ka Cox do we
066have Arthur lamin okay and then um up next will be Cor Cox good evening Thompson School District board and thank you my name is Arthur and I'm a junior at Fossil Ridge High School in pter school district in Fort Collins oh and I'm trans that's relevant I've heard a lot of talk about protecting children and making sure we're healthy and safe this Con ation seems to be a volley back and forth using damage and harm real or imagined as the weapon to argue with everyone wants to save the children and I ask you where are the children in this discussion have the journalists politicians pundits and Schoolboard members ever thought to ask us what will keep us safe and healthy well I'm here right now now and I don't really want to talk about harm
067or damage I really really don't want people like Miss rumfelt whose minds are clouded with hate to force me to tell a story about who I am in a certain way I want to talk to you about queer joy and wonder and love and family and belonging because I have experienced all of those things as a trans student in a school district that has chosen to accept me but I know I'm running out of time so I'll say this how often do we talk about making School a place where it's not just about grades and test scores how often do we talk about bringing actual inspiration and true connection to students lives you have the opportunity to do that right now by choosing to support your trans students you take one more step forward to
068making School a place that truly matters in students lives thank you next up we have cor Cox and then Teresa boon okay um first off I would like to start us all off in prayer so if everyone who's willing um if they would take off their hats and bow their heads um dear God thank you for bringing us all here today and giving us the opportunity to be a part of some a part of something that we care so deeply about I pray that you keep us safe and help our minds to be open to the opinions of one another and help us to remember that ultimately you are in control amen okay hi my name is cor Cox and I'm a senior at Thompson Valley High School and one of the captains for the
069girls soccer team for the last four years I have been blessed with the ability to play for this incredible program unfortunately last year my team was put in an unfair situation where we had to compete against a biological male this affected me and my teammates not only mentally but also physically one of my teammates and very close friends was put in an uncomfortable situation where she had to change in the same dressing room as a biolog iCal male another example was when we were playing against this player and had to defend against them with our bodies as you would assume they were both physically stronger and faster than us which led to several players getting hurt this not only breaks my heart but makes me genuinely scared for future athletes as this problem continues to
070develop my goal by giving you this speech is not to shame or put down any athlete me and the rest of my team believe that everyone deserves to be and feel however that they would like my speech is to protect my team and all other biological female athletes as well as to keep my sport fair and safe I believe that together as a unit we can all find a solution to include these people in their own League while protecting the girls who have worked so hard to be where they are today thank you for your time and specifically thank you Miss Nancy for supporting us and having our [Applause] backs all right that is all of the students that we had sign up uh next up is Teresa Boon and then Bruce Boon and I
071apologize to anybody whose name I mispronounce all night if I was a school board member and wore a t-shirt created promoted and sold by the company xxxy Athletics that said Real Women Rock most people would catch on pretty quickly to its meaning knowing that xx and XY refers to chromosomes a simp itic inaccurate binary way of identifying girls and boys many people would understand that this the board member wearing a t-shirt with this message does not support the district's Mission Vision and policy which states in part Thompson School District does not discriminate on the basis of a person's actual or perceived characteristics such as gender gender identity gender expression and would considered appropriate to enforce the code of ethics against the board member I've lived in Loveland since 1951 attended Loveland schools K through 12
072started teaching swimming lessons in 1968 at the LHS pool after graduating in ' 69 I continued my work at the pool off and on while I worked on my undergrad degree and then my degree in occupational therapy I was a fixture at Lovin swimming pools for many years especially the pool at Loveland High School in the 1990s I was the person the counselors told parents to call if their seniors still had to pass the swimming proficiency test in order to graduate when one of my main roles was encouraging and supporting kids around swimsuits and locker rooms I have lots of locker room stories today if a parent approached me and said they were concerned about potential trauma associated with school locker rooms specifically trans girls in locker rooms in girls locker rooms I would let
073them know that I am well aware that it's the trans students who are at greater risk of being bullied shamed abused and traumatized in locker rooms and bathrooms that their cisgender peers and that the School District takes bullying shaming abusing and traumatizing any child in a locker room or anywhere else on campus very seriously for example back in the 90s at L an LHS coach was fired for allowing hazing in a high school boy's locker room the police were called in and assault charges were brought against an LHS Junior XY boy who entered the girl's locker room and cornered an XX student whether they are a transgender girl a girl who is overweight a young woman experiencing her period a child with any type of special need who just wants to participate in a sport
074and compete with their friends they should have a safe private space in a locker room school districts who have implemented Universal Design principles around locker rooms and bathrooms have taken a step in the right direction in supporting students par professionals teachers and families it's not that hard to do as a proud graduate of Loveland High School class of 69 parent of TSD students resident of Loveland since 1951 grandparent and occupational therapist I support all lgbtq children including trans children all students deserve to feel safe affirmed and free in themselves I have serious concerns about a board member promoting the message real women Rock unreal women don't rock excluding trans girls from Sports versus funding is a different issue we should be supporting all of our students thank you Bruce Boon and then yvon yvon Pez
075P again sorry for pronunciation thank you to our board members who are committed to providing a safe environment where all members of the school Community are treated with dignity and respect I support all board members who with compassion for all students strive to prevent discriminatory and hateful messaging and support the Thompson School District policy that prohibits discrimination and harassment messages of any type that claim to place one group of people above others especially a vulnerable minority that is already under attack are hurtful divisive mean and cruel I support any board action that is intended to express its disapproval of discriminatory messaging within its membership thank you ivanz and uh Sandra lull is next hello I'm a simple and honest person Title 9 is important for fairness boys are physically different than girls as an army
076veteran I am keenly aware of these differences just open another category academic Excellence is important and should be your central priority t-shirt shaming is nothing but distractions and wasted time that detracts from academic goals the ways you detract from your real responsibilities as a school board besid shows and the way you treat Nancy brumfeld are shameful you want to talk trans stuff okay I chatted with a transgender surgeon and want to share some of the truths I learned the effects of puberty blockers are irreversible depending on the age of onset boy penis will only grow to about one inch if that effects on girls can include sterilization and there often is Regret but why not hear it from the horse's mouth D transitioner Khloe Cole is speaking tomorrow at CSU and boys if you are
077serious ious about becoming transgender anatomically you're better off going through puberty so there is enough skin to make your Audi into an innie because not much can be done with a 1-in penis says a surgeon and if you change your mind not much can be done with a 1-in penis our youth should know the truth Sandra L and then Tom Chastain is up next Sandra LOL she's passing okay uh Tom Chastain is up next or now and then Jane Mullen Brook ye is up next I served in the Air Force for three and a half years I didn't serve in the military so that I could watch people trying to castigate someone for something they had on a t-shirt apparently you folks who are trying to do that believe in the Constitution and the Bill
078of Rights until someone says something with which you disagree well I think that's pretty shameful as regards transgender girls competing with biological girls that's a ridiculous thing to even consider so Ena Williams who is arguably the best female tennis player who ever walked this planet said in an interview that she would never want to play against a man she said that even Andy Murray who was a good but not great tennis player would finish her off 6060 in about 20 minutes men are bigger they're stronger they're faster they hit harder so what girl in her right mind would want to compete against a biological male masquerading as a girl thank you Jane Mullen Brook ye and then Dorene morit is next I'd like to comment about nany's t-shirt the real women Rock t-shirt a recent
079RH line made a good point about the T-shirt If trans women are real women which we are repeatedly told then the T-shirt should not be a problem for someone with that Viewpoint now just because we have the freedom to identify as whatever we want to do we're Americans we're allowed to do that it doesn't mean that we get to participate fully in every identity we can possibly imagine this afternoon I did some yard work I felt like a sloth after it but I shouldn't be sent to the zoo just because I identified as a sloth for a few minutes I see this as a sports issue too in how we identify because Sports is one of those areas that if you identify as a female it doesn't mean you get to necessarily participate in female
080sports so I see there being three camps related to the sports issue the first one which I am in is that if you have a y chromosome you are on the men's team everyone else can be on the female team that's a biological thing there is no debate about that fairness though as many of our prior speakers and the the girls teams coming through there is definite issue there and you only have to look to Leah Thomas and swimming um when Leah identifies as a male he was 350th ranked and when he identified as a she he became the first ranked and put out the women who were competing for their whole lives down a notch because he now had the top spot so just because you're taking steroids that doesn't allow you to participate
081that disqualifies you your hormones or puberty blockers or whatever fall into this same category we've also heard about safety the Olympic uh women's boxing situation with ious head injuries from the male uh participant who is identifying as female is a case study in that um to the extreme there's also the Privacy issue girls shouldn't be having to have boys coming into their restrooms or locker rooms in skirts the Virginia case where a girl was raped in the in the bathroom by a boy in a skirt um became national news and just last week Deerfield Illinois was forcing 13-year-old girls in the locker room to be dressing in front of a a boy there's also the emotional trauma that if someone has I I remember being a 13-year-old girl I would be clearly traumatized if I
082was forced to change clothes in front of a 13-year-old boy so that's the first Camp that's the one I'm in second Camp is that trans women are real women there should be no conflict Doren Mor up and Ashley Edwards is up [Applause] next good evening Dr Schaefer Madam chair and the board thank you for allowing me to convey a few words I have lived in the Thompson Valley school district for the past 12 years my 32 career was as a secondary counselor in Omaha Nebraska I have four questions I wish the board to consider I have read the Thompson Valley District mission and vision statement it states the Thompson Valley district will be a school district that empowers challenges inspires students faculty staff parents School leaders and Community leaders to learn and Excel it states
083that one of the ways to empower that is by recognizing honoring and respecting differences my first question was this mission statement and vision statement written with the intent of applying to all or just some I have read the Thompson Valley school district non-discrimination policy Thompson District does not discriminate based on a person's actual or perceived characteristics such as but not limited to sex sexual orientation gender gender identity or gender expression my second question is this policy meant to protect transgender students and girls from discrimination I have briefly read some of your bios and some excerpts are putting students first for all she does to ensure success of each Thompson Valley student to advocate for policies and initiatives that promote academic Excellence equity and inclusivity a belief in the power of public schools to provide a
084great education to all students and a responsibility to provide a strong foundation for the Future Leaders of this community another priority must be to provide the best education possible for all all students my third question will each of you continue to believe your commit commitments are for all students and not just some I trust the Thompson Valley school district is committed to providing a safe space for all regardless of sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression I thank all of you for your time commitment love of public education for all students faculty staff to all the transgender and non-binary students here tonight you are okay just as you are Ashley Ashley Edwards and then next up will be Katie Banbridge good evening my name is Ashley Edwards I am a school counselor over at Thompson
085Valley High School and I am a proud transgender woman I want to say that all of my opinions expressed here today are my own and do not represent Thompson School District I want to thank the majority of our board for their continued support of our amazing and wonderful transgender and non-binary students our trans students are incredible kind amazing kids and Incredibly Brave to live in this world that for some reason is so against them existing and being themselves contrary to what some people believe there is no secret trans agenda what trans people want in life is to to just be themselves and be accepted for who they are during a senate meeting in December before a discriminatory policy banned trans women from NCAA Sports NCAA president Charlie Baker testified that out of over 500,000 NCAA
086student athletes he knew of less than 10 that identified as transgender that is 0.002% of all NCAA athletes sports sports teach children important lessons in life such as team work camaraderie perseverance sportsmanship and respect for everyone why anyone would want to take that away from any student is beyond what I can fathom there is no reason why an 11-year-old transgender girl should be barred from playing on her Middle School soccer team when all she wants to do is play a sport that she loves with her friends or why a transgender freshman girl should be forced to play on the boys team trans people are amazing and one trans player will not take a struggling basketball team and turn them into the Jordan era bowls Sports is a team game the rhetoric that trans women are
087not real women is not only hateful but is just not true trans women are real women and no man in Washington nor member of this board will tell me or any transperson who we are and I genuinely hope that you'll consider censoring any board member that expresses discriminatory and bigoted views while being a representative of this school district in closing trans people have existed since the beginning of time and will continue to exist until the end of time again I want to thank the majority of this board for their support of all of our students thank [Music] you uh Katie Banbridge and then next H will be Ann Bradbury hi my name is Katie Banbridge I use she her pronouns I am Loveland resident and deeply concerned parent good evening members of the board parents
088students and staff although I failed the Loveland High School swimming proficiency three times I am a proud graduate of Loveland High School and a recipient of many Community scholarships it's with this sense of pride in my education that I stand before you today deeply concerned about the disruptive behavior of certain individuals in our community and particularly one board member I'm tired of the constant efforts to divide us and I'm especially concerned about the behavior of the rumfelts N excessive demands on staff time searching for wrongdoing where there is none and refusal to accept the decisions made by this board is creating chaos she doesn't follow board policy instead she goes Rogue stirring up District parents with her political agenda this has to stop let's talk about the disinformation she's spreading particularly about student achievement in
089areas like reading and math she takes information out of context to mislead the public and this is damaging to our district her obsessive conspiracies about finances the budget the audit the teachers union and curriculum have created unnecessary confusion and division she has made excessive demands on the administrative staff to cater to her whims which is not only disrespectful to the hardworking Professionals in our district but also completely inappropriate for a school board member ny's actions have been nothing short of atrocious we haven't forgotten when she voted against the period project with Grace upon Grace saying it went against her principles we haven't forgotten about her jumping to conclusions about a student incident or the way she jumped in as a hero after Maddie Wilkins spoke about not getting the help she needed ny's involvement in
090that situation was an overstep and she had no business engaging with it in the way that she did particularly when there are clear rules specifying how and with clear rules and laws that govern how such issues should be handled her actions with the Thompson Valley High School newspaper writers and the teacher who conducted the get to know you survey were similarly out ofline instead of following proper procedures Nancy chose to blow the situation up by publishing her own personal views and emailing District staff and turning a minor issue into something it was not and yet she continues to claim there's a lack of trust in the district from the community the truth is the lack of trust is not in the district but in her role as a board member she has consistently undermined the
091trust of parents students and staff through her actions if parents are so dissatisfied with the direction of our Public Schools they have an option home school but what happens when your own child is accused of being transgender will they stand by their children or will they further perpetuate Division and discrimination it's essential we ask ourselves what kind of community we want to be and how we will respond to a child's privacy and dignity when they are at stake as a community we need to focus on the real work of supporting students fostering an inclusive environment and empowering our Educators nany's actions her politization of every issue her disregard for protocols and her ongoing disruption are a hindrance to the progress we all want to see in this District as a community we need to focus
092on supporting our students and focusing on that um it's time for the board to stand firm in its commitment to its staff and students and to hold accountable those who disrupt and distract from the mission thank you for your time Ann Bradbery and then next up will be Ryan wilin an Bradberry and then Ryan wilin good evening school board members I'm honored to be side by side with my beautiful daughter-in-law and all my granddaughters tonight uh this has been an interesting evening so far but I will say what I have to say and I appreciate your time as a wife a mother a grandmother and a Believer who cares about students and our community I'm not I'm see all students I have always tried to keep an open mind about unity and being at peace
093with one another this issue is not about hate I hear a lot of hate tonight this is not about hate it's about safety and fairness and doing what is right for women in sports I want to make one thing absolutely clear advocating to keep biological males out of women's sports is not transphobic it's about fairness and protecting the Integrity of women's Athletics this isn't about rejecting anyone's identity it's about ensuring that female athletes have a fair and Level Playing Field biological males and I've heard this tonight from others have undeniable physical advantages over females uh this is why men and women's sports have always been separated to protect fairness this is about fairness it's not about hate allowing biological males to compete in women's sports takes away opportunities from female athletes it means fewer scholarships
094fewer records broken and a fewer chances for women to succeed at the highest level which they've work so hard to do Title 9 was created to protect equal opportunities for women in education and sports allowing biological males and female competition undermines that progress defending women's sports isn't about excluding transgender athletes it's about Pres preserving fairness physical safety and the opportunity for female athletes men's and women's sports are separate not because one group is valued more but because biological differences matter in competition protecting women's sports is not anti-trans it's proom female athletes have fought hard for the right to compete on a Level Playing Field ensuring fairness in women's sports isn't hateful it's common sense I hope you take what I've said tonight at heart and I hope I planted a few seeds thank you Ryan
095wilen and then Lori Goble Dr schaer Madam president members of the board Brian wilin District a I came here tonight to speak on two topics I believe the board has failed our children on us as parents and community members as a whole there was a five: one vote against having parental consent during the child's transition plan that was adopted by the district your mission and vision statement explains how you like to to empower par parents explain to me how that empowers parents taking away our rights and hiding what our children are doing in your schools and how does our children's gender affect education period Please explain that director runfell is the only one that stood up for my rights as a parent this next topic I will discuss and segue It Off of that March
0965th meeting that you guys Amy and Denise confronted director rumfelt in the shirt she wore that said Real Women Rock by the manufacturer xxxy you were shaming her you were putting words in her mouth and you were telling her how she feels nobody likes that poor Behavior by directors I I can remember two occasions that you weree a pride shirt in support of that Community nobody made that a federal case but I find that very hypocritical and you're showing us something here I remember stickers on laptops and water bottles from Kirk Doran I remember one Amy that said I'd rather Deport a racist than a migrant and you talk about political agendas it doesn't get much more political than that again hypocritical and on the topic of female sports which xxxy stands on I ask
097you a couple questions what do our female do our female athletes thoughts and feelings matter when they're uncomfortable in a locker room with a biological mail do their thoughts and feelings matter when they're paired in rooms overnight do we as parents have a say in any of this are you empowering these individual athletes are you empowering the parents I haven't seen it and these issues I'd like to know where the district stands at Title 9 so I know how to move my kids around in school Lori Goble and then Morgan [Applause] Peters good evening Madame President directors of the Thompson School Board Dr schaer staff and TSD Community Lori Goble Loveland this is not something new or novel that I'm here to address you about this evening I've stood before you multiple times telling you
098facts and science of biology and also sharing stories of my sister and nieces regarding women's sports tonight I urge this board to pass a resolution ensuring that our schools will not participate in sporting events where biological males compete in women's sports this is not about exclusion it's about Fair Ness it is about safety and it is about the Integrity of competition this sign here this is not a sign of hate this is a true statement whether in math or biology Title 9 was created to give female athletes a Level Playing Field and equal opportunities in sports allowing biological males to compete against women undermines that very principle s science and Common Sense confirm that biological males have significant physical advantages greater strength speed and endurance even after hormone treatments this puts female athletes at a
099disadvantage and in some cases at risk of injury across the country we've seen hardworking young women lose scholarship opportunities championships and even roster spots because they were forced to compete against against biologically stronger opponents that is not equality that's Injustice our district has a responsibility to protect female athletes and uphold the fairness that sports are built upon this resolution does not discriminate it simply ensures that women's sports remain for women as they were intended if we fail to take a stand we are telling our daughters that their dedication their training their achievements don't matter and that is not a message that we should be sending I urge this board to lead with courage to stand up for fairness and protect the Integrity of women's sports in our district our athletes deserve nothing less thank you
100for your time and your consideration of this very important matter I yield the remainder of my time for any questions from the board and I have a sample resolution for your consider ation Morgan Peters you're next and then Lori [Applause] white good evening to the board my name is Morgan Peters I have worked as a teacher since 2018 and I'm a former teacher in Thompson School District where I worked as a substitute and a middle school teacher from 2022 until 2024 I am also a transwoman and no I am not good at sports I have the privilege of speaking here tonight and would like to ask the board a few questions specifically I would like to direct my questions to one particular member Nancy I'm concerned that you like hundreds of other misguided individuals in
101this country are attacking trans rights in order to distract your followers from truly pressing issues as we are all hopefully well aware over 50% of the buildings in Thompson School District in including both of my former classrooms do not have AC I can assure you that when the classroom is over 9 degrees every student feels it trans or not how does Banning students from after school programs like sports help every student feel safe and secure when students are at risk of heat exhaustion in their own classrooms excluding people students or not certainly does nothing to help the major issue of Staffing this District faces the special needs students in my classrooms had to share one par professional if she was absent there was no additional support for these students again these are the important issues
102that I wish desperately we would focus on instead I may be trans but I'm a teacher too additionally in preparation for tonight I decided to visit your website Nancy and found under the key issues section the sentence every classroom encourages and respects diverse ideas and viewpoints right above that sentence is the phrase respect starts with us it's fascinating it's interesting that you advocate for this on your website when based on your recent decisions and statements your actions and your words do not align if in your words you want to open the door to the possibility of making the district better and make sure that all voices are heard in Thompson School District also quotes from your website then trans people have a place in Thompson School District lastly of the 10 updates you've made to
103your website since March of 2024 seven of those related to trans people I promise you if you dedicated even half of the mental space you're holding for trans women and directed it towards other projects the district would in indeed be a better place I'd like to direct this next comment to everyone I understand you can't stop thinking about trans women but please do it in private I hope you understand that I am not the only trans teacher in this District I was not the first and I will not be the last there have always been and will always be trans people and I hope you understand that we do in fact make this district and this world a better place thank you Lori white and then Lori Vida Ward good evening thank you to the
104board and to the staff for um allowing me to speak um after reviewing the district's vision and mission statement especially the non-discrimination policy established over 24 years ago I'm compelled to question Nancy rumelt's suitability as an elected representative on the Thompson School District School Board we elect school board members to prioritize our children's education not to impose personal political or religious ideologies unfortunately Mrs rumfields Mrs rumfield has leveraged her title and position to amplify her political and religious beliefs I find myself asking how does this Behavior enhance our children's educational experience as we Face a critical crisis in our educational system particularly with the current Administration dismantling the Department of Education our Focus must remain on the students my son who proudly graduated from Thompson School District on an IEP benefited from a range of
105support services that were vital to his success therefore I urge the district to outline its strategy for supporting and implementing the individuals with disabilities Education Act idea to ensure all children with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education complete with the necessary special education and related Services additionally how will the district address the funding disarray brought about by this Administration what concrete plans are in place to manage class size and alleviate the anxiety many students feel about it attending school these issues are of utmost importance yet at this critical juncture Mrs rumel has opted to use her platform to disseminate a harmful political message that impacts an already vulnerable segment of our community this approach is not only disappointing but also a dangerous distraction from the Urgent needs of our students it is clear
106that we cannot trust her in a position of influence over policymaking as such a pivotal moment in education thank you Lori VZ award and then next up is Arthur gold goldsby sorry if I said that wrong good evening Madame President board members Dr Schaefer I'm Lori viz Ward I live here in Loveland director rumfelt says she is concerned about protecting real girls from transgender girls in school sports she has written opinion p uh opinion pieces for the newspaper she's held Town Halls featuring so-called experts on this issue and she is even fundraising for her 2027 campaign for reelection by declaring herself the great protector of real girls here's what she and her supporters don't want you to know it's not about fairness for female athletes it is about attacking demonizing and erasing transgender kids and
107after that the rest of the lgbtq plus Community as well I get it people are afraid of what they don't know many people have never known a trans kid and it's real easy to hate someone you don't know but here's the thing director rumfelt sat down for coffee with my transon when he was still a student here at loveely in high school he spent over an hour sharing his feelings his journey and his dreams with her all knowing that she was someone who was uncomfortable with his very existence when I recently asked him what would what he would say to her now his answer was simple just leave us alone trans kids are five times more likely to be afraid to go to school they're five times more likely to be threatened with weapons at
108school and they're five times more likely to attempt suicide than transg or than uh cisgender kids are trans girls playing sports is not the problem here Nancy I'm asking you to move on from your campaign of further stigmatizing trans kids this Relentless drum beat of protect girl Sports and real girls rock doesn't just harm a handful of trans athletes it puts a Target on the back of every trans boy and girl every queer kid every kid who doesn't fit your mold as one mom to another please stop please let the policies and laws that we already have in place work to protect trans and cisgender athletes alike as they have for decades these kids have been around for decades Nancy we both want the same thing for all of our kids we want a safe
109place for our children to learn and grow please let it go thank you Arthur goldsby and John Meyers next hi my name is Arthur Golds and I want to uh remind us all here today that we uh the students are learning to Model Behavior that we act and so I really encourage all of us to think very hard and and to be good role models for our students and I think part of that is US continuing to learn from each other um and making sure that our actions lift up all the students and so I just want to take a moment to first talk about this real women t-shirt and why that is harmful even if maybe you didn't intend it when we start trying to Define Who real women are um really we're we're
110trying to lift up women that's great but at what cost who are you stepping on to lift up that we cannot really lift up one group at the expense of another and so when we talk about real women we're not only putting trans folks down but we might be putting down women who don't feel like they live up to the expectations of being a woman and so I don't think we should be policing what real women are second I want to talk about um the real issues for for our students and sports if we're really concerned about safety then maybe we should consider novel uh solutions that don't focus on whether someone is trans or not because we're not doing genetic testing on these people to see whether they're trans we're not we don't really
111know sure we you know are we looking in their pants I hope not um and also we need to recognize that when we say someone is born biological male there's a whole diverse range of what it means to be biologically male some are short some are tall there's a lot more difference across the whole group than there is so just saying someone is biological male does not necessarily mean they're stronger or taller than a biological quote biological woman and so I want us to remember that if the real concern here is some sort of unfair Advantage it's not from being trans and so if you want to make policies around making Sports fair then let's focus on what it is that makes that sport unfair if it's being too tall maybe we don't want s
112feet tall people playing against 5 feet tall people and so really look at what harm you're trying to protect from if we're worried about people getting injured maybe we should consider providing better protection for these students if we're worried about students not getting scholarships maybe we can consider novel Solutions like making schools more affordable or even free and so I would really like for us to think about how we can protect all students and give them all the education they need that does not somehow step on the needs or rights of some other student and I think it's really ironic that we had someone presented with an award earlier about inclusion in sports and so I'd like to remember we honor honored that earlier and so we can find ways to honor that and include
113trans people in sports thank you John Meyer and then next up is James chori I just like to thank the board for uh trying to address very challenging issues there's obviously very strongly held views in this community uh and as I listen to the people that have come before me it seems to me that for you as the board probably the most important people you should listen to are the students that spoke to you they're the ones that you're to care for they're the ones that you're to watch over and I I wonder whether there are any female athletes in Thompson Valley school district that would not want to have an environment where they competed only against female athletes that would be what they have communicated tonight that's what they want they want a field
114where the people that they communicate they compete with are biologically female athletes that view would be the view held by most of the people in our community it would be held by most of the people in our country it would be held by most of the people in the world so it's not strange that someone would promote that view it's the common view in every segment of our society and that doesn't mean that transgender individuals lack some human value that wouldn't be true at all gender dysphoria is a very real human experience I'm a retired Pastor I have worked with lots of different people I had neighbor just across the street who was a transgender man but we also know if we're very familiar with this that up until 2012 gender TR gender dysphoria among
115females was not even in the professional literature it didn't even exist in the professional mental uh Health literature so there's a phenomenon going on right now and currently the latest uh survey says that about 300,000 13 to 17 year old youth in the United States identify as transgender right now there are 53,000 people on one website RDR that all regret the decision that they made and if you go and read that website it just makes You Weep there are many students in your school district experiencing dysphoria who will and then Evelyn King in the years to come [Applause] Madam president and members of the Thompson board uh School District my name is Jim shuy uh I do campus work I went to laramy today and interacted with students over there I go to CU Boulder
116I go to CSU go to Metro State I talk to people every day I dialogue with people you might say I debate with people I exchange ideas with people I think about what I do all the time I guess I'm a professional debater you might say and I just like to say that in my experience and in my studies those who Define the terms win the debate okay that's that's just automatic so I don't allow people to define the terms for me we're going to Define common terms and then we can have a conversation but when you have some group defining the terms then uh there's no dialogue there's no no possibility of understanding okay so I would encourage the board and the school district and everyone here [Music] to reject this trans vocabulary uh
117mindset uh I would uh encourage the schools parents to not use that term males are males females are females you don't need to talk about trans males um I watched a program where they said let's reject this terminology and let's just call these people pretend males and pretend females and that would clarify the issue tremendously thank you very much Evelyn King and then Tara hild debrand put this on u pause for just a minute and find out from the board where they feel what they feel about we've gone an hour now and we have how many more I don't know about 50 more and we have a business meeting to run and that's what this really is is our business meeting as well so what is your pleasure board I'm going to go with what
118you want to do do you want to continue go another hour and then do our business meeting are you okay with that I definitely want to continue okay all right I just needed to get a temperature of it from them thank you so uh that left us with Evelyn King and then Tara hilderbrand will be [Music] next good evening board members my name is Evelyn King first I'd like to commend you for the decision to install the medal detectors at school entrances every parent wants to feel confident that their child is safe at schools knowing that dangerous items won't make it inside this is a smart Common Sense step to protect our students and I appreciate your leadership on this issue Athletics play a vital role in keeping students engaged and motivated I believe you
119all know that most sports are made s more safe by um making sure that uh or I'm sorry are made safe as safe as possible but there's one critical step still needed to protect student athletes that's ensuring that boys are not allowed to compete against girls in sports and I think you know that n over 99% of babies when they're born their little brothers or sisters can easily tell whether they're a boy or a girl allowing boys to compete in SK girl Sports is unfair and puts girls at a serious disadvantage girls who have trained and worked hard risk losing rankings Awards scholarships and future opportunities when forced to compete against boys this robs them of the chance to succeed at a Lev Level Playing Field more concerning is the increased risk of in injury
120biological differences in strength and speed make it more likely that girls will get H hurt when competing against Boors how many girls need to be injured before action is taken one injured girl when it could have been prevented is one too many and I hope you agree the Loveland Community Values fairness and safety allowing boys to compete against against girls doesn't either I encourage you to please protect girl Sports and ensure that the girls can compete fairly and safely and I think you heard the students explain that quite well tonight and I don't know what all this gang on is against Nancy and it's really disrespectful that I heard where um you've threatened her if she doesn't change her behavior now what is that um kindness inclusiveness and working together that that that's a threat
121it's not any attempt to work with Nancy and I'd appreciate it if you would all change that behavior yourselves thank you uh Tara hilderbrand and then Carly aanii will be up next hi I'm Tara um I have a bachelor's in sports medicine and I have a master's in sports management um I have worked at every level of sports I have worked I started in college sports um then I proceeded to professional sports then I proceeded to National and Olympic Level Sports and after that I thought I'd take a break and work with youth sports and by far Youth Sports was the most difficult one to work with because there's parents who love their kids and everybody wants their kid to get the scholarship and everybody believes their kid is good enough to get that scholarship
122I also played in sports and my coaches uh we competed about against the boys all the time and it made us better athletes and we loved it and the athletes I worked with in college the athletes I worked with at the professional levels the national levels the Olympic levels the women all enjoyed playing against the male counterparts and many of them outdid their male counterparts so I just feel like the sports whole story has a lot of stories but that so I I'm cisgender I love sports I believe Sports is uh a great team Builder a great confidence Builder it's great for your health all sorts of things um my my child my daughter is also an athlete so she um she's also autistic so she loved being in the water the water like calmed
123her senses it was super supportive helped her Focus um she loved swimming she started um competing in this District she competed for Bill Reed as a boy she did it for for 3 years cuzz I was like sports sports sports I love sports um at the end of the bill Reed um her career or whatever at the end of Bill Reed she was so demoralized and so traumatized not because of what people were saying but because of the outfit she had to use while she was swimming and I just you won't hear from her tonight because she is still working on she's 20 years old and she still doesn't swim and that's what these programs do to transgender females and I will tell you um the coaches are responsible for the uh culture of teams
124the referees are responsible for the culture of the games um there are athletic trainers to take care of injury we all sign waivers at the beginning of the Season sorry Carly Ian injury is inherent and then Wy [Applause] Richie Madam president Dr Schaefer and school board members My Name Is Karly Yoni I'm a Community member a parent and an employee of the district I am here tonight to express my deep concern with the discriminatory behavior and statements of Nancy rfel 3 minutes is not nearly enough time to cover all of how Miss rf's accent actions have brought harm to our career students instead I will use my time to present facts where she has only offered opinions Miss reld stated she likes to quote know the story behind the numbers and so I'm here to
125share that story according to the 2021 School climate survey from a nationally known nonprofit that supports queer students in education transgender students experience the most hostile School climate compared to their peers the youth risk behavior survey examines the mental health and SCH climate of transgender and cisgender high school students almost 44% of transgender youth had considered suicide in the past year compared to 16% of their cisgender peers this significant difference is seen across other meas measures for suicide attempts feelings of depression experiences of bullying and harassment and missing school due to feeling unsafe Miss rfi's language is adding to the unfounded narrative that transgender individuals are to be feared we as a community will not stand for this harmful hateful and discriminatory language from our school board her hateful statements thinly veiled under the guise
126of supporting women's sports does nothing but add to this hostile climate supporting women and girls in sports means expanding opportunities to play not restricting which women and girls get to play Miss rfi's claims are not backed by evidence however the evidence from states that have implemented trans inclusive policy IES show us an increase in girls participation in sports whereas states where there are trans exclusionary policies or bans saw a decrease in girls participation in sports the band on trans students participation in athletics reinforces the stereotypical gender Norms around the types of bodies that are more athletic the cognitive dissonance needed to claim support for women's sports while also pushing the narrative that women are inherently weaker and less athletically inclined than men only further harms cisgender and transgender girls and women both when transgender students
127are stigmatized and excluded it puts pressure on every student to conform to gender Ro stereotypes as a way to be avoid being bullied or harassed themselves I would never stand by and let my students treat others or speak to others the way Miss rumfelt has and we as a staff and as a community expect the same decorum from all of our board members thank you for your time Wendy Richie and then next will be Colleen Torres good evening my name is Wendy Richie and I am a teacher here in the Thompson District I am here and it sounds like um it's become pretty clear that there are quite a few people here to get some answers on how you all are going to move forward to protect the G the rights of the biological females
128in sports your community athletes students staff and parents are all deserving of a decision um and you've heard tonight from many people that the debate over transgender athletes and women sports is not about inclusion it is about fairness you've also heard people discuss about the biological factors with males even after hormone therapy often um these they often retain significant physical advantages greater muscle mass bone density lung capacity you've been hearing it this evening these traits develop through puberty don't fully diminish and they give an edge that undermines a Level Playing Field women have fought for decades to achieve sports are divided by sex for a reason because biology does matter studies like those in the British Journal of sports medicine show that transgender women retain strength advantages over biological women even after testosterone suppression this
129isn't about denying anyone's identity it's about protecting the Integrity of biological women's competition if we ignore these differences we risk erasing the hard one opportunities for biological female athletes fairness is not discrimination it's Justice you've had almost an entire school year to make a decision when it comes to how you will protect our biological women and sports and have done nothing I'm going to assume you've done nothing because up until this January you've had very little Direction on what to do from the federal government and they've essentially left it up to the states and so I don't know You' all have chosen to do nothing or ignore it but you do have a directive now and that's come from the federal government and the executive branch and those instructions have been clear on what is
130expected so my question is why have you not moved forward from this directive there's absolutely no reason you should be going against a directive from our Federal Executive Branch you're now risking all federal funds that impact all of our students in this District being withheld and I don't know if we are a district that can afford to lose any funding at all so if we have a group of transgender women that want to compete in athletics they should and they should be able to compete either with biological males or they should have their own separate category the choice really should be easy please do the right thing [Applause] colen Torres and then Kim Hayes or the I'm not sure good evening my name is Colleen Taurus um first of all I want to congratulate all
131the real girls with their accomplishments tonight it was amazing to see all these young ladies up here we hope that nothing gets in your way it has been six months since I last addressed this board in my previous address I was here to speak on behalf of the decision made by our District administration to wrongfully terminate me from my head coaching position at leveland high school I was fired from coaching cross country and track because I asked questions around rules and regulations that had not yet been established regarding transgender competition in female sports because I expressed concerns and my own viewpoints surrounding this subject matter rather than getting the help I requested I was accused of breaking board policies and promptly removed from my head coaching position an easy fix to avoid confrontation around such
132a touchy matter yet here we are all of us both sides tonight putting the board on the spot that you need to be in because this is an issue that needs to be addressed this District administration and Schoolboard has repeatedly avoided this topic due to its controversial nature how how much longer are you going to deny the the community's request to address this matter please please look at me while I'm talking I appreciate your attention thank you judging by the turnout of tonight's meeting I don't think you can hold out much longer I don't doubt that every single person who's here to speak tonight is doing so because they are passionate about the topic in one way or another either side what we are asking of this board is to finally start a conversation which
133will lead to clear guidance and policies that are fair for biological females we need a resolution that will protect girls in sports and also protect their spaces Bottom Line This is a safety issue for biological females president Trump's executive order does not leave much wiggle room in fact this District loses risks losing Federal funding if we do not follow this very clear order I'm not sure how how how much we have more to to give seeing as we are so far in the red and looking at Major cuts in the next few years not to mention the failure to pass the bond in M Levy shame shame I have two daughters who attend schools in TSD I also have a daughter who graduated last year who was a division one cross country and track athlete
134they are all Fierce competitors and all have had to manage the threat of competing against biological males in their sport something I never had to worry about if you've never competed athletically at a high level I'm going to ask you to just stain your lane on this one these girls real biological females deserve fairness and safety in their Sports bathrooms and in their locker rooms in this District hear us don't continue to deny us and do the right thing Kim Hayes and then Ashley [Applause] Phyllis good evening board Dr schaer um my name is Kim Hayes I'm a high school teacher here in TSD I'm here tonight not as a school district employee but as a concerned public educator and Community member and I hope you consider my comments as such in my 12-year career
135teaching science I figure that I've taught somewhere around 2,000 students that's a lot of young people and let me tell you they were all different and unique I've taught students who are eager to learn and students who are reluctant to even pick up a pencil I've taught sassy girls and boys who can't sit still I once learned how to use some very rudimentary American Sign Language so that I could speak to the deaf mother of a heart of hearing student I have celebrated with State basketball champions I've taught students who cursed at me called me slurs and screamed in my face I've taught students who bounced from one foster home to another and cried with them every time yet another placement didn't work out I've taught students who go home every day to alcoholic and
136even abusive parents I have taught students who desperately did absolutely everything they could to keep me from teaching them and yet I taught them time and time again I have convinced the students in my classroom that they matter and that I care because I believe that public education is a place where every single child should be loved respected accepted as they are and given equal access to an education however the most vulnerable students I have taught are those in the lgbtq plus Community these are the students that most desperately need to feel seen and accepted who are seeking validation for their own lived experience and who feel the most fear of rejection which I guarantee you is why you didn't hear from very many of them this evening I have heard many comments tonight speaking
137about discomfort uneasiness and perceived unfair advantages and yet I am afraid that our lgbtq plus students are facing much more grave consequences these students are more likely to experience severe depression suicidal ideation and even attempt suicide now I'm a scientist first so I will not ask you to take me at my word without citing my sources many stlish studies published by the the National Institutes of Health Report similar and elevated numbers of self harm depression suicidal ideations and suicide attempts according to a study by jva at all 65% of teens reported engaging in self harm 74% reported suicidal ideation and over a quarter reported actually attempting suicide in another study by Mark hudsen uh PhD at Columbia they found that teens in unsupported environments were 20% more likely to commit suici side I know there
138are varying op opinions in this room right now but I hope we can all agree that we'd like to keep our children alive thank you Ashley Phyllis and then next up will be Suzanne Pang Rock Madame President Dr schaer members of the board thank you so much for having me here today I am a non-binary teacher here at this District so the opinions that I share are of my own and not of the district I would like to say that I appreciate working at a district who in their mission statement says they support all students not just some because it is hard right now being a queer person and I have no doubt it is way tougher for our students my concern is when I see a board member coming in with a shirt of
139discrimin nature saying what a real woman is that is very harmful to our students because what message is that sharing them is that showing that we're following our own board policies of non-discrimination is that showing that we are a safe place for our students to be who they are I am am concerned that my students might be feeling unsafe because they learn from us whether they are non-binary whether they're trans whether their sis I've heard a lot of statements today some of them have been not correct terminology I've heard biological male thrown around way more than I've heard trans women which is also harmful to our students if we're not categorizing them correctly I think we all are here to help serve our students as best as we can because as a teacher and as
140a educator believe it is my job first to care for my students and have a safe environment and I cannot have a safe environment for my students if there's discrimination going on point blank we need to make sure that all members here all of our staff and all of our students are being the best versions of themselves and helping to make sure that our schools and our city is a safe place thank you I yield the rest of my time Suzanne Pang Rock and then Kathy Hardman or hman hello my name is Suzanne pongas um I have had kids and grandkids in the district since 1994 I currently have a grandchild playing sports at wall Clark um I believe also that's biological Mal should not be allowed in girl Sports for the reasons that everyone
141has stated they have an unfair fa Advantage once they go through puberty their bodies are different and it's just not fair to our girls um the rest of what I want to talk about is your guidelines the AC E3 and I have a couple issues I want to bring up there the first paragraph under privacy says all students have a right to privacy I just want to know if that pertains to all students including biological females in locker rooms um and not just the 1% of students that are transgendered I don't think our our daughters and granddaughters should unknowingly be undressing in front of biological males I just don't think that's helpful to them um sorry I'm nervous um it's a huge violation of their privacy um also under the Privacy section it states that
142transgender status may be withheld from parents if it puts the student at risk of harm I think you as the board are not the parents of these children and I don't think it's up to you to determine whether or not parents should be informed I think if there's an issue that possibly there could be harm at home then the school counselor needs to get involved and maybe um child protection I still think that parent has the right to know what's going on with their child um and then also on page four under overnight trips it says I'm quoting in no case shall a transgender student be required to share a room with students whose gender identity conflicts with their own again why should our daughters or granddaughters be forced to unknowingly share a room with
143a male and possibly be undressing in front of a mail um you guys have a hard job and I think a lot of people have asked you for question for answers and clarify um just where you're going with this it's really important to a lot of us so thank you for your [Music] time Kathy hman or hman and then John Kaufman [Music] i c my name is Kathy and I am 71 years old I have lived here since I got married in 1976 and my and my late husband grew up here I've raised three children that have gone through Thompson Valley High School they are all now adults my career was Child Protection so I know a lot about um uh Children at Risk are you aware of the risks that your daughters have have
144one in three is going to be sexually molested before they are 16 who do you think's molesting them not trans not trans white men that's who's molesting your children so that's who you should be worried about when if this was 1950 What topic would you be talking about playing in sports if this was 1960 you would be talking about how Wom women shouldn't play sports because they were too fragile no you wouldn't be not most of you because the women would not be on the board because you were too emotional and not capable of being in the positions of authority I I throw a ball like a like a girl like the old insult of playing throwing a ball like the girl because I threw a ball once a year at field day it was
145humiliating by the time I was in high school Title Nine had come up and so girls got to play if a girl played a non feminine sport like basketball or baseball it was presumed that they were dkes or and when I went to the reunion do you know who the Dyke was and I apologize to all people it was the high it was the head cheerleader so she had years of therapy in figuring out um what was to be othered all of you all of you women there have been times when you have been othered where you have not been good enough and that is what you are doing to trans children you had some some athletes play here Sports is not fair my oldest wanted to play football and he had to compete against
146two children who were held back by their fathers because they wanted him to be bigger one of them got upset and he ended up in jail my daughter was a soccer uh goalkeeper but you know what she got her mother's jeans so she was short that doesn't make for really good goalkeepers does it and you know what she had an ACL injury her senior year so that she had she lost part of the season from being injured Sports is not a safe place and trans does not make it any difference John Kaufman and then Mandy coniger Mandy coniger good evening uh board members thank you very much for extending the time tonight to give us the opportunity to voice our views superintendent um schaer I'd like to congratulate you on your career here in Thompson
147School District and wish you the best as you move on my name is uh John Kaufman I'm a retired School administrator and I just wanted to point some things out that might help clarify this issue for you yesterday March 26 the Federal Department of Education Office of civil rights open an investigation into the Portland uh public schools and a directed investigation into the Oregon School Activities Association for violation of Title 9 four one allowing a boy last week to compete in a girls track meet and excuse me using the girls locker room for changing with girls there uh and also to the organ School uh Activities Association uh their policy is is now being directly investigated a gender identity participation policy allowing students to identify their gender for the purpose of determining participation sorry I'm
148doing that their determining participation rather than their biological gender okay so that's that just came out yesterday TSD has I I want to lawed you in this uh T TSD has changed the title and hopefully reassigned the work Focus for the director of equity diversity and inclusion at least according to the website to director of instruction here in TSD this appears to comply with the new federal policy of eliminating Dei policies and efforts in any programs receiving federal funds like TSD okay I recommend this this same type of change in policy and actions to take place with respect to all discriminatory policies against girls in uh TSD Athletics and other areas in order to avoid the cost and resource strain due to litigation from the federal government and loss of that Federal support in addition
149I further recommend that rather than censure this board formerly recognized and lawed director rumfeldt comes for TSD and their students thank you very much uh Manny coniger and then Sharon Penny I have three daughters one who currently play sports in high school for your district and two that have already grad graduated and are currently running cross country and track at the division one level I have almost 30 years of nursing experience and I have coached at the middle school level for almost 10 years and witness the difference between male and female sports bodies and everything else that separates these two Sexes I'm angry that I have to take time away from my work home and family this evening because you as the Schoolboard refused to look at the facts in front of you compromising femal
150safety respect and value for who they are and how God made them and their hardfought rights in turn failing to do your jobs let me give you the facts the fact is in the furthest race on the track the men's current US 10,000 meter record is almost 4 minutes faster than the women's record and every single record in the history books follows suit men being faster jumping higher throwing further than women interesting that we don't see that many women at the division one level playing in male Sports wonder why these records are important to our household as these are the distances my two oldest girls race girls that start studied hard in your district and busted through Colorado weather every single day to earn scholarships to fulfill their dreams they were disappointed that I had
151to speak today to try and protect the dreams of not only them but other girls working just as hard trying to do the same in their Sports last year I watched games that our high school girls played the soccer team that was here against a transgender on the opposing team te when they got hit by the transgender they flew further and harder to the ground compromising their safety many of the girls talked later that they felt uncomfortable playing that close to and against a boy in their sport as a parent I felt helpless confused and shocked that this was even allowed we have all seen the videos of injured girls unable to compete in high school sports let alone followed their dreams to play in college due to a transgender injuring them during their Sports
152if you have not watched these videos you need to it is part of your job to make this decision as upset as I was to do this today I am the voice for our youngest daughter who was a freshman in high school last year going to her first practice and getting changed in her high school locker room came home and told me that a transgender was in the locker room with the female teammates um of the basketball team that he was playing for do you have daughters and granddaughters I know you do and even if you don't do what I tell my children put yourself in their shoes the high school didn't close the locker room for her safety or respect she felt violated upset and disregarded those were the words she wanted me to
153tell you tonight no boy without permission in her life should be allowed to ever watch her undress or be allowed to undress in front of her by not doing your jobs or looking at the facts you've compromised an entire female population in your school district you've disappointed many many loses and many lawsuits are to [Applause] follow Dr shaer members of the board I am speaking on behalf of students parents grandparents and great-grandparents here in Northern Colorado who have a deep personal understanding about what is right and wrong good and evil and who are confident that their understanding did not come from within themselves but rather was given to them by a higher authority an authority above mere man in ancient times an entire group of people was described like this every man did what was
154right in his own eyes whatever they decided was right was right what they determined good was good and what they declared evil was evil as a whole that people group was not looking to their creator designer for truth they were looking within themselves and their appears only and the result was Community chaos in the end that entire Society came under judgment Thompson School District is experiencing a clash of ideologies that is not political but spiritual we are in a spiritual battle here in Northern Colorado for the hearts and minds of our students the fractious atmosphere at Schoolboard meetings isn't actually about t-shirts and gender questions it is at its base about truth what is truth is truth what each of us individually decides if that is so what if she entirely disagrees with him what
155if what he believes is right and wrong is the polar opposite of what they believe chaos or is there ultimate truth to be had one truth that does not originate within us within any of us long ago pontious pilot asked Jesus Christ a question he said truth what is truth that was likely an honest question he didn't know and he wondered out loud can we ask it Jen castona and then Ian Ian sorry Rutherford [Applause] Jen castona and then Ian Rutherford and right after that would be Janet Wright I know we've got some people coming in I just kind of want to Tee It Up while we have an extra second no Jen castona Ian Rutherford or Janet right okay we'll take Janet and then maybe the other two can get here from the other
156room correct Janet right yes I'm Janet rright uh my pronouns are she her hers and I live in Fort Collins I'm on the board of directors for p p flag Fort Collins in Northern Colorado as I suspected most of us here tonight we here because of Nancy rumfelt either supporting her bullying or standing up to it I'm in that latter group at the August 21st 2024 Board of Education meeting Nancy's partner distributed a letter called history will show we failed to protect our children it was full of propaganda lies misinformation and vile rhetoric a lot of what we've heard tonight and a lot of people you can find a lot of your policy online as far as locker room and sports Avail yourself uh it was full of propaganda ugly efforts to violate title n
157she signed it Nancy renfeld director District C Board of Education Thompson school district below that was an italicize disclaimer that she was not speaking on behalf of the board I don't think it works like that I along with input from the P flag president P flag National one Colorado and hours of finding and citing peer-reviewed medical journals was able to accurately refute the madeup facts provided by Nancy and I have copies if anyone wants after tsd's definition of bullying is any written or verbal expression no matter the medium or method of delivery including without limitation electronic transmission or a physical act or gesture or a pattern thereof that is intended to coorse intimidate or cause any physical or mental or emotional harm to another person my interpretation is that this would also cover an inappropriate
158t-shirt worn on school property at a District Board of Education meeting in addition Nancy also voted against air conditioning in your students unir conditioned schools her loyalties aren't to the students and she would rather spend her time as an elected person on the board of education pursuing a population that is less than 1% of the United States and children kids I'm speaking directly to all of you on the board do something send your heard take a stand for decency and for all of the students do something you know it's time thank you for allowing me to speak for all the students Jen Jen castona Ian Rutherford okay come on up Ian and then Jen Rutherford or Reggie Johnson thank you Dr schaer and board members for the opportunity to speak tonight 1,328 I'd like you
159to keep that number in mind for the next couple of minutes my name is Ian Rutherford I am the father of Seven Girls some of whom participate in sports and all of whom use the bathroom and locker rooms at school it amazes me that we are having a debate about something that is so obvious boys don't belong on girls sports teams and don't belong in their bathrooms that is the only answer that needs to be given to male encroachment on girls spaces and opportunities but I feel like a girl no you are a boy and your gender dysphoria doesn't let you take away girls opportunities and safe spaces but I like wearing dresses no you are a boy and your gender dysphoria doesn't let you take away girls opportunities and safe spaces but I'm taking
160chemicals that will likely result in Perman permanent physical harm and sterilization no you are a boy and your mental condition does not let you take away girls opportunities and safe spaces girls don't owe anyone an explanation for why they don't want boys in their bathrooms and locker rooms and shame on any adult that tries to bully them into accepting it Title 9 exists to protect female spaces and female sports and right now this district is in violation of federal law girls deserve a fair playing field for sports all the talk of compassion and inclusion is just a fog to hide the reality that girls are being bullied into accepting an unfair and unacceptable situation but who does this policy actually hurt remember that number 1,328 that's the number of awards that have been stolen from
161female athletes in the name of compassion and inclusion this list 40 pages 10-point font double-sided is the list of awards that males have taken away from girls from the shw one.org website it's a shameful history of Dash Sports Dreams that males have taken from females is this board going to defend the girls in Thompson schools or is it going to continue to tell them to shut up and take it when boys are in their locker rooms winning their medals and depriving them of opportunity thank [Applause] you we've got Reggie Johnson and then Tiana Johnson good evening my name is Reggie Johnson excuse me and my pronouns are she her I'm the proud mother and grandmother of transgender loved ones let me ask each one of you here which hand do you use to write letters
162or brush your teeth or swing a baseball bat okay now when when did you decide to be left-handed or right-handed likely it was not a decision which hand you use as an innate characteristic which is simply part of who you are and so it is with being transgender it's not a decision it's not a choice some of you may actually be ambidextrous that is using either hand not just one or the other and so it is with being non-binary I'm also the president of P flag fort whose mission is to create a caring just and affirming world for lgbtq plus people and those who love them I represent numerous families with kids in Thompson School District specifically families with transgender or non-binary youth more than a few of these families discovered that their loved one
163was transgender or non-binary at a mental health facility or an emergency room after their child tried to take their own life every day trans and non-binary students face discrimination harassment non-acceptance of who they are whether intentional or due to a lack of understanding of their lived experience it's really tough to be trans or non-binary in today's world P greatly appreciates gender affirming policies and procedures that are in place in Thompson and the literally life-saving work the majority of the board members teachers and staff do for our kids however we know that Nancy rumfelt is the exception at the August board meeting I attended Miss renfeld placed that anti-trans propaganda that Janet mentioned on all the attendees seats it was fraught with misstatements errors and outright lies no references provided for any of the supposed facts
164that she laid out so as Janet mentioned in September we provide a detailed response to superintendent and the board we refuted the points made and we included actual facts and references our response noted that Miss rumelt's behavior is in fact Thompson School District's own definition of bullying we asked for her censure in the intervening months We Believe Miss rumfelt unacceptable Behavior towards transgender non-binary students has escalated we ask you to hold her accountable and we ask again for her censure thank you Tiana Johnson and then Michelle bonser benzer hi thank you my name is Dr Tiana Johnson I use she her pronouns and I'm a licensed psychologist from Loveland Colorado I am here tonight in strong support of all students and especially our queer and trans students and I'm demanding accountability for Nancy rumelt's actions
165based in bigotry and discrimination towards our lgbtq plus Community as a psychologist who works closely with the Trans and gender diverse Community I am appalled by her actions and using her position on the school board to disproportionately Target and harm our most vulnerable students research has consistently shown that lgbtq plus kids are at higher risk for depression anxiety suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts I want to be extremely clear in stating that these mental health impacts have nothing to do with the children or their identities but everything to do with living in a society that does not support them it should be no surprise to hear that when lgbtq plus youth feel the blatant discrimination from transphobic rhetoric policies and laws it significantly harms their academic performance their mental health and their wellbeing last year nearly
16640% of lgbtq plus youth seriously considered suicide nearly 40% this is completely unacceptable and actions like ny's contribute to the blatant disregard and harm to these kids as adults our jobs as Schoolboard members parents leaders and community members is to help children feel safe it is not our job as adults to pick and choose which children that safety applies to all students and especially our trans and queer students deserve our love and care I will not sit idly by and allow any of our community leaders to put students In Harm's Way and neither should you our community is here to safeguard these students and to say that we are stronger than your hate finally rather than attacking and harming our lgbtq plus students shouldn't we be focusing on students actual needs as Colorado school funding
167faces significant budget cuts resulting in what I believe could be a 4 million loss for this District alone Nancy wants to waste our time targeting vulnerable students I call into question her ability to serve as a board member if she's unable to appr reply prioritize students needs in conclusion I strongly condemn her bigotry and harm to students and at a minimum I demand that she's censored until she abides by the ethics code and dress code that she agreed to in becoming a board member our students and our community deserve better thank you Michelle benzer and then Linda bid Lake good evening uh my daughter attended schools in this District she also participated in intermal sports and then she ran track and cross country at the varsity level this student and athlete is my transgender daughter
168and she is now a thriving adult I'm aware that inclusion of male to female transgender students in girls Sports it's a complex and debated issue balancing fairness inclusion and competitive Equity I've heard many statements this evening about phys phological differences in strength muscle mass and height I can only speak to my experience as the mother of a transgender daughter my daughter participated in therapy and when appropriate she started hormone therapy which included anti-androgens to block puberty she didn't develop the height she didn't developed the strength or the muscle mass or things like that that she would have like her brother had she not taken the anti-androgens as a mother this was not easy I cried I wondered what I did to be punished I feared for my daughter that she was going to get killed
169beaten assaulted but I did what was right because it wasn't a choice this is how she was born and as parents we do what we can to make sure we fulfill our children's needs passions goals that is our responsibility as parents to help them is a matter who those kids are I'm also aware that the lack of knowledge and verified information about transgender youth instills instills fears in some students but primarily parents and their extended family so when my daughter officially transitioned I thought that life was going to be better for her but it wasn't I will say that my daughter blossomed and became happier being her true self and by living life as the gender that she identifies as she was excited to play sports alongside of her female friends to change in the
170girl's locker room in a private stall and sometimes in the coach's restrooms the camaraderie the social skills coping mechanisms that all people learn in school and out of school were enhanced by competing by competing in girl Sports not once did she attack stalk or threaten any natal females in fact she was encouraged to enter the girls locker room and restrooms alongside other girls because after my daughter began her transition and the girls in her class and sports stated that they knew all along that she was always a girl and finally her appearance and actions aligned with that I ask you to take that into consideration because the board and the staff at that time did a great job Linda bidlake uh Linda bidlake and then Amy Herrick is next hi my name is Linda um
171I worked with the child of Michelle who just talked to you and the grown-up child will speak to you in a little bit too she ended up down the line a little bit um 20 years ago I was a school psychologist in the district including at Bill Reed Middle School um one of my clearest memories was this student coming tearing into my class or my counseling room in a panic somebody said my voice squeaked it can't just terrified at the news that male puberty was started she just turned 13 um she had known as her mom said from a very young age that she was really female uh the the what evolved from there was that she started taking hormone blockers yay mom the puberty blockers by the end of the seventh grade year and
172decided to come back in eighth grade as who she really was and stay at Bill Reed now this is 20 years ago we didn't have any clue how to do this we could find any precedent for it there have always been transgender people and kids but we hadn't known what to do with them in school we hadn't really known they were there um and so we had to make up what to do um we spent a good bit of time that summer as a team including Michelle and her daughter Molina um to answer all the questions who do we tell what do we tell them what do we do if the newspaper shows up um what about bathrooms Etc um what about names um we had the support of the administration and we had wonderful
173principal many of you probably know Todd ball still at first he looked like a deer in the headlights like we're going to do what but then we dug in with the team and learned and figured out how to support this kid in a way that was fair and good for everybody else um and it worked it was actually fairly easy um we didn't get much problem from it the newspaper didn't show up um we told the entire staff so that they could be on the lookout and make sure she was safe um we didn't tell the kids we left that to her to do and most of them did respond with yeah I always figured you were a girl here let's trade hair barats or something like that um and she ran girls track uh
174we didn't know if she could her mom contacted the chassa Colorado High School folks who said we haven't had that question asked before and I think they consulted with somebody from the Olympics committee whove changed their standards and their criteria many times over the years at that point what they did was listen to Molina's story and decide yeah it's okay the key was for them she hadn't gone through male puberty and so she was not a male in a way that would threaten any females Amy herck and then Sabrina Herrick will be next hi my name is Amy and I want to sincerely thank all members of the board with the exception of Nancy of your commitment to inclusivity your policies ensure that every student regardless of their background ability or identity feels seen valued
175and supported this leadership doesn't just shape schools but it shapes Futures I was here last month and I spoke and I will keep coming I have a trans youth in TSD my child is safe and supported with the current policies thank you Sabrina carck and then Ethan breeding my name is Sabrina Herrick my daughter is a student at PSD not TSD I'm here tonight given because given the accusations of transphobia by one of your board members you need to hear my daughter's story my daughter is autistic currently 11 years old when she was nine she along with 10 other autistic students aged 5 to 10 that we know of was abused by a PSD employee Tyler Zella she was one of the so-called lucky victims she only got pinched kicked slapped and insulted and only
176needed therapy other children faced racial epithets death threats were beaten with shoes had their heads smashed into windows and were sexually battered one of the children a kindergartener was abused so much they had to be scanned for bleeding on the brain zenel was hired in August 2022 PSD started getting complaints about him in September 2022 he wasn't investigated until May 202 3 when he was immediately fired and arrested you might wonder why I'm telling you all this it's because my family didn't sue zanella we sued PSD and several members of its leadership despite psd's public statement in August 2023 that zanella's actions were his own and don't represent PSD PSD leadership created a culture that disregarded the well-being of disabled students and therefore allowed 11 autistic children to be abused for an entire school year
177I'm telling you this because I know what happens when a district leadership when a District's leadership fails to respect the humanity of marginalized children in their care kids get hurt and the district gets sued go ask your friends on psd's board what they're looking at spending on settlement after insurance pays their share this is my permission for them to answer I don't know where most of you stand on trans rights I don't know if you agree with Nancy rumfelt or disagree but your silenes complicity with her hate hateful statements and it's encouragement for transphobic staff who want to know what you'll tolerate them doing to children in their care and now you have no excuse to claim you don't know what a bigot will do to children protect your students by standing up against transphobic
178nonsense even if you won't go do it out of compassion do it for your budget and One Last Thing Before I Go we've had a lot of people here tonight who want to act like this is about women's sports how it's not about hate it's about safety and fairness well the only time anyone wants to talk about women's safety and women getting fair shot is when at some shallow topic like sports at the expense of and at the expense of a marginalized group like trans people this is not protecting the sanctity of sports this is making excuses to justify bigotry and other and other people who don't look like you Nancy I am not a victim of trans women's existence I'm not your excuse to be a bigot keep your gender out of my [Applause]
179mouth e e breeding and then Nancy Meredith hello I want want to thank everybody for for staying late so you could hear all of us because I think that everybody is Viewpoint is important I want to acknowledge the P passion of everybody who talk because I believe that a lot of you genuinely actually believe that your daughters are threatened and you want to to protect them and that's a very Noble thing to do what I want to ask is what do you know what you're asking for when you ask a legislative body to decide who is female and who is male because I'm I'm not going to tell you my pronouns or the gender that I was assigned at Birth one because it's not really anybody's business but two because I was born with xxy
180chromosomes so that means I'm interex and there are a lot of different people and different kinds of being interex um when I was a child that means that I was born with deformed genitals and my parents were forced to do a cosmet procedure on me when I was a baby in order to make me fit in with other kids and what that end up happening is that when I was a 10-year-old I started on male puberty um and they decided that they didn't want that for me because they didn't know and so they started me on puberty blockers um and that lasted a while until they put me on estrogen and I was only only 12 or 13 years old I played Sports as a kid I played hockey I played basketball I did swimming
181and thankfully where we lived in Denver there was places where kids could play Just against each other and I never had to choose and then I got into high school and I decided Well I want to I want to be in the Boy Scouts I want to do Civil Air Patrol like my dad but the problem was that I would have to be sorted so I just want everybody to think about what it means for maybe your kid to be accused of being transgender because they're too good and then all of a sudden you have somebody you don't know who has to look in your child's pants um I I don't want what happened to me when I was a kid to happen to anybody else and I think that where you are physically should
182determine what you get to play and where you get to participate thank [Applause] you we have Nancy narith and then Marca Peterson is next hi good evening everybody um this has been a enlightening evening for sure I want to thank you for this extra um time to hear public comment and in general I want to thank you for most of you for your support of all students and staff in Thompson specifically I want to talk about respect yesterday I watched the advanced Colorado interview with you Nancy and was quite appalled at the portrait you and the interviewer viewer tried to paint of your co-directors the way in which you continue to play the victim or the poor me as being the one loan conservative simply is not true after watching and listening to Boe meetings
183whether in person or not I want to go on record as saying I've only wish witnessed nothing but respect given to you by all other directors they don't cut you off nor did they disallow you to speak I know that you Nancy want your followers to believe and to think that you are being disrespected that is not true you have the same platform and space to voice your opinion as every other director what I think happens to you Nancy is that you confuse respect with those differing with with differing viewpoints not agreeing with you or your right-wing conservatives is not disrespect it's simply looking at how we include all kids all students versus excluding a group of someone that you don't agree with that lifestyle playing the victim never works for anyone ever my call
184to action is to stop the victim Behavior stop distracting this district from doing the important work that needs to be done and instead let's concentrate on that important work it's time to move on thank you Mara Peterson Mara Peterson and then Casey melan and and I'm going to do a quick check right now thumbs up keep going we have a business meeting I'm sorry for those of you that are sitting over there waiting for but what do you think keep going how many are are there I mean actually still here may I don't know I wouldn't know um but we have maybe um 2530 between 25 and 30 and you have 15 Callins and we yeah we we we can yeah we can do that yeah I think calls at the end would be great
185everybody in person would be really nice if we could there a lot of people still in the other room do you have any idea if there's still a lot of people over there waiting 20 okay okay to keep going all right thank you thank sorry but I have to keep doing a PSE check here yeah thank you uh so Marsha Peterson and then Casey melane is Casey here by chance okay um Olivia low are you here by chance Angie McMillan by chance Aaron Lee oh I'm sorry you are okay Angie McMillan will be next for now um and then Mara Peterson if you're here thank you for extending the time and letting everybody speak tonight uh my name is Angie McMillan I have been a lovelin resident for 3 years I am also a mom
186to a transgender teen and that teen is also on an IEP when we moved to Loveland because of the IEP we took a tour of the school that we were assigned which was Lucille Irwin when I walked in there I saw a large Banner with bright colors that said no place for hate and I felt reassured that my child would be accepted here and continue to thrive and that was not our experience throughout the course of the school year my child experienced bullying harassment and hate every single day nothing was done and she began to spiral it quickly got to the point where my child was too scared to be in a regular classroom because the bullying was so bad she became severely depressed and for the first time in her life she thought something
187was wrong with her and began to hate herself things became so bad that she began cutting herself and contemplating suicide this resulted in an impatient psychiatric stay followed by months of intensive therapy she struggled going back to the school environment and we still couldn't get her back in the regular classroom setting in addition to that there was multiple school shooting threats throughout the district many of them directed at the lgbtq population at this point I made the decision to do the School of Choice application and return to pter school district because I was afraid for my child's life I made the decision to drive twice a day 25 minutes each way for my child to attend a school that Fosters a safe and inclusive en IR that's over 8 hours per week almost 36 hours
188per month and over 293 hours per school year that I sacrifice so my teen who is trans can get an education because this school district failed her and you know what I chose to make that sacrifice again this school year as we entered high school after starting 8th grade back at Preston we saw improvements almost immediately she was back in the classroom and actually learning and completing her schoolwork unfortunately the mental health struggles did not improve as easily or as quickly although she's now able to be her authentic self we still continue to monitor her mental health given the rise in hate and discrimination against the trans Community hate and discrimination that's not only tolerated but in some ways encouraged and even glorified by people like Nancy what message does that send to your teachers
189to your students if these comments and hate speech against our trans youth are tolerated you're sending a message to Every Other Board member staff student family that this type of rhetoric is accepted in Thompson School District as members of the board you have the responsibility to set the standard for your district and I urge you to do better I'm grateful that my child is here today and alive today and I want to ask you when the trans youth in your District are dead because you failed to provide them with a safe and supportive environment what will you say to their parents thank you Mara Peterson Casey mingon Olivia low Aaron Lee Bob Patterson you all kind of know me we've had conversations before and I hope when you're running for Schoolboard again you come back
190to birth and for a form okay but uh I appreciate you guys spending extra time with us tonight I don't mean me a critical but I saw a motion second and then it was just disappeared and Robert's Rules said you should really move forward once a motional second so just in the future so first of all my son is gay he lives in New Orleans he likes dressing up like a girl every once in a while okay I love him and he just completed a Texas monthly article on Phyllis Randol fry I don't if you know who she is she's the grandmother of gay gay and transgender rights in America right but um I I've done a lot of things I like uh learning new things I was a personal trainer in Houston I had
191two trans females as clients I loved working with them but they could beat the butt out of anyone whether it's a female or a male there was a difference okay um I think the best thing we heard is we actually heard about the people that are impacted we've got adults passion passionate here like I am but we had the girls that told you what it's like competing against males in their Sports um today the international Olympic Committee announced that they're going to do DNA testing okay to make sure that men are not competing in women's sports the NCA is also looking at doing the same thing okay so um I'm a bit disappointed about what appears to be the board's position that one board member takes a stand on an important issue such such as
192defending the rights of girls and women under Title 9 in the president's executive order that position is dismissed as a partisan act simply because it differs from the views of other board members as you surely know protecting girls in sports is not transphobic just as excluding able-bodied athletes from par Olympics is not discriminatory it's simply a matter of fairness thank you [Applause] okay um we actually have a couple other people that might be before you um I was told I just got skipped over yeah um Marsha Peterson are you here okay um Casey melinton Olivia low okay now we have Aron Lee sorry I know you got all the way back there the timing's horrible but I I know getting ACR into the other room is hard uh hello Thompson Board of Education my name
193is Aaron Lee I'm a mom here in larer County uh a mom whose child was harmed by gender ideology in my public school when she was secretly transitioned at 12 years old in her sixth grade classroom into a boy in a secret gender and sexuality Club I have since learned that unfortunately speaking on this issue including safeguarding female Single Sex spaces has become a heated and politicized topic but this isn't a right verse left issue this is a right verse wrong issue Title 9 has long upheld females right to Single Sex bases and it is your responsibility to honor those rights it's clear by the turnout here today that this is an issue that needs to be discussed both sides deserve to be heard but you cannot continue to ignore the issue itself nor the
194truth of biological reality and existing laws that protect females I believe one board member here at the request of her constituents has been asking for this conversation to happen for a long time she's been chastised for standing up for girls and young women in this District who've come to her for help she's been attacked for wearing a shirt similar to this one but being pro women is not being anti- anything it's not hateful nor bigoted to acknowledge the fundamental truth that sex is immutable and that there are significant biological differences between males and females that's just telling the truth and in an establishment that educates tens of thousands of children you should aspire to arm the Next Generation with truth critical thinking skills and the ability to engage in respectful problem solving no one wants
195anyone to be left out we just acknowledge that females deserve safety and fairness in their single Single Sex spaces I led a Statewide ballot measure effort this past year to handle this at the state level because it's not being handled by individual districts and we encourage third spaces and third categories so that everyone can be included so often we see young girls like the teams up here today being forced to stand up for themselves but it shouldn't be up to them to self- Advocate especially not once they've already been put in an uncomfortable Unthinkable situation it's up to all of us the adults to have productive conversations about the safety of children and do the right thing by them I encourage this board to adopt a policy that safeguards girls Single Sex spaces while ensuring
196that no one is left out so that all sides of this heated debate feel safe and supported thank [Applause] you Casey melinton or Olivia low David jeel okay uh Melissa somebody has just signed it like they're signing their um legal contract and I'm sorry I all I can tell for sure is that there's an M it's great but I can't read it I don't think so okay um Melissa is what I'm guessing Leland from Loveland um and then looks like maybe there's a Scott Bliss also guessing on that one because it's a signature Ira clayy Laura dimit Ellie Lee matus Borman okay we found one yay Bingo my thank you board for listening to uh to the public I appreciate it um I'm a longtime coach volunteer uh I'm a former professional athlete I was
197the captain of the Swedish national team I volunteered as a coach for the lovelin track program for three years I currently coach division one um and everyone's talked really passionately about about the locker rooms um and I'm of of the idea that girls should be protected but I want to to this from illegal perspective um we have clear directive from from our Administration about what is supposed to happen and if you're a biological woman you're supposed to compete with women and if you're not you can't in 2022 the International Swimming Federation came up with a new inclusive policy and they said that if you have not transitioned before the age of 12 you are not allowed to swim with women recognizing that scientists have determined that if you go pu through puberty as a boy
198you have that Advantage um if you are a female athlete right now and you take testosterone and change your hormones you get an unfair Advantage as a woman competing among women you get banned from the sport after that four years the benefit Still Remains so which is why going through puberty as a boy does it kind of it sticks with you um yesterday this is fresh off the press the international uh governing body for track and field World Athletics actually someone said we're not going to do genetic testing for um for being able to compete as a women well it turns out that due to so many different policies and the choice to not take a stand we are now going to have genetic testing before you are allowed to compete as a woman you
199can look this up this happened yesterday this body governs USA Track and Field which governs everything else that rolls down so when our high school kids or middle school kids go to do summer track that's what they're going to be competing under um as and I just don't get the lack of taking a stance and exposing our community to to these lawsuits that will surely come now that we have clear directives the international bodies are are making this happen in 2016 there was a comparison between High School boys and the world's best women in track and field and swimming okay these are the women's that we look at that win Olympic goals there were 39 medals total in track and field 34 four of them went to high school boys when you compare it in
200swimming there were 48 total medals the High School National Finals they got 47 of the medals the Olympic women got one that's the difference of testosterone Olivia make a good choice thank you name you called earlier I think it's mine you mispronounced it oh thank you yeah thank you okay got you Melena thank you um I just want to say thank you so much for having this go on um I'm speaking on behalf of myself um it's been about 20 years since I've been in the school district I was born and raised in Loveland Colorado participated in female sports um my mom is the one that was up here speaking Michelle um started at the age of 13 playing um and I just really ask that you guys have some humility um towards Humanity first
201first and foremost um and I want to share my success story because I feel like I it truly truly is growing up up here um as a transwoman um I'm 32 years old now and I would have never come here until um a dear friend of mine suggested that I come and fight for the trans youth um to make a better impact on their Journeys but I am a successful individual because I was able to build relationships develop social skills coping mechanisms by competing in sports alongside female friends and athletes when I competed in girl Sports there was multiple girls that were stronger physically bigger than I was every transgender student has an individual Story Journey policies should be inclusive and give each student the right to choose their own path it's because of the
202school staff and the school board that was in place when I attended School in the district that I have thrived and I'm happy to Pro to to be a productive part of our community of our community and that's all I have to say thank you so much so the next one um might be Bliss as the last name does that sound familiar in one rooms my namea oh that you're on the list yep you were the next so good job come on IRA and then um let's see Laura dimit Ellie Lee or Darren Barrett if you're here well thank you for uh letting us all speak today I really appreciate it a lot of angry people in the room I can tell um so uh I'm here to speak as somebody who remembers what it
203was like to be a weird kid who liked stuff that other kids of my gender did not typically like uh and I remember the hardest part of growing up was being consistently scrutinized for how I looked and what I enjoyed none of that scrutiny made me a better person it made me a frustrated sad angry lonely distrustful and Confused child what did make me a better person was when I grew up and I met brilliant passionate empathetic people who accepted me for who I am and they gave me the time and the patience to figure out what I wanted to be instead of telling me what they think that I should be Nancy uh those are the people that inspired me to be my best and stri and like inspire me to strive to give
204back to the community and to make the world a better place hate and exclusion they never Inspire anything but more hate and exclusion and if Nancy rumfelt doesn't really understand how her actions and words are hateful then it's very curious how someone like that should actually be serving in the capacity that she is I originally come from Florida and I know what unchecked bigotry can do to a state um what Nancy is saying and doing is dangerous and those are the reasons that I actually had to leave Florida I am a transgender man um for those of you who are not familiar with that that terminology that means I was born biologically female and now I present as mail so um I had to leave Florida because of that type of hatred and hate can
205start right here in this room with the words that Nancy is saying and the things that she is doing and it can escalate but it can also stop right here in this room and you guys can help do that thank you for your time Laura diit or Ellie Lee or Darren Barrett or McKay white or Rory Lee or Mark Johnson or Sandy Johnson oh I got Mark Johnson or Sandy Johnson Mark Johnson all right come on up Mark Johnson you're the next [Laughter] contestant well I may be playing the wrong game here at this point uh thank you thank you for allowing this time of public input uh I'm a a resident of U Southern lmer County have several kids and grandkids who are graduates of Loveland High um a fifth grader right now a
206grandchild and I stand to thank you and support you for the resolution reaffirming support for all students staff families and Community I know that's maybe an issue down the ways a little bit however maybe not so I came dressed as I am specifically to let you know that I was praying for you this evening in this very difficult time and our church is praying for you and maybe looking at the way that I'm attired you assume that you know who I am and what I'm about and what I believe and then you see this rainbow lanyard and that may be very confusing to you is he a friend is he a heretic what is it that he believes you see we we jump to these opportunities to uh fracture and polarize and and create divisions
207where there really need not be divisions and in your resolution saying that you are supporting all students regarding uh regardless of all of the labels that may be applied to them that you are supporting them and giving them the education that they deserve and desire is a marvelous thing my father was a college educator and as we talk about education he would say you always want to start with where students are and that's what this resolution is about starting where students are I thank you for that this is a statement of your professionalism It also says that you are monitoring all of the legal environment so you are working hard there and you are showing compassion passion professionalism attention to detail and compassion you're to be congratulated thank you Sandy Johnson okay hi I'm Sandy
208Johnson I'm the pastor of a church here in Loveland and I just did for you what I think many of the students feel in school they're isolated they're alone and they're forgotten I believe that this resolution that hopefully you will get to tonight and you will talk about doesn't forget some of those students who have other needs and I know the focus tonight has been in predominantly in one place but there're students too and Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself that means you need you get to have the opportunity to love yourself and to love those children whomever they are and whatever they come attired as and some of them will come in a wheelchair and some of them will come with autism and some of them will come with disabilities and some of
209them will come in many different ways and it is your Authority here that gives the teachers the possibility of loving those students as they're called to and to teach them educate them give them equal opportunity to understand no matter as your resolution says regardless of many different things you get to make some decisions tonight and I hope that you embrace all of those children who come in all of the ways that they come as a human being and not divisions because unfortunately what I've heard here tonight is a lot of we and they and that's not who we're called to be and that's across the board I hear a lot of wees and th but it's the children it's the young minds the young adults the little people who come seeking an education that you
210make decisions about I am appalled to hear that y'all did a vote some time ago about air conditioning in the schools and somebody said no I don't know who did that but hello hello these are children who need to have an opportunity to learn and you can't learn when you're too hot you can't learn when you're picked on you can't learn when you're bullied you this is what you get to do do it lovingly and caring thank you so Laura diit Ellie Lee Darren Barrett McKay white Rory Lee Mary without a last name okay like Mary okay come on up Mary I had a lot to say um I've been meaning wanting to say it to you guys for a long time um I've come to share my experience with my daughter in Thompson School
211District um you know people are talking about policies a lot here and the district policy District's policy has destroyed my daughter she was so deeply harmed by people in positions of authority in this school district that she was made to believe that she could trust she was told by an adult to tell her mom that she would kill herself if I did not accept her as a boy she was told to ask me if I'd rather have a living son or a dead daughter secretly given boys underwear so she could feel more like a male whatever that is she was urged the importance of getting male hormones and having her healthy breath removed and her flesh torn from her body to be reshaped into a useless poor indis of a male organ as soon as
212possible and without her mother knowing and all while still in elementary school my daughter was in fifth grade when this happened due to your policy I was lied to by John kber who was the principal at Garfield Elementary when this happened and I was lied to about different situations that happened with my daughter and this caused her to spiral and become suicidal I dare anybody to tell try to tell me any of this was for the good of her mental health she was so deeply harmed by her conflicting thoughts plagued by images of her mind in her mind of this altered shattered sense of self all already going through the most confusing time of her life she began to spiral in ways I never thought imaginable I had never been so afraid from my baby
213girl she was introduced to a colorful flashy world of acceptance love and empowerment if that's the case then why did she never feel this way why did she suddenly and without warning plunge into a deep dark abyss and seep into a shadow of herself why did she detest everything that made up who she was why did she no longer accept herself if that's the case then why did she take a rope to her neck feel the need to punish herself for existing why did she no longer love herself if that's the case then why did the light in our eyes fade and our world become encapsulated by this creeping ominous energy leak leeching off of what posi positivity dare surface in her why did she stop caring about keeping her heads space in environment order
214why did she no longer feel empowered if that's the case why was it only when I left my job pulled her out of public school and away from the library where this also was being pushed on her and and in the internet I took her to a private therapist I homeschooled I dealt with with many sleepless nights did she begin to shift back and toward herself why was it only after all of the things that she thought she needed in order to be acceptable lovable and empowered were scrubbed from her life did she start to ever slowly begin to feel acceptable lovable Empower and this is not going to be the last that you hear of me white this is only the beginning or Rory Lee or uh let's see Tommy Tommy grunig Ana oh
215Tommy okay I wrote something out but I feel like I need to change it after listening all night I hear a lot about compassion compassion is really important I have a nephew who is transgender and I would never want someone to bully him or treat him badly for how he has presented but I have compassion for those people standing up saying don't allow men in our boys in our Sports I have compassion for the girl who says I don't want to change in front of a man next to me and I don't want to feel bad that I feel that way I have compassion for this mother who just spoke about her child we can live with compassion it is okay for people to have different opinions on your school board if it's okay for
216you to wear a rainbow thing it's okay for her to wear a shirt that supports Sports and women in sports I think we have to have a little compassion for each other I appreciated the very first person who spoke we can sit next to each other and have different ideas and respect that so I respect someone who's transgender and wants to be respected for how they feel that's fine but that doesn't give them the right to walk into a woman's sports team it doesn't give them the right to say You must give me certain pronouns or you lose a job or you lose this it doesn't give them the right to stand next to a girl in a locker room getting dressed or get taking a shower and so we respect each other we have
217compassion for each other there's a lot of people who've spoken tonight please take every single one of them into your hearts thank you see do we have Darren Barrett McKay White Rory Lee Ana wall Wells Ona wall Wells okay um good evening and thanks for staying late my name is Anja I us them pronouns and I am a parent of three kids in Loveland schools um I stand before you today not to debate the existence of transgender individuals but to address the way that transphobia masquerades as feminism this issue has come up out because of a recent troubling incident where a member of the school board chose to wear a shirt with transphobic messaging the brand of clothing worn attempts to disguise their hateful rhetoric as a defense of women's rights we cannot allow this
218harmful rhetoric to be cloaked in the language of women's rights true feminism Champions and Liberation for all not the exclusion of some let's be clear requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that do not align with their gender is not about fairness it's about discrimination it's about enforcing rigid outdated gender roles that have no place in modern inclusive Society Schoolboard members have a fundamental obligation to create a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students this includes protecting transgender students from discrimination and ensuring their right to participate in school sports board members must reject all forms of prejudice in order to fulfill their ethical obligation to listen and respond to the needs of the entire Community when a board member Strays so far from these ethical obligations as happened here it is necessary to pursue
219censure therefore I'm asking Miss reld to apologize to the transgender community and if she doesn't I'm asking the board to censure her we cannot allow fear and Prejudice nor the actions of a board member attempting to mass transphobia as feminism to determine how we care for our students our school must be places where our students feel safe all students valued and respected and we must affirm the humanity of of every child and uphold their right to participate fully in school life thank you Darren Darren Barrett McKay white Rory Lee Lindsay post Kane young Lindsay post okay thank you for staying late my name is Lindsay I'm a parent of two high schoolers in the district and we are new to the district this year our senior decided to join the wrestling team uh the girls
220wrestling team this year for the first time ever she did really well but our first interaction with her coach was to tell him that under no circumstances would she be wrestling a biological male it's not safe for her and it's not fair to her so if she had to do that she would have to Forfeit and lose points um and as I noticed in wrestling just a few points could make the difference for winning or losing but the bigger issue here is that it was her safety U that we were concerned about so I would just like to say that our biological girls have the right to compete in their own sports they have the right to feel safe in sports they have the right to advance in sports and to win and do well
221and to feel safe in the locker room my question is how will the district ensure that all girls feel safe in sports every one of them I also want to know how you will create Fair opportunities for all girls in sports by not protecting our biological girls is also a form of discrimination thank you McKay white Rory Lee Kane young mine Greg hi everyone uh my name is meline I'm a Section 504 coordinator at a local high school um I'll talk about my work tonight but I speak independently as a community member um and not as a representative of my school uh my work center is on preventing and responding to discrimination and my pedagogy and philosophy is not limited to disability Alone um I would like to just briefly address that board members should
222practice basic common sense when choosing dress in attire we meet kids in developmental periods key developmental periods of their lives and wearing a shirt that muddies ideas about gender uh endangers development by intentionally confusing children no board memb po should extend to being able to unilaterally categorize students a belief that we hold right opinions should never function as an excuse to interfere with any child any child's developmental experiences and this meeting is evidence trans kids are having to spend more time here defending their ex existence than they are getting to focus on their homework I cannot imagine the incredibly difficult conversations affirming parents are having with their trans kids right now trying to explain why grown adults are fixating and speculating about their children's bodies a particular area of concern tonight is sports and who
223gets to play on which team but is it not okay to embrace differences on teams there are six seven basketball players playing against those that are 55 yet no one here is heralding an alarmist campaign about height in sports with equivalent vitreal is what has been shared here tonight why have we chosen trans identity this identity marker it is because trans people are being punished for what people have mostly invented in their imagination is because of unfair representation in media it is because trans people have not been allowed to tell their own stories we have a legal responsibility to provide a free and appropriate Public public education to students especially those vulnerable to discrimination we have a legal obligation to provide the least restrictive environment why are we not extending this to trans students if
224we pathologize the experiences of trans children we're talking about segregated changing rooms breaches of HIPPA invasive physical examinations and requests for medical documentation that would never be expected of cisgender children separate but equal as someone very familiar with legal protections and keeping schools in compliance with the office of civil rights it is my professional responsibility to tell you that trans children are receiving a substandard education if they are further placed in sports in school and in life upholding protections entitled to marginalized groups is not a matter of opinion or whether you feel like it you would expect your teachers to accommodate disabled students regardless of whether it's convenient for them you must offer transgender students not just equal but Equitable and just School experiences thank [Applause] you Rory Lee or kany Rory Lee kany okay
225that is the end of now that's the end of public comment is there anybody did anybody in here sign up did I mispronounce anyone's name to the point that you couldn't recognize it when I called your name out because if so I'm sorry and I just want to invite you up if I did that okay okay but did you did you sign up yes you did okay so come on up what what's your name so I can add it and make sure I get it she say but it lot of L Lawn is that right thank you okay ah yes I see that now thank you yes ma' yeah oh my gosh so obvious once you said it thank you well thanks for the opportunity thanks for listening I want you to know that real
226women are Grandmas mothers sisters daughters soldiers brilliant diplomats lesbian crossdressing Pirates Grace race car drivers they pilot spaceships they pushed the frontiers of science their teachers real women built this planet one birth after another and they're the matriarchs of a beautiful world not a male assuming female identity how dare you try to take these honors from my fellow citizens by denying that there's no cause to support real women the resistance in this environment is oppression against Real Women and young girls when the freedom to transition is granted to very young children that have not matured through the phases of psychological development before making permanent Life Changes they are often damaged to the point of 40 to 50% attempted suicides in adulthood that's from the Williams Institute study most that transition before age six or staying
227that way for longer than 5 years many for life but they won't have babies they'll never achieve CL Climax and they'll face many unnecessary challenges just because you call yourself something it doesn't make you that except in your mind which is not a fun functional rationalization to allow boys on girls teams it is just an assumed identity and God bless everyone for making their own decisions and exercising their freedoms I'm a veteran and I support you okay but anyone who assumes a non-birth gender is pretending again nothing wrong with that they might even be a real man that is transitioning but they are still not a real woman this is not intolerance it's reality real support comes in the form of compassion and awareness not attacking our representatives for advocating truth I have recently interviewed
228her Miss Nancy rumsfield she does not hate transitioned people she supports women and I submit that Nancy rumfields message encourages young women to believe in themselves attacking rumsfield for advocating Traditional Values and Common Sense is ugly mark my words you are ideological Dinosaurs the nation is choosing a different direction than supporting transitions for children and the president of the United States has asked you to stop promoting the practice and to keep boys off girl Sports real women equals feminism I am a feminist the message that real women rock is absolutely true and encapsulates the current majority opinion and I sure hope there is room for other opinions including traditional ones Nancy is not a transphobic I submit you are heterophobic [Applause] um before we take tackle our actual business we have to get up and
229move a minute so um we'll be back we're going to take about a six or seven minute quick break and we'll be right back and we'll start on our agenda e e e oh that's neat [Music] okay people left the fun has just get starting to begin Gathering yeah if you can we're going to get started um real quickly so if um I'm sorry we have a lot to do yet tonight but we appreciate being able to get up and move a minute and thanks to those of you who have stayed yes we appreciate that okay you can make a com yeah that'd be good yeah all right um let me get we're ready for action consent items now and these are items that we've had presented do we have everybody yeah have um presented
230to us I'm sorry I know at um a previous meeting or study session and involves um needing approval so I'm going to read through the list and I'll ask if anybody has anything they want removed or moved or that they want to speak about before we do our vote and there will be two items that will be read we have some gifts and donations and we have a resolution so 6.1 is the approval of personnel extra Duty um coaching recommendations 6.2 is the approval of expenditures over $50,000 6.33 is the approval of gifts and donations and Denise is reading that correct when we get to it okay give just a minute um 6.4 is the approval of the joint Insurance committee renewal recommendation for 2025 2026 she here is Bill are you doing that oh
231if there's questions yeah okay okay 6.5 is the approval of that freaked him out didn't it sorry um approval of the new vision Charter School renewal 6.6 is the approval of the 2025 2026 board meeting schedule and 6.7 is the approval of the second reading policy BC executive session and 6.8 is the approval of the board resolution supporting students and families so um I'm going to go ahead and do reading of the gifts and donations and clarification on our board meeting schedule and then we'll get to the resolution because you're going to just let it stay yeah okay she has a comment okay so um Denise would you like to please read the gifts and donations first Denise can you turn s it's it's late uh Schoolboard policy states that gifts and donations over $1,000
232need to be approved by the Board of Education we have a donation of 66 uh ryel axium football helmets to be used for the high school football program valued at $449,500 from the Denver Bronco Foundation that yeah is that is there just the one I'm sorry one okay thank you very much Denise um the other piece that I need to share with you is the approval of our 2025 2026 board meeting schedule we had to make a change because we determined that casby which is normally always the first weekend in December is now at a later date in December the 11th through the 13th yeah so yeah the 11th through the 13th so instead of seeing what's post Ed right now it will be our study session will be um December 3rd will be our
233regular study session more than likely will be the swearing in of the new board members or changes in the board members and then um the stud the casby will be December 11th 12th and 13th and then we will have a regular board meeting on the 17th of December okay so that's just kind of the way it ended up because hasby changed and thank you Laur for finding that out letting us know about that appreciate it okay and then um we have an item that was is the just a second here we go the approval of the board resolution supporting students and families and Nancy wanted to make a statement and then Alexander is going to read it so that it's it's out there in the front so Nancy rather than moving it she just said
234right so I know that there was a lot of back and forth on this resolution and I also know that listening to everyone tonight and myself still trying to um decide some things I I think it's important to note that everything that is in this resolution is good it we need it but I think I would like to ask that we all reflect on that there are many in the community that they they don't feel like they're safe or their well-being um is considered and that we need to do a better job of committing to the diversity not diversity of race but diversity of thought because I think that's where we need to do a better job of being role models that we can have different opinions and that what one person has all the
235meaning that gets attached to it gets distorted and just creates more division so I'm going to vote for this resolution I just would like us to give thought if we're going to say these things then we need to actually we we need to actually do them sool sure um resolution reforming support for all students staff families need for special education services or M ship in any other actual or perceived other actual or perceived protected class in conformance with federal state and local law and whereas Thompson School District remains committed to supporting student opportunities access and success for each student and whereas federal laws affirm the right of all children regardless of immigration status to enroll in public school and whereas in 2020 the board adopted the educational Equity policy ADB committing to providing safe inclusive
236and supportive learning and work environments in which students staff families and Community diversity are recognized honored and respected and whereas Thompson School District District's school security protocols prioritize the safety of each student and staff member and ensure visitor access to buildings is limited controlled and verified based on polic policy Andor legal requirements to provide a disruption-free environment now therefore be it resolved the Thompson School District shall follow applicable state and federal laws and do everything in our lawful power to protect all students staff families and community members regardless of religious immigration Andor lgbtq plus status including but not limited to continuing to monitor changes in state and federal law and updating policies and procedures as needed while following sound legal advice continuing enrollment and registration practices which do not collect or maintain information about students
237families or Guardians migration status or documentation continuing to protect the confidentiality of student staff and family data data according to applicable law be it further resolved that the Board of Education restates its commitment to creating safe and secure School conditions through adherence to an enforcement of its policies prohibiting bullying discrimination and harassment adopted by the Thompson School District Board of Education on this 26th day of March 20025 yes um I recently received an email from a grandparent in the Thompson School District Comm Community asking me to quote show children and families that you will support protect and respect them and make sure that the schools in our community will continue to support all our students whether they are black white or brown native or newcomer transgender disabled or not and respect all their rights end
238quote in 2019 and again in 2023 I was sworn in as a director of the board of education at which time I swore to Faithfully perform the duties of the office as required by law and to support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the state of Colorado and laws pursuant there too our board of education does not make laws that Authority rests with the local state and federal government what we are tasked to do is to adopt policies that are consistent with the content or intention of Law and we do that under the direction of our legal councel so that said do I support our educational Equity policy policy ADB as well as policy AC that states our commitment to provide a safe learning environment where all members of the school Community
239are treated with dignity and respect I do it's the law do I support the resolution on tonight's agenda that states that all of our students and staff who are members of the protected classes listed in the resolution should be tra treated fairly and equitably I do it's the law and to the grandparent who wrote me and to others with similar concerns I will continue to support all our students and staff and respect their rights it's the law with that established I hope we can all work together to ensure that each Thomson student receives the best education possible one that will lead each one to a productive successful and fulfilling life thank you for letting me share this all right thank you stu um I will take a motion to approve the items that were listed
240in the action consent so moved second so a first from Alexander and a second from Denise Laur Le please call the rooll Stu Boyd hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander LOM hi Nancy rumfelt I I right thank you 7.1 this is discussion action items and um I believe we will have Todd join us this is the approval of the resolution yeah I know it's been different resolution approval of the resolution for the sale of real property Monroe Elementary Todd is the resolution to continue the sale of real property which is Monroe Elementary so just a little background for the board and community on October 21st 2021 uh the board deemed Monroe Elementary a surplus property thus allowing the district to put it on um the public market
241so it has been publicly listed for well since that time um so this resolution allows the authority to be either board superintendent or myself to proceed with all closing documents to actually Clos for the timeline attached which is uh mid Midsummer so late June so for discussion if there any questions um this resolution will really allow that process to move forward um with all the due diligence and the documents and the plans and tours and inspections um that we need to do to get to the final uh closing of the property so are there any questions questions starting down down no Don down Don down at this end um Amy I do just a question oh you do Todd have any of the details of the sale changed since the study session where you presented
242the information to us no no just the price was finalized all right but as far as the details are all the same okay I'll take a motion to approve thank you Nancy this is to approve this the uh the resolution resolution yes Nancy and I need to second okay Don second Don all right Laur please call the rooll Ste Boyd hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Lum hi Nancy rfel hi all right thank you thank you okay we are ready for project search Project search um I I'm not out of order am I no I know that sometimes that happens all right we have our friends over there all right so greeting Madam president Dr Schaefer members of the board I'm Theo robis and executive director of
243secondary education and I'm enthusiastic tonight to introduce Jason Hanford exceptional student services coordinator who will be talking to us about project search tonight good evening Madame President members of the board Dr schaer thank you for having us uh we appreciate the opportunity to um talk to you about this um I'm joined tonight with Kayla Becker she is our um instructor our project search instructor so we'll start with the um our connection to strive 2025 um so our exceptional student services leaders are working to support school teams in the provision of special education services in alignment with our students individual education plans we're striving to provide services which support our students in improving their communication critical thinking self- advoc y collaboration and citizenship uh so what is Project search like many of you may not be
244familiar with it so um you know without getting into the the whole background of how it started um it is Project search is a one-year school to work program that's designed to prepare young adults with disabilities for competitive employment by providing hands-on experience in a real world setting uh through this program participants gain transferable marketable job skills while completing three 10we rotations in various departments at Banner Health mck so um we have them and I'm going to turn this over to Kayla to give you an idea of what it looks like uh day today hello thank you for having us us um I'm excited to share um an update you guys on how we're doing with project search um this is our pilot year and so we do work our host business is Banner mcke
245um and so we are so thankful for all of the Departments that um really volunteer their time all of the supervisors and the mentors at at Banner mcke that work with our students um so this is just a typical day um at project search are we have six interns and they um either are provided for transportation I do want to give a shout out to Raft and Saint um transportation because they do provide um rides for our students to Banner mcke so a typical day we start our day with employability skills um this is our curriculum that you'll see on our next slide and I'll go over those but then um after an hour of classroom instruction um our students go out into their internships and so um they are now in just start starting
246their third rotation and so they're very independent at this time so it's really cool to see them just kind of go off and to do their jobs for the day and um it's fun to just say have a great day at work and um they do their lunch um they return to their internships and then they return to the classroom at the end of the day where we have reflection and we just talk about how their day went any struggles they might have had any accommodations that they feel that they might need in their internships um and then we dismiss for the day so these are the employability skills that we teach in the classroom um team building workplace safety technology self- advocacy maintaining employment financial literacy health and wellness preparing for employment social and
247communication skills we also work on um a lot of soft skills in our classroom so things like problem solving flexibility time management conflict resolution all of those things come into play as well um students are currently working on um their resumés during this time so we teach them how to write their résumés cover letters um we also work on interview skills and job um job development so we um are looking at um indeed and looking at jobs out in the community and then we'll soon start um applying for positions so our interns expectations that that they follow the rules of the host business um uh particip I at in Daily employability skills class and internships they show up in proper clothes demonstrating good hygiene and grooming and use effective communication skills they also are to
248learn and demonstrate skills that meet their managers in the at Banner mck's expectations U develop advocacy skills lead employment planning meetings and these are six meetings that are held throughout um our school year we have two each rotation and um our interns are actually expected to lead these meetings and so these are all virtual um the attendees are myself their skills trainer their DVR counselor parents supervisors and mentors at Banner mcke and so our interns then lead those meetings with a slide presentation demonstrating all of the things that they have learned in the internships as well as their progress they review their evaluations they discuss their job goals and then we um work as a team to kind of help um brainstorm and and think about you know where we can plug them into the
249community and then they also um are expected to apply for job positions that match his or her appropriate skill level so these are our current internships at Banner Health mcke um we have the cafeteria EVS facilities pacu rehab center supply chain and Sterile Processing so in our cafeteria this is Julie and Julie is restocking shelves she's learning um how to sanitize tables and chairs clear out breakfast Ser self- serve areas um prep the salad bar for lunch she directs customers as needed and calls out customer order numbers um so as you can see a lot of these things that I'll show you on these next few slides are skills that are can be transferred um into out into the community and so one of the things Julie wants to do is is possibly work in
250retail and so we have um asked the supervisor in the cafeteria to work with her at the cash register so she's learning those skills as well as well our EVS Department this is Adrien and he um is learning to prep cleaning carts and supplies clean and prep patient rooms follow all those protocols for cleaning isolation rooms at the hospital and then take the trash bins to the trash compactor this is our pacu and Cameron is sanitizing and prepping the patient Med Bay before and after surgery um he's making the med the beds in the med Bays restocking Medical supplies stocking linen carts and organizing patient discharge folders and so also want to say that um Cameron is also started um our new internship this this round in sterile processing and um this is important because
251this is something that's that um Cameron is interested in and so one of the neat things is that he's able to get hands-on experience some of those observation um Hands-On hours and so he's hoping to then take the certification and maybe work in um as a tech in stal processing so very cool um this is U ashin and she's working in our rehab center she's work learning some clerical skills greeting customers patient um prepping patient discharge folders filing paperwork using office equipment folding blankets of towels stocking linen closets and sanitizing The Waiting areas and Rehab equipment ashleen would like to work with animals some days so she's hoping to work in possible a vet possibly a vet office um or a Doggy Daycare thing so again all of these things that they're learning and these
252internships can be applied and transferred out into the community this is Josh working in our supply chain um he's filling hospital supply orders and delivering those supplies to the Departments throughout the hospital he's also learning how to stock Med medical supplies open and organized boxes from the warehouse as well this is our other Josh we have two joshes Josh is working at facilities and this is really cool for Josh because um he's expressed an interest in the traits and so he's thinking about Plumbing um HVAC electrical something in that area and so we were excited that facilities was on board with us and um pulled him in and so he's learning um Building Maintenance sepers replacing light bulbs shaging filters assisting with plumbing issues or minor minor electrical problems performing routine safety inspections and moving
253Furnitures needed throughout the hospital and in this picture Josh is actually changing the thermometer um in our classroom and that was his job for the and so he went around on the floor and changed all the ther thermometers thermostats out in the classroom so um it was kind of neat for him he was pretty excited so we are now um entering our recruiting stage and for project search for the upcoming school year so um we are accepting applications we have our QR code here for applications um throughout until really the end of the year um we will have a new intern orientation onboarding Day on May 19th and then we start we follow the Thompson School District calendar and so they will be starting August 14th um in the fall do you have any questions
254about project search um so cool to see this come about I was at the seak meeting where you know this was like in the baby steps and so to see it you know come about and then um to hear from some friends that I have at mck you know just how program has has benefited mck is really cool um question though um at the beginning of the program do you you like up staff or push in to support because I'm sure the students need more support at the beginning and now you know you're pretty absolutely so tell me what that staff DVR division of vocational rehab um provides a skills trainer for us and so she is with each day and um that her job is to go out with the interns in their um
255internships and teach those skills along with myself so we we go through the rotations um and with their mentors in each department um teaching those skills making sure that they have those before we start kind of backing off a little bit um and again now by the third rotation they really even though they have to learn the new skills in their new um department they just have that confidence that when they came in the beginning it's it's really neat to see that now they're they're like yep I'm ready I'm ready to go and so um we're able to kind of just back off and until they need some accommodations or any other supports but yes we are with them in the beginning um much of the time and I love that because first several weeks
256of the program they're in the classroom and and we're working with them in yeah and I love what you said that each rotation that they go to you know it's less I mean those are transferable skills right AB so um but yeah it's just been so cool to you know see this from all aspect so thank you it's one yeah St questions just a couple of questions how long has project search been in existence I I hadn't heard of this before Oh do you know that add a while a long time it's been a while 30 years I want say wow started at um Children's Hospital of Cincinnati all right and they now have over 700 I believe um locations throughout the world not just the United States but all over the place how long
257has it been in Thompson first this is our first year yes all right how large is your staff so we so they are onsite yeah so I'm like well let me think about so no so our um yes so for Thompson I am the instructor and then we um we really focus we have a lot of U collaboration so we work with DVR and again they provide our skills trainer um we have a counselor um through DVR we also work with Foothills Gateway um we have again the transportation piece and then the banner host um we have a business liaison from Banner who works she kind of keeps things running smoothly between the hospital and the district and then of course our supervisor mentors so on-site staff it's myself um for for Thompson and then
258um our skills trainer through DVR truly a partnership huh oh absolutely that's that's amazing and wonderful thank you yes how long are the rotations 10 weeks they are 10 weeks yes wow yes 10 weeks each yes how how many will they do they'll do three total three total okay so they just started a couple weeks ago and their last in their final okay Anie I I just think it's a really good program is it this is the first one so is there a plan that once you figure this one out that you can like find some other type businesses and then put it in in there as well yes so our goal so this upcoming year we so we currently have six interns and so our goal is to have six interns again and then
259we really want to start building from there um and and and so part of that of course is having the Departments um at the hospital to support that and so right now you know I I talked about the current internships we have but we were already discussing for this upcoming year um several new internships that we'd like to add the hospital is excited about us being there and so I think they're learning and they're hearing from each department it's like oh this is a really cool thing and so we've had a couple that reached out um to Aon our business Le aison and and saying you know we're we're interested in this we'd like to have them in our department as well I think um maybe I wasn't quite clear I I meant P Beyond
260mcke like a different you like I don't know I don't know if like if a Woodward could do yeah I am um yeah so I understand what you were asking so th this is not our only site where we have internships currently this is our only project search site which adds a lot of the the support components um that Kayla had mentioned before um currently am M we're comfortable at the six student because the number of rotations we'd like to build that and then as interest um increases the possibility is definitely there to add additional sites additional project search sites sites if if we had businesses that could support that Alexandra I have a couple of questions are the interns do they get paid at all no they do not that's one of the rules
261of project search um and that that's becoming that's a little bit of an outdated rule most internships are paid at this point so we have had some discussions as our steering committee about possibly looking at stiens or something for students so they do get get something for for the time they're spending okay and then you said it's a work to school program so it's designed for kids like after they graduate high school yeah so the so all of the students so they the requirements they have to they have to be on an IEP okay right they have to qualify for 18 to 21 year old World Services um and be in that window so they need to have met all their graduation requirements um and then be in that 18 to 21 year old window
262and we can get them in Project search Project search will be the last last year of their time with us in public education because the goal is uh employment after that right we're not going to move backwards back into a classroom setting very cool thank you Denise my questions were answered by your questions so all right um yeah thank you this is very interesting yeah well thank you very much for having us one more Don oh sorry yeah yeah same where everybody answered or asked the questions but I wanted to let you guys know that it was started in 1996 so you were like way off no you were really oh my go yeah it's old 30 years yeah so I wanted you know 29 sorry I mean really it was thank you for factchecking
263me look at you yeah thank you for joining us and we will um so we will be celebrating our first round of graduates on May 15th and so I will make sure you all get an invite it will be at Banner mck M okay y great yeah all right all right thank you all right 8.2 the budget update come come on up Bob uh good evening Madam president the board members uh Dr schaer um I am coming to you with fulfilling two promises in my earlier discussions was one starting education of the board with some financial terms and secondly starting the changing of the financial format for the reporting so the first part um talking about how we do accounting uh your the reports that you normally get talk about the general fund which is
264our biggest fund unless there's a bond uh but that's where all the action happens and so that's where we pay our teachers that's where we pay the the utilities that's we we uh run the buses and the various things like that we also have special Revenue funds the uh state state and federal grants student and fee supported activities and nutrition uh those have to be accounted for separately those are almost like a business but it's still under our tax ID number bedu shary funds you talked about the uh the helmets that donated tonight sometimes people go us give us money uh it may go to the Thompson Education Foundation but it often comes to us we have to account for that depending on what the donor said um building fund that's capital items replacing a
265roof on a normal basis something like that uh we get money uh on the land Reserve fund the payment in Le of taxes developers will either dedicate space for a new school for us or they'll give us money that will be a to be used to renovate or Pro provide other improvements and then um when we're successful the next time a bond Redemption fund where the money goes through they that we track separately under our board policy and under state law we are required to have budgets for all of them so when you get your budget packet later this year before June 30th we'll be having budgets for all those items as well um so next slide is the uh general fund budget to actuals um so this now has the amended budget that you
266voted in January um that includes the various expenses on there uh We've added the line item on the bottom that shows the amount that you have voted to take from Reserve to fund various expenses which is allowed under col law and the bo board policy so we're we're trying to give you as much information as possible uh the last column next to the last column on these reports are projections um this is Zach and my crystal ball at the moment uh and nany and I talked about this some of these are somewhat accurate some of them are strictly take the budget divide by 12 how many months do we have left that's what we have for right now because of the information that we have and we don't have at this point um doing the
267budget is giving us more information that will make this report even better as we go forward you know curriculum did all of that get expended in September at the beginning or did it get spent at the end getting ready for the next year we don't know that yet so we'll be going for there um so this this is a work in progress but it's it's it's getting to the point uh next slide shows uh information um do we have higher earnings than was budgeted um some of that is just a budgeting question and also we actually make sure that all of our funds are in Secure um State approved including the Colorado trust to make sure we have the money there um and then uh you will see when we do the March financials the
268property tax revenue is showing up at that point um and expenses uh we've had uh increased Insurance costs so some of those expenses are there that's also in the revenue side we have some insurance um proceeds from some hail damage that show up on there uh and then the next slide um Personnel budget we are projecting conservatively at the moment and then we're trying to figure out what happens in July and August because we have teachers who were paid over a 12-month period but it's in this year's budget so we have an acral but then we have some people that are paid on 11 months and some 10 months it's fun we have a good time trying to figure that out but we're going to try to get more scientific when we're doing the budgets
269going forward when we create next year's budget we have started asking the Departments to say how are you going to spend your budget over 12 months because it's their budget we're the keeper of it but it's their budget they tell us where they think they're going to be and then when we give them the month-to-date budget as well as you they get to come back to us and say this is 10% higher or less because we did it it's going to come from them instead of us saying to them so that's our goal uh and then the last slide is talking about cash balances um we uh are closing out the the bond fund we have some uh Bond management expenses and some last items um regarding that um for the April 2nd workings session
270um plant Moran is just about done with a bond reconciliation where we will show what was calculated here what was calculated here and we will be coming to you with more information on that in a resolution as well okay quick summary on the financials we're in good shapee thank you who knows what's going on in Denver who know what's going on in Washington DC but right now we're in good shape and the assumption is for the next year's budget we're going to be in good shape for that too and then all bets are off after that question start with stew no not really a question Bob just a comment you've worked hard and fast to get to where we are right now thanks to you and Zach and your team for making that happen thank
271you as I was watching the last presentation I was thinking that's my staff doing the things that the that the attention to detail the work and other things like that so thank you I'll pass that on to the staff okay Nancy I I just want to again you and I we talked earlier this morning but um I know that you and Zach this is really it's still a work in process but it's so great to be able to see the actuals and see all of these numbers tie and foot out together together and So based on our conversation this morning I can't wait um for some of this other stuff but I really appreciate it thank you Alexandra Denise no joh this is really helpful and also um given that you know like it's step
272one to so I totally mean like understand that you are in process with this but I do know that um one of the things that we've been asked to have it evolve into is things that are just super super simple for people to understand and so the laying the groundwork and the explaining what these things are and and putting it all so clearly in it that you went through it all this late at night and it made sense um was really really great as building that foundation and we also know that the average person might not be watching anymore this evening and so being able to bring this forward is going to be really helpful and so thank you for laying this solid foundation for what you're doing and and how you're walking through it
273and then anything that you can do to think about um as you go through the process to simplify it for that person who had who does just passively look at this information is just going to be really helpful and I I feel like uh this is a really big step in helping make it make sense um this late with all these things going on and all the reconciliation that you're doing and um I'm looking forward to seeing how you continue to have it evolve knowing that you're working with it every minute so thank you thank you no question okay thank you Bob great great job appreciate you all right negotiations 8.3 Dr seers Sue you stuck around oh hey M president School Board Dr Schaefer Bill saber's uh assistant superintendent Human Resources accompanied by two
274timer president tea so strive 2025 will cover human Talent this presentation will connect the human talent to the upcoming negotiations and the negotiations that took place on March 13th so the highlights for the discussion today is the highlights from uh March 13th we covered three questions so question one what adjustments need to be made to the site based decision-making process question two was what adjustments need to be made to Elementary plan time and question seven our leave practices meeting the needs of our employees so question one the site based Shar decision-making question um we had a task force that came out of negotiations the previous year um that worked on this and had a proposal we looked at it the first day of negotiations and then needed to walk away and give it some time
275uh but when we came back on the 13th we reviewed and discussed it um and talked about the intent of wording there was a lot of discussion about um site versus School um and then the group as a whole gave it a thumbs up so there's a tentative agreement on that um the second question Elementary plan time was also a task force um and so the task force had done a lot of work and had um a suggestion for us but we went back through their process their share U their interest based model and so we looked at um what they had done as a large group we added to that story there's a lot to the story of Elementary plan time we also added to interest and we added to criteria um and then
276we looked at some of the options from their small group work and then question seven our leave practices meeting the needs of our employees so this is a small task force that uh you know they reviewed the work and they did a great job you know the things that they brought forward is what we really agree to so large group added to the story and added to the interest large group also reviewed options from task force and the task force recommendation is is the big one is the communication at leave time benefits last year I think Andy Chrisman put out a survey to membership and it the results came back that people didn't really know their benefits around leaves so we thought that was really good because we can have a campaign of really communicating
277what the benefits are and then discussion expanding donate a day has been uh you know trying to see what other options could fall under donate a day instead of it just being specific for one criteria and then those are the eight critical questions that we are tackling this year followed by our team there and also followed by the next meeting is April 10th okay any questions questions thank you we love presenting at 1040 because there's no question so thank you awesome all right and now um our next thing is we have 15 call-ins that we need to listen to yeah that's part of where did I put it my name is pton post I am a student at Loveland High School and I reside in the city of Loveland the topic I'm discussing is men
278in women's sports I was a female high school wrestler this past winter this is my first season in this sport I began wrestling at a preseason Training Center to gain Fitness for the season and to learn the moves I was the tallest and biggest girl there to the point where one girl suggested I wrestle with the guys around my weight instead I refused as a female in a contact sport I understood the distinct difference between male and female physical capabilities if I had wrestled one of the guys I would have lost quickly and potentially have been injured it is a danger to all females to allow men in women's sports women have worked hard to attain opportunities in all aspects of Life why are we now forfeiting these opportunities to men allowing men in women's
279sports creates a huge disadvantage for women we lose out on first place medals scholarships and titles Wom women will be injured and defeated men and women are biologically different if a person is born a male and trains digital trained diligently he will nearly always be stronger than a woman in the same Sport AS him if we don't protect women's rights and opportunities in the World of Sports the world of Athletics will become male-dominated and women will lose out please protect women's sports thank you M Goldy Loveland m l g l d siip p yahoo.com public education's job is to teach students why and how to learn and why and how to peacefully coexist with people around them students can't learn if they're distracted by non-academic problems such as being hungry needing eyeglasses or being bullied
280when students feel welcome understood and appreciated it lets them focus on their lessons so it is the job of the adults in the room to create an environment within the school and in the Greater Community where each student can reach their potential childhood is about learning who you are where you fit into the world how to handle insecurities how to harness talents and how to work alongside others this is a big job for a kid and it's important that adults don't make it harder for them by introducing divisiveness and elevating one kind of person while denigrating another students need a safe learning environment where they are treated with dignity and respect they deserve a community and especially a school board that helps them to grow and learn and succeed students should be able to try
281things on for size to learn that even if they're not great at something the effort is worthwhile and to see that not everyone has the same abilities advantages limitations or interests they do that it's okay to be the same in some ways and different in others that there's joy in experiencing new things and seeing things from different perspectives we want students to leave school knowing that they can learn hard things that they can handle challenging situations and that they can stand firm in who they are without invalidating others no two people are exactly alike and that's the joy of life so let's let kids be kids let's encourage empathy and compassion and the joy of Discovery let's encourage kids to play and discover the infinite variety of the world let's model supporting each other among
282our differences we should keep political opinions out of the schools and focus on our core values of equal opportunity and encouragement for all let's focus on what's in people's hearts and not what's in their pants in short let's be the adults in the room and let kids be kids we must remember that unfamiliar is not the same as dangerous discomfort is not the same as harm let's focus on real problems students are facing instead of trying to turn the most vulnerable kids into boogy men anyone who can't commit to supporting all students including trans and LGB qia children should have no place in making decisions about the health safety and education of our students hello my name is Mary McCoy and I live in Loveland um my children attend school here in Loveland um I
283am calling today about transgender students um and just calling it suppor of transgender students um okay here's my comment um I'm speaking today in support of transgender students in our district every child deserves to be themselves and feel safe at school and at home that safety begins with what they see and hear from adults in their life um Miss rumfelt on the school board chose to engage in anti-trans retoric while in official capacity and I ask that she refrain from making such statements where students can be impacted negatively research clearly shows us that trans kids who have support at home and socially are significantly less likely to attempt suicide and have overall lower rates of depression and anxiety how we engage in the subject of trans rights matters we can all do better as a
284district and a city to approach each other with curiosity kindness and awareness of how our actions and words impacts the young people who are watching us thank you uh hi my name is Marissa Dominguez I live in lovelin Colorado and I have five children who go through Thompson School District um I am also a licensed mental health provider of 25 years and a Medicaid provider of 19 years for mental health I am calling about the completely horrific antics of this board member who displayed an anti-trans status of her attire and um displaying things in such manner I am horrified that I live in a town where the Board of Education the your board would allow something like this to happen anyone who sits on this board that is not this woman is complient if you
285do not step up and remove this person this there is no place for hate we are teaching all our students and youth anti-bullying approaches and this is making certain people feel like they don't belong I am speaking as a mental health provider in a large epidemic of mental health um needs and a shortage of providers in our area and the highest suicide rate I believe for almost 10 years now in larr County um you have blood on your hands if you are displaying this in an educational place um my parents were Public School teachers I was raised around education I have much love and respect for everyone who works for Thompson and I truly see no place for this we are supposed to allow children to wake up every day and feel confident about who
286they are so that they want to live their lives suicidality is a very real thing and you can look up the percentages yourself for this group of people who are transs or questioning their gender in any way um and of course the lgbtq that there is such a high suicide rate so you literally have blood in your hands this is a stain on our town and it needs to be taken care of right away because this is an emergency we have to stand up for The Underdogs and whoever voted for this I believe there's a lot of people in this country that are questioning their votes right now and nobody would vote for somebody to do this and publicly make children feel like they don't belong please do something about this right away if you
287need to reach me I am not my name is Stephanie Robbie I live in Loveland I have two children in the Thompson School District and I am calling about boys being allowed to play in girl Sports allowing boys to compete in girl Sports creates an unfair and unsafe environment for female athletes I would expect the schools to protect and promote opportunities for girls in athletics ensuring they have a fair chance to succeed allowing biological males to compete against girls undermines these protections as males typically have physical advantages in speed strength and endurance even after hormone treatments Beyond fairness there are safety concerns there's a greater risk of injury to female athletes when competing against biological male opponents we have weight classes in wrestling and boxing for safety reasons why would we ignore biological differences when
288it comes to girl Sports and I can't even get into the discussion of them being allowed in a girl soccer room that is absurd this issue is not just about competition it's about preserving opportunities for girls scholarships records and achievements that should go to hardworking female athletes my daughter and other young women should not have to face additional barriers in a space meant for them I urge the board to prioritize fairness and safety by upholding biological sex-based categories in school sports never in my life could I have imagined I'd have to make this phone call it is common sense boys should not be allowed to play in girl Sports they should not be allowed to be in girls bathrooms and they should not be allowed to be in the locker room my phone number 970
289my name is Troy Daniels um I'm calling regarding I'm a Loveland uh resident I'm calling regarding the transgendered youth issue um from 2018 to 2022 48 anti-transgender laws were enacted in the United States across 19 different states a study examined the causal relationship between these laws and suicide risks over this time period using National survey data collected from more than 61,000 transgendered youth across a full sample of transgendered youth ages 13 to 24 an increase in suicide attempt rates of 38% to 44% was observed anti-transgender laws significantly increased incidents of past year suicide attempts among transgendered youth by as much as 72% so while the rhetoric being used at our school board meetings of late is mostly a distraction of extreme right-wing politics it is a life and death issue tacts on budgets reading levels
290failings transgendered use are all tactics taken right out of project 2025 Playbook these are not unique or novel ideas they they are meant to break down education in the United States at its very core and it's meant to redirect funds redesign curriculum redistribute wealth for ideals that are a threat to American society make no mistake this is not only about transgender youth in our schools this is about Democracy in America itself I want transgendered Youth and their families to know there is support in the community and we will fight on their behalf to ensure equal access to school services and activities thank you my name is Elizabeth Newton I live in Fort Collins and my email address is EA Newton 20103 gmail.com I have been a taxpayer in the Thompson School District since 1977 my
291three children went to Thompson schools and my grandchildren are currently enrolled I want to make it clear that I'm speaking for myself I have no hidden agenda Financial incentives or agreements behind my statement I also want to say to all students especially our transgender students that you were loved and welcomed by me and many others today I am asking the board to centure District seed director Nancy rumfelt it's become clear that miss rumfelt is using her role on the board to push a political agenda under the GU of protecting girls in sports that's harmful and discriminatory against transgender students and our district in Callo House Bill 21108 known as the gender expression anti-discrimination law prevents discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity this law also protects people's rights to use their chosen names and
292prouns all students including transgender and gender non-conforming individuals have the right to privacy this includes the right to keep their gender identity or presentation private at school house bill 24139 extended those protections to cover gender identity making it clear that individuals cannot be harassed or discriminated against the Thompson School District is currently seeking legal help to see if policies or procedures need a change to recent due to recent update to Title Nine regulations the Colorado High School Activities Association chsaa which oversees High School sports in the state requires transgender students to inform the school of their gender identity this ensures a private evaluation of the appropriate gender classification for the out athletes chsaa rules allow transgender students to compete without basing unlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender ID identity they are also currently
293reviewing the guidelines to align with title n changes while continuing to protect Colorado state law transgender students deserve access to education and the opportunity to participate in the society in a supportive and welcoming environment it's important that we create spaces where they can Thrive and feel accepted the bill of rides provides essential rights and freedoms to individuals including the right to free speech however we must refrain from utilizing a Schoolboard position to advocate for political view views that are damaging and discriminatory that discussion should happen in the legis where it belongs thank you hello my name is Elliot Harrington I am a alumni of the Thompson School District um I went to Mountain View High School and graduated in 201 23 um I would like to make a comment about Nancy I find it really
294upsetting and disappointing that these these board members are supposed to be these like voices for the students and yet she is encouraging bullying with her anti-trans agenda um it's really upsetting and the trans Community is already um already deals with a lot of um mental health issues and suicide ideations because of the world that we live in especially today and she is not making it any better um I would like her to step down and I think that any board member um that doesn't that isn't actively telling her to step down is a part of the issue um at Mountain View I did I was a leader in sources of strength um which is like a which was a mental health club um that centered around finding your sources of strength like physical activity spirituality
295mental health physical health stuff like that um I also worked as a youth engagement specialist um for the lmer county health department for two years um so I was basically an Outreach for the Youth um about issues or problems that they were seeing in the community um that they wanted to be addressed and so I would take that up with the department and I would uh try to enact um change within those areas and I would host um like Community Gatherings and fundraisers and all and we would do projects all surrounding around mental health and we noticed that the large majority of um the trans population is at risk of this Mental Health crisis and Nancy is not helping it whatsoever um I do not think she should be a voice for the students or
296for the district as a whole um she is basically just promoting bullying and I I don't feel safe with any of my trans sisters or trans Brothers in the school if she is still a leader there um I currently live in Denver Colorado I am um attending school at CU Denver for film and television um but I lived in Leland for 13 years um so I'm very familiar with the community and I I come down um every two hello Dr schaer president Cruz and board members thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today my name is Bria Freeman and I'm a resident of Loveland with a child in TSD I'm calling to share my concern about keeping director rumfelt on the board director rumelt's wardrobe Choice last month was appalling but the issue
297is not about trans students versus student athletes as she'd like us to believe that's her creating an issue where there isn't one as a way to elicit an emotional response from our community divide us and move her political agenda forward this behavior from someone in a leadership position in a school setting is inappropriate and unwanted psd's duty is to create a safe supportive environment for all students in fact that was the board's charge to the district accountability committee we literally were asked to make recommendations that will strengthen students sense of belonging yet director rumelt's behavior is in direct opposition of this not only is she intentionally excluding students but she's also rallying moms for Liberty a group that has been identified as extremist to back her up tickets to a board meeting standing room only
298really these are usually snorefest yet here we are ironically director rumelt did not send out a rally cry to advocate for better reading scores when tsd's I ready results were released last month there was no Reading Rainbow shirt or interviews at that point although she does claim that this is her passion she also dismissed kids being able to close reading gaps Beyond Elementary School which is just untrue and shows how quick she is to give up on our students if it gives her an additional platform to hate tstd but I digress it's troubling to see so much energy being spent on something that isn't an issue truly there is no data to support the claims that that are being made while critical concerns like funding achievement scores and building maintenance are ignored director rumfelt has
299done two interviews with ultra conservative groups in the last week alone how did stirring up divisive rhetoric help improve our schools if she spent as much time working for the betterment of TSD as she does on divisive politics she might actually make a difference kindness should be the default not the exception and we must demand better from our leaders trans students are not the problem student athletes are not the problem nany rumfelt is the problem and if she cannot serve the interests of all students be a positive example of leadership and uphold policies that Foster a positive inclusive educational experience she needs to go I expect this board and our community to take the necessary action to refocus on real issues because at the end of the day education should be about kids not politics
300students deserve better than being Pawns in someone's culture War Nancy I'll speak directly to you your actions do not reflect the values of our community they send a harmful message to students and I will not let you normalize intolerance or enable hate to take root in our district all students deserve dignity and respect in school all means all and the school board's role is to protect that right when board members undermine this they fail our community you are failing our community do better thank hi my name is Aaron Bachman I am a resident of Loveland Colorado I'm calling in comment for tonight's school board meeting on March 26th um I my daughter is a freshman at leveland high school we have been in the Thompson School District since she was in kindergarten um I just
301wanted to call in regarding um M rumelt's shirt at the last meeting I am someone who I absolutely have great respect for the First Amendment and for freedom of speech and expression I also do think that our sister Society is made better by exposure to differing opinions so I do not have an issue with any of that however um it does concern me that um someone who has the privilege of serving as a member of the school board would use a school board meeting as an opportunity to grandstand on a political issue um in violation of an established dress code and so poorly represents the students of this District including um the number of trans districts that trans students that are in our district um I think it is in poor taste for Miss rumfelt
302to wear that I respect her opinion or her um uh desire to express her opinion outside a Schoolboard meeting however uh the focus at Schoolboard meetings needs to be on representing students and working for the betterment of students within the district um I hope that the board will take action um for this and also you know the district talks a lot about its stance on anti-bullying measures and having a zero tolerance policy for bullying and I want to know what they are planning to do in this which feels like it is a little bit of a bullying uh point so uh if anyone wants to get back with me my number is s hello my name is Greta St Martin and I live in Fort Collins Colorado and I'm a proud parent of a 2023
303graduate of lelin high school and a former Thompson School District employee I now work with adolescence and their mental health in Fort Collins I want to thank the school board members for supporting educational environments where students can be seen and heard for exactly who they are when students are believed and supported and are allowed to experience social congruence meaning that they can dress in a way that matches their gender and be addressed by their preferred names and pronouns the mental health outcomes for these students mirror the general population without a supportive School environment mental health outcomes for Trans students in particular are abysmal I can only hope that we stand up with love and not fear in our policies and procedures for Trans students thank you I can be reached at 97 hi my name
304is James Perkins I live in Loveland Colorado I support sensible compassionate and Equitable treatment for all our children in the Thompson School District we must combat racial discrimination I support trans and lgbtq students Education Act let's make schools a safe and inclusive place for every child I am against the extreme agenda of the radical right Heritage Foundation and project 2025 white nationalists moms for Liberty and so forth these small minorities are pushing on the American people their sense of values it is a message of hate cruelty and discrimination for any child who may be deemed different we must be there to support our students with compassion and Equitable treatment for all regardless of their gender identification their ethnicity we are fighting for the equity compassion and inclusion for every single child hello my name is
305an Marie kensky k a Jen C Ki I live in Loveland Colorado 80537 I am not a Thompson School District student the topic of my com comment is the concern and dismay I feel regarding Nancy rumfelts and anyone else's anti-transgender agenda a reminder to all of us exclusion and discrimination are not family values when an individual's views and behavior are based upon ignorance and hatred those views are not viable operating with such views strongly suggests a conflict within that individual and not within transgender children their parents and their supporters one final comment to M rumfelt and to anyone else who spewed such hostility let him who is without sin cast the first Stone thank you hello my name is Jane Perkins I live in Loveland Colorado in the Thompson School District I do not have
306a student there but I I am a mother and a grandmother here's the topic of my comment I support the Department of Education I support that it be kept as it is and not dismantled by the current Administration and Elon Musk I support students being treated fairly regardless of whether they are lgbtq trans children of a different Heritage or ethnicity and I believe that our schools serve to provide education and compassion and support for every single student I am totally totally against the ideas of the Heritage Foundation white nationalists who plan to squash education privatize education and who do not provide sens compassionate and Equitable treatment for all of our children when you treat children as the Heritage Foundation and white nationalists want to do those children that are quote different feel like they don't
307matter that no one cares about them that they don't deserve the education and the care that every single child does again I am against the one School Board member who is for the Heritage Foundation and white nationalists Etc and this must be stopped now this mom's for Liberty stuff stop it now let's support every single student in a compassionate Equitable way thank you J my name is Jennifer huitt Apperson I live in leveland and I'm a parent of a Thompson School District student I want to talk about the importance of inclusion and particularly recent actions by board member Nancy brunfelt that are in direct conflict with this principle board member rumfelt has a long history of statements that denigrate the lgbtq community and promotes conspiracy theories and frankly lies about a so-called trans agenda including
308wearing an anti-transgender shirt to a recent Board of Education meeting the trans Community is now a popular scapegoat and this scapegoating is just another tired way of promoting hate and discrimination this portrayal of a so-called crisis of trans women taking over women's sports is a farce and Distortion of just how rare trans athletes are the head of the NCAA testified before Congress last year that out of half a million NCAA athletes fewer than 10 were transgender this is hardly a flood of quote unquote men taking over women's sports unquote this is not about some unfair Advantage this is about hate if you truly want to protect women as you claim then focus on teaching kids about consent bodily autonomy critical thinking and media literacy focus on inclusion because kids have better outcomes when they feel
309safe and supportive stop pretending this is about parents' rights because frankly if a kid is not out to their parents there's probably a very good reason finally I'll note that rumfelt won her seat by less than one half of a percentage Point yet acts as if she has a mandate she absolutely does not have a mandate and I do not appreciate her integration of the LGBT community that my TSD student is part of thank you that's it oh there was one more up there I thought we were listening one more time all right um thank you to everybody that we had but thank you thank you and thank you to you guys for hanging in there for us um the last item on here is written report it's I think it's a uh Pi report
310so it's posted for you otherwise I'm going to adourn our meeting and thank you