001I'm attending remotely I had a last minute family situation come up here here the United States of America [Music] all right mission statement the 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 achieve and Excel thank you st first item on our agenda is to adopt the agenda this would be the agenda for today August 21st 202 for are there any changes to the agenda for tonight's meetingone I will take a motion to adopt adopt the agenda as printed so moved so please call Ste hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran Hi D Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Leon I thank you Laur we have several minutes to approve tonight we have three from our past times together so
002first one is 3.1 which is the approval of minutes for June 19th 2024 does anyone have any changes to or corrections to the minutes none I will take a motion to minutes for June 19 so moved so please call Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Le I 3.2 is the approval of the minutes for the special meeting held on August 5th 2024 does anyone have any changes or corrections to the minutes for that special meeting on um August hearing none I will motion to approve the minutes so moved so please call make sure you guys turn your mics on it's not going through upstairs please uh Ste boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi barbert Cruz hi Alexander Leon Nancy r hi um 3.3
003is the approval of the minutes for our study session which was held August 7th 2024 are there any changes or corrections to the minutes hearing none I will take a motion to approve the minutes for August 7th 202 second on sty hi Denise Chapman hi jamy Jordan hi joh KK hi barbar Cruz hi Alexander L Nancy r hi thank you all right our business is done and we'll move on to public participation we'll turn it over to Dr Schaefer good evening Madam president members of the Board of Education uh community members and what be students in the audience uh pleas to present our back to school report for the first official board meeting of the 2024 25 school year so last week we were thrilled to welcome um around 15,000 students back to our district
004campuses the first days of school are always filled with eager anticipation excitement and the promise of Endless Possibilities can't wait to see our students Thrive and are looking forward to an incredible year ahead to support our students who are starting the school year in a new I'm excited to personally welcome over 170 new teachers to the Thompson School District over the past few weeks we've organized various groups individual activities to help our new staff get settled in highlights included a special red carpet ceremony and a formal kickoff presentation for the new school year I'm incredibly proud of our entire District team here at TSD and look forward to collaborating with them as we continue our mission to educate and support every student thank you to the Thompson Education Foundation for donating 1,480 backpacks and Supply
005kits to TSD students to uh for the start of the school year as part of our annual help kids succeed school supply drop over 54 community volunteers gathered at PE View Academy at Conrad ball to assemble the backpacks and kits while members of the ctoa club in Thompson Valley EMS deliver them to our district schools we're pleased to announce that slots are still available for the senior property tax workof program which offers participants the chance to volunteer in our schools with the added benefit of receiving payment that is used to offset some of their property tax bill to participate volunteers must be 62 years of age or older and they must also own a home and reside within the TSD boundary area for more information please visit our website at td.org this fall our District
006Board of Education will continue their series of public engagement sessions which will provide an opportunity for members throughout our community to meet our board members learn more about their work ask questions and share their thoughts our first listening session is scheduled for September 10th from 6 o'clock to 7:30 p.m. here at the district office hope you'll be able to join us so tonight we have a very very special uh guest in our audience and I'm gonna Ask Michaela who I think goes by Mac so Michaela if you want to come forward and this is Michaela hent and um she was uh recently participated in the National this amazing competition National so let me let me tell you a little bit about at the end of July our very own Mac uh competed in the national
007Miss amazing competition in Chicago Miss amazing is an organization that provides opportunities for girls and women with disabilities to build confidence and self-esteem through pageantry Mac uh the Colorado this amazing Queen for 2024 proudly represented the state of Colorado and Thompson Valley High School on the national stage in addition to being a great student Mac is also a tbhs cheerleader and has numerous talents and accomplishments one of her favorite quotes is by eron Hansen who wrote what if I fall oh but my darling what if you fly we are incredibly proud of you Ma you're amazing congratulations [Applause] back we'd like to take a picture of you if you can if you'd be willing we'd like to do it with the Board of Education I also think uh your principal is here yes Jamie ksh
008so we love principal kshan to come forward as well but yeah for we can take a picture with all right ready okay on three one two three thank you congratulations [Applause] that's really cool and very exciting uh for our district and our state and for Thompson Valley High School so this evening uh Board of Education uh I'd like to bring forward uh two individuals who we are going to be uh recommending for administrative positions here in the Thompson School District so first I'm going to ask uh Aon Gilbert to please come forward to the podium and eron um uh we are recommending is the new assistant principal of bir high school we certainly hope you approve a recommendation because she's already been working let me tell you a little bit about Mrs Gilbert um kin
009is coming to TSD with 22 years of experience in education she has spent eight years uh working in mtss her first two years were as the mtss facilitator at pter school district she then transitioned into the role of TSS coordinator where she spent an additional six years during this time Mrs gilberg partnered with staff Educators teams and families to identify and support the academic behavioral and social emotional needs of students within PSD she partnered to write Implement and report for the education for atrisk student supports and Ninth Grade success grants through CDE the Colorado Department of Education Mrs Gilbert LED uh counselors in the facilitation of a kid talks uh kid talks focused on students attending school more than 80% um in struggling academics behaviors and mental health Erin also provided professional development and Leadership
010for conducting home visits while seeking opportunities to engage parents for previous educational roles include one year as a moderate needs special education teacher at for Collins High School and 13 years as a multi- categorical special education teacher at pter high school during her time at pter high Ur provided coaching and support for teachers and Par professionals that included working closely with Administration she also LED teams in an environment that focused on prioritizing student needs and pos positive outcomes for the department and educator grow Mrs Gilbert received her bachelor's and master's degree from UNC and a principal licensure from Western State College hereen his background with mtss and working in a high school environment makes for an ideal candidate for the assistant principal at ber High School thank you Dr schaer thank you madam president and
011the rest of the board I'm really really excited to be joining you all in Thompson School District um as a resident of berd I am just so proud to be able to serve the families and the students in the community where I live I think it's going to be a great year I've got a good admin team things have been going well so far and I'm just really looking forward to the future so thank you thank you [Applause] next I'd like to uh welcome up Dr Allison Smith Dr Smith um has already started at uh as assistant principal of Mal View High School Dr Smith comes to the Thompson School District from Colorado early colleges where she spent one year as the head of school in this role she developed Partnerships with Community Business Leaders
012colleges local districts and Charter Schools Allison also researched and analyzed Trends in both education and Community needs to develop programming and curriculum and strategic plans she also mentored coached trained and evaluated staff Allison was the principal of Pipes Peak online school for five years there she provided leadership in establishing educational goals planning developing implementing and evaluating curriculum and instructional programs Ellison also held a position of assistant principal for one year at monford elementary school in G school district 6 here she developed and oversaw multiple Improvement inititive including multi-tiered systems of supports um before and after school enrichment program and attendance Improvement dror Smith received her bachelor's degree in human development and family studies from CSU a post Balor lure in elementary education from Metro State master's degree in educational leadership and Innovation from Regis and
013doctorate in organizational leadership from Grand Canyon University Al Allie's background as a proven leader makes her an ideal candidate for the assisted princi at Mountain View High School thank [Applause] you thank you Dr schaer Madame President members of the board I just want to say thank you and for this opportunity that I have to serve our students in Thompson School District please know I will commit 100% of my energy my time and my knowledge and and educational background every single day to our students families um staff and Community thank you [Applause] again our next item would be our reports2 and I'm going to start down there with and I asked him to share a goal or a hope that they have for the year or to report on a committee with uh thank you so
014I actually did want to just touch on um our new agreement with the Special Olympics so that happened in July we had a very quiet month in July but one very exciting moment um so at the end of last school year we had this great big all district uh Special Olympics event uh for our elementary kids and it was awesome and uh it was really great to get to be part of the um training that was done by special for their staff and they signed the agreement with us and so we're excited to be able to do more with them in partnership with them which I would say is also a hope my committees um haven't met yet during the 24 25 school year so I'm going to share a a best hope uh as
015many of you I read the front page of the reporter Harold today and this was also a front page story story on the Denver Post about the Improvement in Cass scores for our Elementary and Middle School uh students was very happy to read that um in fact I believe the scores approached or were maybe slightly better than the pre-pandemic scores and so I think Statewide and hopefully here in Thomson as well uh that means that uh we're starting to show Improvement again and my best hope is that when we get the results next fall for the 24 25 school year that what we'll see is even more Improvement and so that's the uh that's my hope that's my best hope as we approach this new schol leader um My Hope Is that we continue to
016do many of the great things that I keep seeing in this district with all the students who win scholarships the Thompson Career Center um the youth crisis response team and I love seeing our students so successful My Hope though is that this year we do finally see third grade reading where every student every school is at least 50% proficient and I hope that we can finally address and do some real work on helping teachers who are leaving because of the lack of support with discipline issues and the parents who are at their W wits ends because disciplines impacting their child's physical and mental health and that we can finally figure out how do we give equal treatment equal protection to all students especially our biological female students who have to compete in who don't compete
017in sports because they don't want to risk injury or Worse females that are injured and that has happened public education's core job is to educate kids it's not our job to decide how to parent your children the classroom's not a petri dish with to experiment with your children testing various social theories the classroom is where teachers ignite the spark in your child's mind to love reading love learning and to embrace the possibility that education gives every student to achieve their dreams and so my hope for this year is that every decision this board makes is centered on making the classroom the best possible learning environment so students can achieve their dreams [Applause] so my dream well I have two seniors this year the last of my children to go Thompson thri 15 years of the
018district coming to a close except for my and as I look at the time that I've spent in the district you're like really worried about a lot of things first time and different things when they had opt in middle school and different things as they started high school and as I see my children launching in graduations graduation rates is great graduation rates is they've gone up here recently we still have more work to do in terms of turning out you know students who are ready for their the next job or the first job students ser ready to go to school whether it be Senor school or pror School some other academic experience um and you know for the military whatever your children or our children collectively goals are we need to be preparing them with
019basic skills the literacy piece math science reading all critically important for them to be op able to operate wherever they end up um and so but also ability to do the social emotional work to stay in a job even to get a job and be able to work with other people and you know be productive so there's this balance I think that is important um people need to learn to cooperate need to work together just so as a as a board person I want to make sure that yes the scorers look better as student mentioned and that they continue to look better that we're doing the right things there um and that we're also taking into account um they don't stop learning or contributing when they leave our doors and making sure that particularly in
020high school all the kids have access to all these wonderful programs like ier campus at the right time I know I was a little blind when I my first one went to high school I know a lot more now I think every freshman parent should be armed with all the possibilities so that their kids are targeted appropriately and that is it Amy so just a couple of words that my hope for the school year um for everyone is that no matter what your role is in Thomson School District um each parent each Guardian each student each employee um volunteer each member of a committee anyone who's part of TSD My Hope Is that each person feels a sense of community and a sense of belonging in their role here at TSD um each person matters
021just as you are no matter Your Role um and I hope that everyone has a wonderful year and remembers that uh we are all connected and an important part of TSD thank you am um I think that's all been well said and I don't need to repeat everything that everybody has said other than I hope for Harmony and peace for everybody in their role that they have that they enjoy and find it beneficial and success for all from whether it's the teacher or um whatever role we have whether it's students administrator just so that everybody feels successful and valued so um next piece is 4.3 which is our public comment section and um joh who reads I forgotten it's been so long because the board wants to hear the viewpoints of the public and also
022needs 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 of 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 make 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 rights responsibly Personnel
023matters will be discussed in executive session um and then you have when I when you start speaking you'll have uh 2 minutes and 30 seconds when the green lights on and then it'll flash to Yellow when you have 30 seconds left and then it will beep at you until you are done at 3 minutes uh our Fe first speaker is Riley lock my name is Riley lock and I am a freshman at leveland high school I was a CrossCountry runner at or Lucille Irwin the running Community is a special one and I'm thankful my parents suggested I try cross country in middle school cross country quickly became my favorite sport because of the people throughout Middle School I Heard lots of great things about Coach Torres that made me really excited to come run for
024her as a freshman I was really disappointed that the district fired coach Torres and that the athletes were not given any information about why this was done I would like another investigation to be done to determine if she can be reinstated as a coach again thank you Dylan Wheatley hello uh ladies and gentlemen of the Thompson School District School Board my name is Dylan Wheatley uh I'm a senior at levelin high school and I'm also speaking concerning uh coach Torres as a head Cross Country Coach and head girls track and field coach um I think coach Torres has done an exceptional job I run cross country and track for the past three years and I've she's been my head coach every year um she's given nothing but exceptional work and great work ethic to support
025the team in every way and what confuses me about her dismissal is that um there was no uh interaction with athletes or the parents of the cross country team on their opinions towards her dismissal which confuses me so that's a question of mine like why were the voices of the athletes not considered um I along with my teammates would like coaches to be reinstated to our former positions as head Cross Country Coach and head girls track and field coach that's all I'm asking thank [Applause] you Mark Norton Mark Norton [Music] oh okay sorry what Mr superintendent board members thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Matt Norton I'm here on behalf of my longtime and dear friend Colleen Torres I've known her and her family for over 20 years meeting them not
026long not long after my wife and I moved to Loveland in 2003 firing her as head coach of the Loveland High cross country team has done significant harm to this wonderful person I'm upset for her and her family that they have been put through this ordeal which for those of us on the outside of the situation does not seem fair at all I'm hopeful that my formal role former role as a teacher and coach in this district for over 15 years will give some Credence to my viewpoint on the policies and implementation of such that led to coach tz's dismissal in short it was a mistake to remove her from this position for at least the following in reasons Colleen is an educator of the utmost quality record and most importantly demonstrated care for her
027students the other athletes on the team as you have seen are deeply hurt by her removal not withstanding all of the things she has done in the classroom during her career at leveland high in her five plus years as had Cross Country Coach Colleen has built a strong program competing favorably against many of the nation's best here in Colorado she's done a remarkable job coaching a co-ed Sport and I can tell you there are not a lot of women head coaches doing so by building all of her team members up physically mentally and emotionally in order to take on the challenge of running a long hard race well a great Cross Country Coach like Colleen is a builder of people from the inside out and top to bottom ready to run the race of life
028to say that the issue of trans girls on girls sports team is still up for debate is a massive understatement regardless of any published laws or policies any policy that leads to the dismissal of a coach like Colleen before going to Great Lengths to communicate and work with her to find a solution that respects everyone on the team is a broken policy on its face a strong policy also requires an Administration that has the courage to stand in the fire with its Frontline staff and not simply consider the threat of negative press or legal action Colleen her athletes and the families involved with Loveland High School across country deserve that stand with them lastly I'd urge you to consider how this firing impacts the goal of recruiting and retaining the very best staff for the
029kids and families of Loveland coaching while gratifying to those of us who choose to do so exacts a steep price on our time energy and other important relationships and require strong conviction knowing what has happened to coach Torres who are you going to get to replace someone of her immense Talent loyalty and service I hope for the sake of the kids on this team that you have a good answer for that I know your job in general and with respect to this topic is difficult so thank you for your time and [Applause] consideration Janet Wright thank you all for allowing me to speak uh Dr schaer and members of the board my name is Janet and my pronouns are she her and hers I'm on the board of directors for p flag of Northern Colorado
030how many of you have heard of the University of Washington School of Public Health Centers for Disease Control and prevention the National Institute of Health National child traumatic stress Network the national endoc endocrine Society the Harvard School of Public excuse me Public Health the Trevor Project and the American Academy of Pediatrics what they have in common apart from having some of the most respected peer-reviewed work in research is that they all support gender affirming care gender affirming care looks different for everyone it can be a simple as honoring a chosen name and pronouns which is reversible lgbtq plus young people are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers having one affirming adult in a young person's life reduces their risk of suicide by half that's a lot respecting someone's right to use
031the name and pronoun of their Choice doesn't hurt anyone it saves lives there is no agenda to make a heterosexual kid gay or trans there is no grooming the only agenda is to keep gay and TR kids alive one of whom is mine and who here remembers maso's hierarchy of human needs it's a five tier model number three on that model is love and belonging a sense of belonging is a primal inherent human need belonging is so important to our sense of self that we feel a sensation close to physical pain when we feel like we don't belong everyone in this room has surely felt that at some point in their life especially as a young person a young person in school no one should be made to feel that hate is learned at home
032at the beginning of the legislation legislative session in Colorado there were 30 anti-trans ballot initiatives filed 28 failed and the remaining two failed at collecting enough signatures again hatus learned at home and there's no room for it here in Colorado so thank you to the Thompson School District thank you to this board of education for your continued dedication of well-being and education for all [Applause] students Emma dies hi my name is Emma de and I was a former athlete under coach Torres tonight I would like to bring to your attention the issue of Mrs Torres being ired from her head coaching position at lovelin High School in under a month an online petition has gained over 800 signatures from members in the community advocating to protect female athletes rights in Thompson School District Sports it
033is incredibly unjust to expect female athletes to compete against biological males due to the biological advantages that male athletes have over females I am not here tonight to argue transgender rights but rather bring awareness to unfairness that female athletes in the district are experiencing it is not a question of who is right or wrong but rather we need to seek a solution to create fair and equal opportunities for all athletes to participate in sports Miss Tores simply raised concern about policies put in place by the district regarding transgender athletes participation in sports she seek to protect her current female athletes rights and make sure that they were being treated equally as a former athlete of Mrs Torres I can affirm that she would never intentionally discriminate against any athlete Mrs Torres loved her athletes she
034spent countless hours each and every week at practice and outside of practice working to create workouts that fit the needs of all athletes while making sure to encourage her athletes to have fun at practice and created a positive team environment Mrs Torres supported us as athletes and as a teacher and Mentor I could not have asked for a better Coach during my four years and to relieve her from her position is not a fair solution Mrs Torres is a coach who is dedicated to her athletes and willing to ask the hard questions to protect her athletes we must work to find a fair and equal solution for all parties thank [Applause] you Janie patella hi I'm Janie patella and is it okay if um the board are the board members okay with my supporters joining
035me up here tonight yep that's fine anybody here in support of Mrs Torres and of women's sports equality before my three minutes okay Dr Schaefer and other TSD board members I'm here to tonight to present to you my online Petition of 825 people who disagree with your decision to fire Mrs Torres from her coaching position at leveland high school these same people also petitioned for Thompson School District to find a solution for girls sports that PES both biological and trans transgender girls and their families you can review my petition posted on change.org letting biological males many of whom have undergone male puberty compete with and against biological females is not what Title 9 was created not only does it Rob our hardworking girls from opportunities and scholarships it is simply unsafe in only two weeks
036time more than 800 people in our direct Community have stepped forward against tsd's current policy regarding this issue clearly it does not reflect the community you claim to represent how was such a policy constructed and enacted without Community input with growing numbers of of transgender students in every school district across the board we think it is best that an acceptable solution be identified publicly presented voted on and implemented as soon as possible [Applause] thanks Ryan wilin [Music] it's going to be hard to follow uh Madame President Dr Schaefer members of the board my name is Ryan wilin District a I'm a father of two and I'm speaking to you tonight as a parent I'm requesting that the board allow a public forum in the near future to talk about the uh the district's gender transition
037plan uh gender sport support plan the student identity change request form and the guidelines regarding such topic and a lot of that falls into our Sports and and Mrs Torres as well I feel that it's important for our parents our coaches our teachers and our staff to be heard and have an open line of communication and and have it have their questions answered I would love that opportunity for all of the folks some of my personal concerns considering these topics are about female sports I have questions about the district's partnership with parents with transgender in female sports the rights and the of the staff the teachers and the coaches my daughters are both female athletes and I've have coached dozens of females and males probably hundreds through the years and I've watched my daughters compete
038against males and as much as I hate to say it there's an age group where males become stronger faster and more agile and I would hate to take away the hard work that my daughters their coaches and all of us really here today to give them the rights to have their own sports to have that taken away and all their opportunities and their future I for one am not willing to do that I'm not willing to take it away uh all of these women's sports had to start somewhere I mean we have one town one team we have a district wrestling team that's a prised of every High School in TSD I I think except for berid but it's one team uh Mountain View just had a flag football team for girls I mean we're
039working hard on the ground level still for all these girls and I'd hate to have it taken away special the Unified sports that had to start somewhere our sports for wounded veterans had to start somewhere I don't want to take this away from the girls and I and I would appreciate your help in having this forum to answer some of the questions so we don't have to use our imaginations thank you very much [Applause] an Bradberry so I too would like to invite anybody that wants to come up about protecting girls and girls sport you're welcome to join me Dr schaer Madame President and Schoolboard members my name is Anne Bradberry and I'm here tonight to stand up for our kids our future Generations I've always had a passion and caring heart for kids tonight
040I'm specifically talking about protecting girls and girls Sports I'm deeply troubled with the direction that Thompson School District is headed there are many concerns but tonight I will focus on protecting girl Sports there should never ever be a boy transitioned to a girl permitted to play on any girl sports teams there are stories about boys who have transition that have physically hurt girls locally and nationally it's local too it's right here in our own backyard this is not acceptable boys and girls locker room is completely wrong and inappropriate you are allowing a very dangerous precedent and I wonder if you have thought all of this through please reconsider as you vote on policies regarding transgender issues collectively you are taking our kids down a very slippery unhealthy slope please bring Common Sense back to education
041and give students a healthy environment to learn in get back to getting the low percentages up in reading math and other academics teach them life skills that will help the students not hurt them more and more families are taking their kids out of public schools and figuring out positive ways to educate their kids through homeschooling private schools and Charter Schools please help our future Generations don't hurt them this is hurting them in addition please bring back the Loveland High School girls Cross Country Coach just because someone doesn't agree with your way of thinking doesn't mean they should lose their job I will pray I will pray that you will make the right decisions for our community families and kids thank you Frank [Music] Torres I'm here tonight to ask the board to launch an internal
042investigation against a handful of District employees that failed when it came to the firing of my wife Loveland Loveland High School's cross country and track coach Mrs TUS I'm asking you to investigate the mismanagement of the situation by several District employees the situation also exposes their failure um as District leaders to support and provide guidance to Mrs torus when she asked for help in this situation Instead This leadership failed to act and in some cases hid from the situation ensuring they distance themselves from the issue former athletic director Andy little failed to take action back in September of 2023 when this was first brought to his attention he failed to mention it to District ad Kevin Clark who did nothing when the official Complaint came months later Mr little lied then denied and then ran
043off to pter school district district athletic director Kevin Clark one would assume that our District athletic director would be well aware of this situation well he was not he wasn't made aware of it until Miss tus had already been fired instead he cowardly avoided the situation so he could completely so he could have complete deniability only to protect himself and I tell you as a coach in this District that is not leadership that I want principal Shan Collins his defamation of Miss torus by speaking on the situation that he had no firsthand exposure with was blurring the lines between Athletics and academics it would seem that Mr Collins had a Personal Agenda against Miss Taurus and seiz the opportunity as a way to punish Miss taus District HR the most egregious Behavior was how this
044group neglected to do their job in a fair and biased manner there is no sorry their Mis management of the investigation and improperly following District policy needs to be reviewed and these individuals held accountable this is a long and tenured group that has gotten way too comfortable in their positions and feel that they are Untouchable and why not because they serve as judge jury and executioner when it becomes to matters of disciplinary matters in this district there is no outside review of their decisions they control the narrative and the flow of information that they deem reasonable in the investigation once a parent once the parent and student in this situation filed the formal complaint and asked for the firing of Coach torus the decision makers were unfairly biased and left no other choice out of
045their L out of fear of litigation against the district they took the easy way out and used Miss taus as a scapegoat this was clearly a Witch Hunt from the beginning and had no outcome the rest of the actions were a facade [Applause] Megan lock sorry Megan lock good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Dr Megan lock and my daughter is a freshman at levelin High School on the cross country team during her eighth and seventh and eighth grade years she became a top 10 runner in the district and was very much looking forward to continuing her cross country career at levelin high school under the leadership of Coach Torres during Riley's Middle School cross country and track season I can't even count how many individuals asked where she would
046be going to high school and once they heard that she would be running under the leadership of Coach Torres it became very clear the amount of respect that she had in the community and it was not only in the running Community it was the General Loveland Community as well I have written several emails to individuals in the district after receiving the news that coach Torres would be terminated as head coach of the level and cross country team I bring questions tonight for the board of education did Coach Torres break any rules was there a paper trail or did a problem appear out of nowhere did Coach Torres asked the principal and an athletic director for guidance and did she receive support did the athletic director drop in at any cross country practices or meets to
047observe coach Torres and the other athletes did the level and High School athletic director make any attempt to inform coach Torres of any deficiencies and then give her time to correct those deficiencies if they existed did the athletic director human resources and others involved in the decision to terminate coach Torres interview other parents athletes and assistant coaches that were part of the 2023 levelin high school and track teams if so were they interviewed prior to making the decision to terminate her and did their statements carry any weight did Coach Torres violate a contract did she have poor graduation rates or grades among the raning athletes did she have a poor competitive record or other areas of job performance did Coach Torres have the opportunity to have a hearing with you the board of education was
048there clear written communication to coach Torres that failure to remedy the deficiency if there was one would result in termination I request that the Board of Education open an investigation to determine if the termination of Coach Torres was warranted and the only solution the questions above need to be answered with evidence I would also like to take the opportunity to thank coach sge for stepping up and leading the cross country team during this transition thank you [Applause] Colleen Torres hello um my name is Colleen torus and I'm here to put a face with a name uh to be represented by this community is very humbling and thank you to everyone who's come out to speak on my behalf I'm asking you as the Board of Education to consider what your community is saying tonight your
049job is to be the liaison between all of them and our district leadership clearly there is some discrepancy with how things are being handled by our district administrators and what is expected by our community I ask you to please listen to these people today and consider what is happening in our schools the corruption in this district is real and it has to stop it is affecting not only coaches but teachers students athletes families all of whom you represent in this community these are the people who will be voting on your bond and Mill Levy in the upcoming election in November their voices are more important than anyone else's please listen and hear what they're saying we need you to hold District leadership accountable for their actions thank [Applause] you Liz Raymond good evening Dr schaer
050members of the board staff some of whom I recognize nice but you haven't aged a bit um I was here years and years ago I brought robotics into the district into various schools uh at one point I chaired the district accountability committee uh and today I came here to say I wanted to initially say um we used to have a discipline report that was in the board packet quarterly so that we could really see if the money being spent on the various programs were effective against the bullying and whatever else is going on in schools because I think the teachers having a really hard time right now but I don't see that report anymore and I'd like to see that come back so that was one thing I came here to ask for the other
051was um as a recovering engineer uh in 2016 I scraped 1,420 items off of the building performance reports for the last MLL Bond and this is the list and you know I look at where we say what we've done and I just can't put the two together so I wonder if I really have enough information when I think about going after another Bond and it's probably out there it's probably just me that I'm just not finding it but maybe there's others too and then I also thought I was going to come here to say on the budget I've looked at a lot of different School District budgets and most of them have a preamble in the beginning that talks about the assumptions the big things that have changed the budget over you know the past
052year uh some of you even go uh put in like graduation year-over-year or places they've been successful so that you can track it back to the money being spent but we don't have any of that when you go and click on the budget here and and I feel like it's needed and I know there was a meeting on a Monday back in June but I don't know how many people went and I think it'd be really helpful to everybody who wants to go look at where money is going if that Preamble was in there and I think it I don't want more work for staff because I know the staff already has a lot of work I think to have a committee to help put together what it would be to create that transparency would
053be a fabulous thing because I definitely don't want to create more stuff but now I'm thinking I didn't really want to say any of those things because now all I want to say is reinstate coach tourus and let's think about the policies that apparently the parents Community are just not liking let's just figure out how to straighten that out thank [Applause] you Zach Wheatley I'm here also uh to speak on behalf of Coach Torres my name is Zach Wheatley my son is a senior at Loveland High School and has been involved in both the cross country and track programs since he was a freshman I am here to express my sadness and concern about the dismissal of Coach Torres process for which she was relieved from her coaching position is wrong through this process no
054one from the school district ever reached out to any of the athletes or students involved in these programs wasn't until about a month ago that coach coach Torres met with all of us to let us know that she no longer had the position that was the first knowledge that any of us had on this I would have to say that I along with everyone here think this is a big deal and want to know why we weren't involved or informed from the school district beforehand so I ask the school board and all facility teachers administrators to remember we are here to serve the students as parents we want the best for our students we want to be informed involved with every decision that they may encounter at school or at extra extracurricular activities Athletics for
055any reason I'm sure many of you have students in the school district and understand how important this is to all of us and it's just a shame to see that such a beloved coach is no longer the coach that's all I have to say thank [Applause] you Tyler Lux I am not here to talk about transgender rights or anything like that but I would like to address how a decision was made to terminate spending a uh lifetime in employment labor law uh Human Resources owning several businesses in our community I have to do and make those decisions at times so um I'm not here to State opinions I would just like to ask some questions for you guys to consider uh first question would be what compelling evidence was presented to the individual ual um
056or this group that caused a decision of removal to be made uh if there has not been a formal policy adopted by the district and drafted in regards to this type of alleged discrimination based on a student's preferred legal name then how was a decision made of termination and who was that decision maker what compelling evidence was presented that this alleged discriminatory action was a pattern of behavior by this coach and teacher um and then has this board considered the recent Supreme Court decision in regards to Title 9 ruling that took place 5 days ago what presidents have been set within this District that you followed as a guideline to make this decision for Coach Torres um and then what evidence was presented to you or the decision makers in this termination that was considered
057in regards to this teacher's past Behavior what formal training and education was provided to coach Tores acknowledged and documented by her that took place um for this coach to be able to handle situations like this was this coach provided with any formal requests by this student or the students family to make any special considerations my final question for you guys to consider would just be what is the cost the cost that was considered in regards to making a decision of termination uh for the coach and in regards to the athletes when this decision was made thank [Applause] you David deerman Ean it's okay it's my writing you're good uh good evening ladies and gentlemen thanks for entertaining all of us this evening and our comments I'm here to speak on behalf of Coach Torres sorry
058who's amazing um the administrative stuff I find it brutal ironic that on your agenda this evening you're going to approve readings regarding gender transition plans gender support plans name gender change forms and yet a decision was made to terminate an above average instructor and coach in this District based on gender topics apparently allegedly I don't have all the facts so a little sick irony there by the way thank you Nancy rumfelt and Barbara Cruz for your responses and Dr schaer for your responses via email I didn't hear from the rest of you so I assume you got my email my questions many of which other folks have asked and also submitted this whole process has been sus as our kids say these days uh right been a little sus um so I invite the board
059to have have a chat with some people who may have been involved in the decision may do a little investigation third party preferably so that we don't have the uh corrupt fingertips of the involved parties word corrupt lightly but you get Point finally a quick sidebar story these children suffered through covid all know that story my son outgoing athlete Co hits hoodie introvert complete flip-flop tried to run in Middle School got injured ran as best he could went out for Coach Tours his team last fall ran cross country got his varsity letter super proud dad tells me before we go to nxr I hate running nxr sorry uh Nike sponsored race in Arizona that was a come to Jesus conversation in the car let me tell you because I had spent a lot of money
060getting ready to take him Arizon he runs we have a great time we go through winter he goes out for track he runs for Coach Tores he gets his letter he runs a 5 minute and 1 Second Mile my son ran over 500 Miles this summer he rode his bike over 500 Miles this summer to train for Loveland High Schools cross country team and a decision was made to terminate coach Torres that is heartbreaking for a kid that came out of the hoodie and has turned into an amazing amazing over six foot young man who is a stellar student athlete at the school I invite you to reconsider the decision that has been made by your folks thank you very much [Applause] Sean Murphy good evening board my name is Shawn Murphy I'm an architect
061I have two daughters and one son in TSD schools and I have the honor of serving as the mayor protim for the town of berd let it be known that these views are my own and not representative of the Board of Trustees nor the town of berd I'm here for two reasons one I do support the empathetic and considerate gender policy put forth before the board tonight that promotes inclusion and support for select students secondly I am here to support the resolutions proposed for the November ballot tonight strong call schools are the Beating Heart of our communities as a steward of the Public's treasure I do my best to run our government efficiently and effectively to promote the general welfare of birthed citizens and to preserve our small town quality of life yet the most
062essential component to that is not in my hands but it's in yours making investments in educator compensation space upgrades Safety and Security HVAC maintenance improvements and additional facilities can dramatically improve the learning environment for our students staff and Educators it can also improve test scores and save the district substantial sums of money in the lifetime of each one of these facilities with the growth we face in berd and throughout Northern Colorado it's not just desired but imperative for the school district to take action this year keep our kids equipped for the future strongly urge that you move forward with these resolutions to make these critical proactive improvements possible I'm always happy to partner with the district's goals and initiatives and you have my personal word and support thank you [Applause] my name is Dean Olen
063from Loveland and I'm calling regarding the termination of Cross Country Coach Colleen Torres I have several concerns regarding the process by which this happened and I have emailed questions to the entire board Dr schaer Kevin Clark and the athletic director the new athletic director Brandon Havard thanks to Nancy rumfelt and Brandon Bars were responding to me I didn't get a reply from anyone else well I guess I did get an auto reply from Dr schaer that he acknowledged receipt of my email but honestly that's worse than not replying at all that's like saying I got your email but it's not worth a response Bill feers emailed me saying he got my email and wanted to know if I had any questions I replied that I didn't send an email to him but apparently my email
064was forwarded to him and that email had like five questions so yeah those questions are my questions no response I read several TSD policies that have me concerned that due process wasn't followed and I'm further concerned with the lack of response from the leaders of TSD making me feel that I'm right to be concerned about how TSD handled this matter it seems if proper process was followed there would be a lot of confidence about their decision and a response would be easily provided three minutes on this line doesn't allow me to express all my concerns but once again they are clearly available via my email briefly why wasn't there a suspension or administrated Le were any students athletes or Witnesses interviewed why was the board why wasn't the board made aware at the time of
065the investigation what training or guidance was provided to coach Torres why was this matter ongoing since February but a termination decision was made two weeks prior to season start I would like the investigators of this termination to be investigated again my name is Dean Olson my phone number is 3854 my email address if you would like to reference my questions and respond I would greatly appreciate it Dean d n NE Amazon Mary Olsen o LS n gmail.com [Applause] hi my name is Susan Ben means I am a Loveland resident a retired educator and current so uh substitute teacher in the district and I'm just calling to voice my support for air conditioners in the schools the kids need them we need them let's get them thank you my number is 970 21 7 [Applause] 3412
066hi my name is Katie himberg I live in Loveland I'm not a student at TSD but I am the parent of two students who attend Thompson School District Schools I wanted to comment in support of the boards um adapting the gender identity forms and process is that support their students I think it's important to have these in place for the students who need them and their families who are supportive of them I can also be contacted at himberg h i m m l b r g KD k a t i e70 gmail.com thank you my name is Elizabeth Newton 97317 7199 today I'm calling in support of any policy that protects and uplifts transgender kids I want to tell you a story about Samantha Barts a trans transgender woman who said that she knew earlier
067on no later than second grade that she's was different her parents had cter Michael but she felt like a girl inside she says myelf never went away it was me when she was growing up she was too afraid to share her feelings with her parents or anyone else she was afraid that they wouldn't understand and they might reject her she imagined that her siblings classmates or neighborhood friends would rical or ostracize her she worried that she would disob God's word in some way she also wondered am I mentally ill or sick and she keep her your secret blck deep inside for years and paid the price later as an adult kids are too young to be motivated by any desire to make a political or cultural statement they're most often preposed and not thinking or
068feeling much of anything about the birds and bees transgender kids are simply kids like their non-gender peers they are learning about themselves and developing them each passing day they deserve and need love and support as they grow however it's increasingly difficult today's culture with the many hostile voices tearing down transgender people on social media at Schoolboard meetings and at home which are all readily available to all kids today I am urging all adults to open up their own hearts and Minds to transgender youth these kids whether they're living in their birth home with relatives or in foster home need the Embrace of loving adult adults to help them Thrive the difficult truth however is that too many adults for whatever reason are unable to interact with the transgender youth in a positive and affirming way
069whether it's an adult friend a teacher a social worker a coach or a counselor you as a caring adult in their life of a transgender child can make an enormous difference in that child's emotional well-being and sense of selfworth listen carefully to these kids provide affirming guidance informed by what they communicate accept them thank you I'm Lori vda Ward and I live in Loveland I'm speaking today in support of the updated gender support guidelines originally adopted in 2021 it is important that Thompson School District keep these and other policies current and in line with state and federal regulations in order to properly serve students and to protect the district from adverse legal action on a personal note I'm grateful for the existence of these guidelines and the guidance my family received during my son's time
070as a TSD student he is currently a happy healthy college student due in large part to the education he received here in Thompson School District which brings me to the other item on your agenda that I want to address thank you for the time and effort that TSD staff board members and the District Master Plan committee have invested in developing an excellent plan for a bond and get free schools Mill ly the bond would provide additional programming in Career and Technical education Safety and Security equipment such as secured vestibules and improved air conditioning in our schools the milley would allow for increased compensation for teachers and other staff technology Replacements and funds for ongoing Building Maintenance and repairs I urge you all to vote in support of these two items tonight so that Thompson School
071District can continue to provide our children with the opportunities and outcomes we've come to expect I can be reached at lorri VOR Ward at gmail.com thank you hello my name is Kayla Marie Crockett I am a citizen of the city of leveland I'm calling in regards to the wrongful termination of Coach Colleen Torres and I am a parent of a child in the Thompson School District um I as I said have children on a l High cross country team and in the district and I have since had a child on the team since 2018 and all three of my children have been coached by Colleen Tes Colleen Torres has an impeccable track record both on and off the field pun intended um she is known for her skills and professionalism and has a reputation for
072being an incredible coach mentor and teacher in the district last fall accusations were brought against Co against Co Tores by an athlete no other families were made aware of this situation during that season nor during the Spring Track season during her investigation not one single student athlete coach or parent was Inc contacted or questioned how can this be considered a fair investigation when no other parties were involved other than the accuser and the accused how were no Witnesses called or question as a parent I find this concerning and alarming on many levels a simple Google search provides information on Thompson board Thompson board policies regarding staff disciplinary actions and investigations District procedures were clearly not followed in this instance the HR decision to fire tus was not based on fact nor was a proper investigation
073given they did not do a fair nor impartial job and are clearly prej prejudiced against calling torus the party's responsible chose to place the concerns and opinions and ideas of one student about the needs of every other Athlete on both the cross country and track teams Thompson School District did not follow their own policies and procedures that should be in place to protect students and staff as a board you need to be aware that this situation happened investigate it fully and imp personally Bill steers and Kevin Clark should both be equally investigated held accountable and disciplined for failing to do their job properly and wrongfully terminating calling tours as athletes students and parents in the district we deserve and we demand better again my name is Kayla Crockett and I can be reached at 9
0741736 thank [Applause] you my name is Lauren HG I am a Loveland resident Madame President members of the board and Dr schaer I am calling in today to request that the Thompson School District Board of Education approve the bond and special Mill tonight so it will be on our ballots this November I have three students at Big Thompson Elementary School while Big Thompson is one of the schools in our district lucky enough to have air conditioning our air conditioning system does not work an entire wing of our school building my oldest son started fifth grade at Big te this year and every day since school started he has come home complaining about the Heat and how hard it is for him to focus on anything going on in the classroom especially in the afternoon I've
075spoken with his teacher almost every day and she agrees that her entire class is having a hard time focusing on important school-based activities because of the Heat money provided by the bond and special Mill will be put to work to make sure our schools have functioning air conditioning so that our students can thrive in the classroom even when we have weeks with outside temperature in the 90s if passed in November these measures will also help grow our district Career and Technical education programs for high schoolers as well as free up money in the district's General budget to help improve salaries for teachers and staff as an invested member here in the lelin community and a parent of TSD students I ask you to approve these measures for the November 2024 ballot thank [Applause] you my
076name is Pam Howard and I am calling in to support and encourage the Thompson Board of Education to vote Yes on putting a bond and a special Mill levy on this November's ballot our local schools are the absolute heart and soul of our communities our students deserve the finest education possible in order to do this we must maintain and upgrade each of our 32 buildings so that they are safe and secure spaces to learn and it is time to increase teacher Sal salary we need to be competitive with other districts so that Thompson can attract and retain the highest quality teachers for our students education is all about helping create the Future Leaders of our community and of our country so let's come together to support our local Thompson students and teachers thank you for
077your time and your dedication this is Pam Howard I live in lovelin Colorado and you can reach me at 970 691 2224 thank [Applause] you my name is Lauren H I am a Loveland resident Madame President members of the board and all right I think we'll work through just the first part and then just a little bit of a break people can get up all right um we're moving into action consent items [Music] okay these items that we're going to talk about are ones that we've had presented to us at previous study sessions and are here for approval I'm going to read through the list then I'll ask the board members if they have any items that they would like to have p and the list is um I like eight items so I'm going
078to just go to let you know what they are 5.1 and 5.2 basically go together not sure how they got separated but it's approval of personnel extra Duty and coaching recommendations 5.3 is the approval of expenditures over $50,000 5.4 is the approval of second reading of ac- E-3 gender support guidelines 5 point five is the approval of second reading of ac- e-4 gender trans transition plan 5.6 approval of second reading ac- E-5 gender support plan and 5.7 is the approval of second reading ac- e-6 and name gender change form 5.8 is the approval of the 2023 2024 supplemental budget update so if there are any members that have um wish to speak to any of these or have them move to a different place on our agenda would you let me know yes I would
079like to remove oops my my numbers are different so I would like to pull 5.3 which is starting with which one the reading of AC3 gender support guidelines okay 5.4 AC4 gender transition plan and 5.5 reading of ac5 gender support okay and those then will be moved to discussion action items and there'll be it here just give me a minute um 6.1 6.2 6.3 and 6.4 okay all right so is it all right if we are you okay if we proceed with the voting on the other the remaining items so that would be just voting on the uh approval of the Personnel extra Duty approval of expenditures over 50,000 and the approval of the 2023 2024 supplemental budget update and E6 I didn't pull E6 I didn't P so which ones I only pulled you
080didn't pull six I okay thank you I only pull E3 e45 okay so the the name gender change form Stace yeah okay thank you you or I wasn't listening closely that could be to all right so this one all right all right um I will take a motion to uh go ahead and take a motion that we approve the items that are remaining on our action consent so that way want me to separate them out well no so for clarity can you please repeat the um the items and then the corresponding number so it's it's very okay I better get the agenda that you guys left because apparently mine isn't matching okay so we will be approving 5.1 Personnel extra Duty coaching recommendations 5.2 approval of expenditures and 50,000 approval of 5.6 approval of second
081reading ac- e-6 name gender change form and 5.7 approval of the 2023 2024 supplemental budget correct okay thank you so moved oh sorry I have a question then uh does the item that was 5.6 stays where it is on our action consent but does it keep the same number oh we'll probably have to read the number it out okay yeah we B will do that for us correct I have it is 5.1 through 5.4 so um 5.1 would be approval of personnel extra Duty coaching 5.2 approval of expenditures over 50,000 5.3 approval of second reading ac- e-6 name gender change form and 5.4 approval of 2324 suppl that's what I have as well thank you thank you now did I have first or a second a first second thank you a first from on a
082second from all right I think we can ask you to call the all St boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Lon Nancy rumel hi motion carries 6 to Z thinking all right so we have completed our action consent so now we're going to move into our discussion action items and the first item will be let me find that spot um 6.1 will be the approval of the second reading of ac- E-3 gender support guidelines and I'm going to ask Dr is that right they have to be put in the front so Dr Schneider do you want to come up and help us with that if [Music] sorry not a problem getting Madam president members of the school board and Dr Schaefer I will also invite Carrie
083Bartman our director of assessment and evaluation up who originally presented these forms as well that's all right forward and Nancy pulled it so I'm gonna ask Nancy to speak to and this one we we're currently speaking on the E3 correct yes E3 okay so first I would like to just make sure that this is clear this is not about the right or wrong of trans transgenders this is about for me and I think many parents the lack of parental consent being included here I did read house bill 24139 there's zero mention of parents zero you can search that document it's not in there same of Guardian um there is nothing in here about or wrong about protecting parents right to direct the mental and medical care of their children and children who have gender dysphoria
084absolutely like one of the callers said needs the love care support and guidance of their parents if this form these forms included parental consent would be great again they weren't put on there the first time I have asked for it repeatedly even now I'm still asking for parental consent to be put on because that is their first and 14th Amendment right and in fact there is now a case going on over Brighton I believe it's a Brighton school district that was filed on August 7th in relation to this very same issue so I would hope that we could avoid that same issue um for E3 it's also important to note um someone brought up about inclusion if this was inclusive for all kids because there's equal protection for everyone under the 14 so if we're
085going to say that one class of group of kids can request certain accommodations you have to request and allow all students to request accommodations if they they would like privacy in a locker room then they should be granted the same thing if they want their own hotel room because they do not want to share they should be granted the same thing it's all about equal protection this is about ensuring all students are given that access and that right and with the transgenders in sports again this goes back to I would like someone and no one has told me the answer to this yet how are we protecting our biological females who play sports who have to wrestle against a biological male because clearly it's not the same there have been injuries and I would like
086to know other than we're following the state and federal law I would like to know how this policy protects our female biological female students because there's not anything in there and I have yet for anyone to tell me that's one and the second one is parents there is no reason we can't have parent parental consent required they're not our kids um Madam president may I of course I find it abhorent that we would say we keep saying that women are less than men in this entire argument it's absolutely disgusting to me if we're going to be spouting opinion I want to make sure that that's out there because I am not less than any man and I would like to know of all these facts of people being being hurt uh how many athletes are
087here period and have been in segregated Sports I mean it's just interesting to cherry pick that um I I being that all of that was built on a logical fallacy and we are talking about doing state and federal laws because that is what we're obligated to do and what our oath told us to do our opinion on this doesn't hold up La I'm sorry this isn't Up For Debate and you had a chance to speak okay um I want to confirm that the comment that was made in the Callin it sounds like I'm deviating from a topic I'm not the comment that was made that what we're doing tonight is updating the language of these four exhibits we are not debating the policy we're not updating the policy itself we're updating the language uh probably
088on recommendation of our legal team and that's what we're doing we're changing words to conform with the best thinking now from the legal Community har you're shaking your head Melissa you're now shaking your head as well um the policies themselves the these exhibits they're not policies that we're looking at they our four exhibits cor are based on state and federal law and as a school board we don't dictate state and federal law but we do have the opportunity to update language and that's what our legal department is suggesting that we do am I correct that's what the one of the callers said that's my understanding as well but I'd like to make sure that my understanding is correct before we continue discussion of this these yes you are correct these were not content uh changing
089edits these were uh edits to update ourselves to current statute our original forms that came in I believe back in 2021 did not have any signature lines and we felt that it was important to include any plan for student in our school district does have signature lines of attendees of the meeting including IEP gifted uh what whatever type of educational plan there is so we wanted to have those lines added to capture that uh there are a few other edits that were perfunctory but as you stated this is an exhibit of a policy it is not a policy itself so any changes to an exhibit would have to be the outflowing of a change to a policy that corroborates my understanding of what we are about to thank you Denise or Amy do you have
090comments does Amy have any comments com no thank you okay um I will take a motion to approve the the reading the second reading of ac- e3 uh gender support guidelines so moved I'll second that so first from Don and a second from St Laur would you please call the all St boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Lum Nancy reld [Music] no okay our next item will be 6.2 please stay there okay girls approval of the second reading of AC e board gender transition plan you want speak to that um Yes again if we I understand that these are just exhibits but we are updating them so again since we're updating them on e4 why not also add and include the parental consent signature line and
091please if you're going to tell me it's against the law to do so then please State clearly what law you are citing we are being consistent with all of our educational plans in the the district whether it's an IEP a gifted and talented education plan English language development plan any sort of student support plan has optional signature lines we aren't going to move forward with like a not doing an uh a plan that is best for the student in our schools because a parent doesn't show up to a meeting but the the student does have the right to uh initiate and to assert their gender identity according to our Colorado statute was part of the information that we sent you to your questions um I did not hear you explain to me what fed or
092state law is why you're basing excluding parents from this point of order can we not be rude to staff yeah it was thank you very much if parents are ATT in attendance of this meeting they will sign the document so any person that would be in attendance of any of these meetings they will have the opportunity to sign the document just as a teacher a counselor the student themselves whomever is there to talk through whatever plan we have as Melissa said with the IEPs 504s Etc so any of these plans parents you know if they are in attendance they will sign the form are parents notified of the meeting of the gender support plan meeting on this gender transition plan there is not a notification on this so so the parents AR no it would
093be kind of hard for them to show they aren notified this is a fura record and parents have access to it if they they could ask us if they were aware it was happening but they're not aware okay I will take a motion to approve the second reading of AC so moved second ask Denise did you have or any I do not okay am did you have a com no sorryy all right um La youe St boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Doner hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander Lon Nancy rfel no all right 6.3 the approval of the second reading of ac5 which is the gender support so it's just another repeat why can't we just add the parental consent signature on here and if there is a meeting for this one are
094the parents notified so that they could attend and what state law are you basing us [Music] on while you're searching um is Title Nine the basis of some of the the laws that affect the language and the policy them the policies themselves and the exhibits that is correct yes thank you it is a another same change S just the exact same signature lines of who attended the meeting and are the parents notified in the meeting the parents are notified uh based on we we work a student towards disclosure to parents would be very straightforward with you we work a student towards disclosure but a student might not be ready and they can actually initiate this process and it is again not based on something that the law says we can't invite parents to so that
095language you won't find in law but what you will find is it it is a person's innate sense of gender identity agree with it or not is Colorado statute that drives a person to be able to say I am this gender and I'm going to use this restroom that is in our state statute and so it is it is the right of the person who feels their gender identity to assert their gender identity and so as Ste mentioned on the Supreme Court or the Title Nine so the Supreme Court has did a ruling last week so if it turns out that those title n changes do not get allowed to move forward we would have policy updates to do hold please though because state law has been in place for much longer and that supersedes
096federal law in this case correct CU it's and again we would change the policy at that point in time these again are just exhibits so we're updating the point of the exhibit anything that would follow we would have to go through and update the entire policy at that point in time and the exhibits to go with it correct so title n is federal correct and based on what was just we don't have to follow title n then since it's we have our own state law is that the no what I'm saying is that we have a state law that is the basis of the gender policy that we have in place predates that Title Nine changes or the ones that are being debated um question Dr schaer we will be directed to change policy by
097our legal team correct they're the ones who will analyze uh this new Supreme Court uh decision Etc or any other change is they're the ones who will tell us if we are in compliance is that correct that's correct so we are um currently Consulting with our legal team uh to evaluate um um changes um we Ser any any proposals uh certainly uh that would impact our current AC policies we would bring forward to the board um as proposed changes so um those may be forthcoming um at this time we're considering exhibits not policy um but we are um working closely with our uh legal team to evaluate um currently some holding State C thank you okay I will take a motion to approve second reading EC AC E5 so second St Laur would you call
098the RO St boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy dor hi Don Kirk hi barbert Cruz hi Alexander Lon yes your r [Music] no okay thank you very much 6.4 the consider resolution calling on Election on November 5 initiative okay I'm I'm wondering okay thank you Madame President Dr schaer members of the board I'm Gordon Jones Chief Financial Officer for Thompson School District um this agenda item in front of the board tonight is um for consideration of approval for a uh um potential um Bond initiative uh on the November 5th 2024 ballot this is uh information that was provided to the board at the last study session as well as a a a significant amount of work by Master planning committee staff a variety of people that have uh put this um uh the the the
099work in on this to identify potential needs of the district I will point out that from the study session that we had two weeks ago when this was presented um embedded in the resolution is the actual ballot Lang anguage and there were uh slight changes to that language um the two items that I will point out um are in the bond question U the language to be monitored by a citizen's oversight committee has been added and in the bullet points um following that um there was a grammatical issue of adding the uh in to those verbs to turn them into an action verb um it flows more grammatically correct with those changes um nothing else has changed from what was presented to the board at the last study [Music] session Amy do you have anything
100no thank you okay Denise um on on the bond I know that there's been a lot of work put into this and and it is needed my concern my concern and my thoughts that I've had the last few days is I'm not certain that this is the right time because there are so many people who can't afford even to go to Walmart and buy their groceries and at the same time now the city of Loveland is going to put on the ballot a 1% tax increase I I just I am I just don't believe that this is the right time given the economic conditions for so many of our taxpayers who are struggling I know that this is needed but I I just I don't feel comfortable asking them to to give more money that
101they already can even give for themselves to provide food for their kids and family okay comment I you know I I think that the fact that this a Ved voters to make that decision is really important um especially since U all the messages that I've gotten today around um the actually all week on the beginning of the school year has been around the things that we have on our backlog um and um there's some major impacts that that um it has that are budget related um the due diligence has been done by Master planning committee now for okay yeah um you know and uh the staff time that's been put into making sure that that we really ran this through its PES to to make sure that we were um asking for something that was
102reasonable and um not overshooting the moon I think that this is a package that does that um we do have some of the lowest taxes um in the nation in our area and I know that that is a small consolation when people are paying their bills and at the same time um you know education is is a critical component of living in a community and um we have in our community had historically under um had not approved some of these in the past and that has left us with the backlog that we've had and we've done a tremendous job of maximizing the best grants by the way I bring those up because that's the other thing that people immediately ask when they say why don't we already have air conditioning because the because um the
103marijuana money only Huns a portion of all the needs in the state we have been more successful than any school district in chaining those best grants um I'm amazed with what our district has done to extend and expand on that who' been amazing stewards and I'm um I think that putting the trust in the district to vote on this um as an individual but then on the ballot you guys have proven that you've done your due diligence so I think that we should putting it in front of people to make their own decision about whether they want to support our schools or not because we have a lot of people telling us that they we need the things that are on our list St you said you had something you wanted to add yes while
104Don was was speaking I did think of something else uh as most of you probably know the community was surveyed about uh a variety of issues related to the bond issue and some other things and the amount of $220 million which is the amount that's suggested by this potential bond issue uh received the highest number of votes for lack of a better ter am I right Todd 220 million was was the one that received the the most support from the community so I think we need to honor uh the wishes of those who com who completed the survey um yeah I just feel that um we went on quite a dry spell years ago and our schools were neglected terribly and I think that we were able to do a lot with our last one
105and we are we focused on doing that but it doesn't stop there repairing buildings never stops there's constantly work that needs to be done it touches every school in our district and we are overcrowded in birthed so we know we have to address that if we wait and think oh we'll try it another time it's not going to get any better it's just going to be harder and harder so I told 100% support this so any other comments I just the you know continuing to defer maintenance only is going to increase the cost of what it takes to add on buildings or to repair these units and as our students have sat for the first week and a half you know heat in heat and coming home red-faced and exhausted you know we have buildings
106that have air conditioning we have buildings that have air conditioning but it doesn't work um and then we have buildings that have no air conditioning and that's a really inequitable um learning space for our kids um and I think that in order to give everyone a good education we should put it before the voters and we keep hearing from them that you know the RH line and all these other next door and um everyone's up in arms but without there being new air conditioning let's give them a chance to vote on it um because our kids and mine came home and fell asleep was just wiped out and I know for those of you who have kids in the audience that don't have access to air conditioning it's a long day to sit at some
107and how much can they actually learn when they just wored about when I get a drink of water Amy I thought I asked her maybe Amy do you have any comment on the um you know I would just like to Echo um let's do and Denise and Dom said um you know we put this out there for the voters um when we surveyed the community we have done due diligence um you know I feel confident that um the voter like what said the voters need the opportunity um to decide and yes um we hear um about the the dangers of the heat for our student staff um you know and we want to be a um you know destination of the school district and um keeping maintenance and um repair and good employees I me
108that that does cost money um but again I think that we need to um give our voters the opportunity um to decide to learn more about what we are proposing um I feel that we have done um due diligence we you know have had robust study sessions and um you know we're very well informed about this and um I think it's only wise that you know we put this to the voters um um and of course you know we've got the guard rails of the NC and so yeah that's thank you thank you I just wanted to F so the survey that was s up I think we had correct me T I think we had 3500 responses or somewhere around there and so I think that's important I also know that bonds are these
109elections cost us money in December we had a chance to give back to the community and we could have lowered the Mills slightly which would have gone a long ways and I may not want to hear this but there are still a lot of angry voters about the UR vote to divert tax monies to senta South and I just still believe that this may not be the right time that maybe next year when hopefully the economy improves that that would be a better time I just don't know that citizens and they want it and I want it but I don't think they have the money ma Madam president if I may um um board member rum Feld um just a clarification on the urra um situation for the district the uh M the memorandum of
110understanding that's in place um there are dollars that were pledged from the district as part of the school Finance act that are backfilled by the state under the C current and the um recently passed legislation um to backfill whatever is not collected locally is is um backfilled by the state there's specific language in that agreement that says anything for any future adoption of bonds or any M Levy assessment that might be put in place um has no um no diversion to the the urra so appreciate the opportunity to respond to that you are correct I just think the voters they don't see it the same way so I just that's all I have to say I understand I'm going to take a motion please to approve the resolution calling an election on November 5th 2024
111for the bond initiative so moved second from the duo down here Don and us to I don't know what was that I don't know where that came I've been hearing it somewhere along the way evening um Laur I think you can call the RO okay Stu boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Barbara Cruz hi Alexander leson ncy rfel no the motion carries 5 to one 6.5 is consideration of resolution calling an election on November 5 2024 for the debt free schools initiative thank you madam president uh may I make one correction to an earlier comment I made 10 minutes ago perhaps the sentence that has been added um I said it was added to the language that uh to be monitored by a citizen's oversight Committee in both the bond
112and the um potential um debt-free schools Mill Levy was in the original ballot language that the board saw last week it was moved in that language to move it higher in the ballot question to become a more put it in a more prominent position so my apologies for the misstatement there for the debt-free schools mil Levy um this is a separate part of Statute separate from the mil Levy overrides that are authorized within Colorado State Statute um this um again was presented to the board um um last week in or two weeks ago in the study session and um other times leading up to that um no changes in this ballot language that's embedded in the resolution other than the movement of that statement to be um uh monitored by the citizens oversight committee moved
113higher in the ballot question to um be able to have a more prominent place that's the only adjustment that was made to this particular resolution or ballot language anybody want to start okay I have a comment of course so if someone else would go first um so on the this Levy I understand that this debt free school no Levy it's it's different from the way the normal Levy works and so I think it's important for the voters to understand that I also think that it's important to recognize that because it is so new and it is asking the voters to believe that we're going to put this money into a safe box and I my own personal opinion is that would be an easier sell along the way we had established a budget advisory committee
114and spent time deciding our budget spending priorities every year which this board has not been open-minded to and so for that I just think again timing is everything I think this might do better next year because of the economic conditions and I think if been that same time that this next year if we put in place those things I do believe that that would help with the voters understand and have more clarity about where how we're setting on priorities and where the money is being spent any further comments yeah actually I would I would like to comment on that um we are the largest employer in the city and um when we think about the economy our responsibility to helping our local economy has many layers um and when we pay our people well it
115helps our economy and that means that our our community needs to support our Educators in order for us to do that and it's very symbiotic in the way that it's approached and so um I I just think that you know it strikes me that every year that you go with a less than ideal raise impacts you for the entire rest of your tenure and we've had people who are working in this District who went many years without raises in fact many times they had to give back in the in the past before any of us were here and um that's a debt that our community can't repay even if we do this and so the least we can do is to is to support our Educators with our words and our needs and um so
116I realized that I'm pushing for this a little harder than too um but I do also feel really passionately about if I want to home my local economy I've got to have a role inure responsible for that I take it very seriously that we're major employers um and that this that our decisions impact people's livelihoods and um there's a lot that we this is a tip in the bucket to what we owe Educators um and um on top of that I I also want to point out that like this entire initiative um is made possible because of new legislation which allows us to do this in a different way which I thought was very exciting um and I'm actually frankly quite shocked at the way that this evening's debate has happened um because this was
117somebody somebody was a huge Champion with this who's now crappy all over it stop there okay while Don was talking I took out my copy of the uh the ballot language of death free schools and in addition to um the revenue generated going to staff compensation and benefits um the various parts the money that's raised also goes to recurring Capital maintenance and repair needs technology enhancements providing for Safety and Security of students and staff so yes uh compensation benefits is a part of it and certainly an important part of it but this particular um type of Mill Levy um benefits and affects more than just Camp compensation and benefits and I just read you the list so I just wanted to clarify I understand that it frees up portions of our budget that are ear
118marked towards construction technology and maintenance maintenance and maintenance is our big issue that uh we need to help cover for those unexpected maintenance issues that we have that are surprises like we all have in our houses and so this is a way to um have that support that we need for it but if if we don't need it it's freeing up money that can go towards um and such so it's am I am I correct in understanding that that is correct and the dollars would uh remain in that dedicated fund um statute calls for these dollars to go into a separate dedicated fund and if they're not expended in one year it doesn't mean they go to something else they're available for that those purposes that the board has just mentioned this evening um in
119future years as well well okay and Amy Amy you know I just wanted to say that you know these this potential Bond and this potential Mill um are both probably good ways to support kids um getting to read at the third grade level like um our boardwood is supported above so yep um thank you very much Gordon for all of your work on this again I think the board has done um excellent work um in you know looking at this um from all angles and um in my opinion it you know yeah these are just good ways to uh help ensure that our kids have a good physical environment good learning environment to help them uh get to that third grade reading level thank you okay I'm going to take a motion to approve the
120resolution fing on Election on November 5 2024 for the debt free schools initiative so second do and then Dawn lle would you please call the rooll St boy hi Denise Chapman hi Amy Doran hi Don Kirk hi Harbor Cruz hi Alexander Lon Nancy reld no passes 5 to one all right do we need a little teeny break or are we okay to keep going okay we need to get up and move I'm sorry you guys had a chance to get up a couple times we need to get up and mo for we'll be back e e e and our first item on our discussion items will be 7.1 Alexander Mountain fire update believe that's it is good evening M president and Board of Education Dr schaer Todd pone assistant superintendent of operations uh tonight we'll
121just do a brief introduct or update on the Alexander fire we talked about this last time in our study session um but to line with strive 2025 to keep all our facilities safe and welcoming um before I get into some of the things there is a staff member here I'd like to U publicly thank and it is Jess Arnold she's our environmental manager so to go through some of the pieces that we did here um she really took that to heart and invested in the safe um invested in Big T to make sure what everything we did was safe for our staff students and community in saying that the next us thanks I'd like to give is to the Big T staff it's there's there's a little angst when you're getting ready to start school
122and you can't get in your building so just want to acknowledge uh the leadership in the building um and all the staff because real quick they had to Pivot and then pivot back to get their classroom ready over the weekend um to then start school but what we did is uh obviously the fire now it's near 100% contained they're just continuing to monitor uh we did a deep clean of the building so when I say deep clean literally um all the pieces and parts in the building including air ducts um were cleaned because there was pretty significant smoke smell and even some debris um from the fire um because of the hard work of staff and the contractors to be hired the uh Big T staff was actually able to get in there early so
123they were able to get in there over the weekend um before school started to then get their classroom set up so that did uh lower and help some of their angst um the other piece we did was look at all the exterior of the building make sure it was clean and appropriate for kids to then go um and then ultimately it was a pretty smooth start to the start of school so all the backend work to make it happen uh staff kids showed up and it was a pretty successful launch so just want to provide a um you know update on that and then the communication that we did um between the school community and then just on the district level to keep everyone informed of what we were doing and then the progress um
124was also ongoing so just a quick update on where it is and what we've been doing and what we did do to uh get the kids in the building probably least a place I don't know for sure so i' have to get I have double check on that yeah okay I just was curious yeah I mean it's so right there yes anybody else have any questions comments just a quick question am I correct that neither Big T nor any of the of our other schools actually sustained any damage from the fire uh I mean there was obviously the soot and some of the effects of the fire that affected Big T but was there Act was there any kind of permanent damage to any of the schools no there was not it's just the smoke
125damage which is really the damage but no no physical damage to anything thank you right oh yeah I figured he was gonna bring Kristen up I saw water quality heal day 7.2 yes thanks again Madam president I am going to invite Chris and btig our director of operations to uh review our um lead and drinking water testing update that we've previously reviewed with the board good evening Madame President members of the board Dr Schaefer I'm Kristen btig director of operations pleased to be here tonight to talk about about a lead and drinking water testing update so this connects closely with strive 2025 of course ensuring our facilities are safe um so this update that we'll be providing today just um talks about making sure that our drinking water is safe and meets the standard set
126forth by the state so this may be a familiar topic um we presented on this a few years ago after voluntary sampling that we did we pursued a a grant through the Colorado Department of Public Health and environment in 2017 and 2019 to test all of our drinking water fixtures and bring those within and below our federal standard um we partnered with the city of Loveland water department as well as the um Colorado State University Department of Civil and environmental engineering um to test all of those fixtures that was um 2,645 samples were collected during that time frame um we had some of those that were elevated so while that Grant did Cover the testing piece um we did cover those remediation Co um costs to make sure that our drinking water was safe for
127our staff students um and families and 3.9% of those fixtures did require remediation at that time since then there has been legislation um to require um schools to test their water in the state of Colorado so I do want to acknowledge also J is the Jess Arnold show um for her efforts not only in that voluntary sampling and Remediation pro project but also in the mandatory sampling so I'm going to bring her up here um to talk a little bit more about the testing that has been completed over the last couple of years so Jess Arnold is our environmental health and safety manager for the district Madam president Dr Schaefer and members of the board thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on lead testing and Remediation in the Thompson School District the
128test and fix yes we are on the right Slide the test and fix program was created to provide clean water in schools and child care facilities this program was signed into law by governor polus in June of 2022 this made sampling in this made sampling for lead and drinking water mandatory across Colorado this law also set a standard of five parts per billion as the acceptable lead level of lead in drinking water all sample results are published on the state's test and fix database um so the state launched a platform for All sample information to be accessed and I'll show that uh website here in just a little bit so this is all public information and it is accessible for anyone to review I also want to highlight that the Colorado Department of Public Health
129and environment paid for the lab analysis and also reimbursed for any remediation actions next slide please so again the Action level for lead and drinking water in Colorado is more stringent than the federal level which is 15 parts per billion sampling for lead and drinking water was conducted in a phased approach so we started with the elementary schools and then mve to Middle Schools all sampling was completed by May of 2024 again starting with our elear is working towards the middle school so we achieved the we're ahead of the state's deadline of November 2024 to have all sampling completed all samples were analyzed as I mentioned earlier by the Colorado Department of Public Health and environment at their water quality lab and in summary we tested a total of 642 fix 545 of which fell
130below the state standard of five parts per billion and 97 fixtures were above that threshold which required remediation actions next slide just to talk through the actions that were taken and what that process looked like so when um we received results we provided those results uh with the lead testing um levels basically where our fixtures stood we provided all that information to the school the schools fixtures were then taken out of service or they were signed for handwashing only until we can complete the remediation actions School administration notified parents and staff of those test results and then maintenance went to each location to review the fixtures make a determination of what the best remediation action would be um some examples of those decisions include an installing point of use filters uh taking the fixture out
131of use if it was a low use fixture or um changing up the faucets supply lines solders those potential sources of lead once the remediation actions were complete confirmation sampling was done to ensure that those fixtures actually were safe for use and met the state standard to dat all remediation work has been completed at our elementary schools and we are working through the remediation actions at the middle schools uh our Focus right now is on priority of use next slide and then I just wanted to provide a summary of fixtures that required remediation so these are our 97 fixtures a breakdown of our 97 fixtures um the fixtures requiring remediation included classroom sinks drinking fountains Health office sinks kitchen kettles kitchen dishwashing sinks and produce sinks so it really was quite a bit of it
132was robust sampling about 58% of those fixtures requiring remediation were classroom faucets and approximately 30% of the fixtures were kitchen faucets that were used for dishwashing production of food or washing produce next slide so I mentioned this earlier this is the test and fix water for kids uh dashboard that is accessible by just simply Googling test and fix and you can from there you select by District or you can fa you can select the facility name so if you had a certain location that you were interested in finding information or sampling data for this is true for all samples across the state of Colorado so there's a lot of information here um and you can review the sample details slide so in uh conclusion I just wanted to provide some acknowledgements of folks that Partners
133Community Partners that we've worked with um Dr Laura Leonard and the the lab the water control quality team at the lab the state lab they were so valuable such a good partnership there and helping us not only um assess the samples but then also work through the reimbursement process um also the facilities Department team who performed the physical remediation work our district plumbers I cannot say I cannot show my appreciation for all that they've done and the time that they've spent um to make our our water supply safer and then all of our building leadership who assisted in communication to families and uh staff with those results any questions you mentioned Elementary Middle School were high schools included the state has not sent an update requiring high schools I think that's um it it'll be
134much more we would anticipate that it's coming but it's going to be much more involved just with the amount of samples so right now the focus for the legislation is elementaries and middle schools do we have plans to proactively do the high schools by chance I could loop back with you on that we have't allocated just that off the top of my head so it's for later to think about for sure and I can just speak to that as well um so we did did sample them through the voluntary um grant program and we anticipate that the state will be releasing that as well so yes that is in the plans to to test the rest of our facilities as well did the city of Loveland water department also test the water in birth it
135because I didn't see any mention in the slides how the water at the birth of schools was tested so that would have fallen under the state's sampling as well so State tested the water and birth correct at our birthed locations at our birthed schools those samples would have been submitted to the state as well all right and you have reports back from the state about the water testing in berid as well as in Loveland um we did have remediation actions required at iy Stockwell and Turner Middle School and that leads me to my next question so the remediated fixtures then are throughout the district yes elementaries at this point and middle schools or the remediation numbers that you gave were really just for the elementary schools which which was it so so we had samples
136that the state accepted some of our prior data and those samples that were fell below the federal level the 15 and didn't meet the state standard there's a there was a group of samples that we recollected and that happened across the district every location that didn't meet the state standard was retested did I answer that question um kind of in regard to the fixtures themselves the fixtures were replaced uh in District elementary schools only at this point I'm sorry yes and then they'll be down the road as needed in the middle schools and then perhaps in the high schools if that's ever yes we're working through the middle schools right now the remediation thank you yes just a chime in on that one as well um so pictures are are turned off they're they're not
137used until that remediation can take place um so in Middle School some have been remediated um and others were waiting on those pictures to come in questions any any questions no okay thank you thank you to see you all right uh 7.3 is the summer school update for our summer Scholars Madam president members of the board Dr schaer Melissa Schneider uh assistant superintendent of learning Services I'm still getting used to that title change um with me I have Tiffany Jones who is our director of curriculum and learning design and instructional design rather and she has uh led a great effort this summer on summer school wanted to provide uh you with an update as you might recall this summer school was provided to our students free of charge uh we made some changes since last
138year to have a more academically focused summer school but still have it be fun and so Tiffany's going to share with us uh some of the outcomes and some of the pictures that we had we took as we walked through schools this summer Madame President Dr schaer members the board Tiffany Jones director of curriculum and learning design so I have an exciting update about our summer Scholars Program this year that we kicked off off and uh as you see here these are connections to strive 2025 and this of course is our guiding question so how did we create a free of charge summer option that was structured academically and enriching for our students here in Thompson so this is just a reminder of what was summer Scholars we wanted to make sure that our Focus
139was using our uh School District provided curriculum we used our new Envision in intervention kits and then we wanted to make sure that students also had that traditional summer experience through enrichment opportunities to really stretch their thinking and still enjoy School in the summer so we have for you some photos from our kindergarten through fifth program here um especially wanted to give a positive shout out to our fire department um our Police Department our K9 unit our EMS and then our Loveland poet laurate also came and presented to all of our um K through 5 students and then we also had our caring K9 so just a few photos for you and a brief reminder of our schedule we did have a 4-Hour program but a good balance of academics and enrichment so just to
140refresh your memory and then I wanted to highlight our structure so we actually had about 600 uh K through five students this summer we had five locations Transportation definitely came through and supported our program and then we did a 3- week session that was um hosted for four days a week here are the dates and then we wanted to make sure we um told everybody that we did provide breakfast and lunch and that it was free to our families so when we think about our staffing I just want to make sure that we highlight as we consider um making sure all of our students are at grade level at the end of third grade hiring our site coordinators early enough on to provide our coordinators the data to ensure that we were inviting families um
141during that conference time those spring conferences we were able to Target and identify students that we really wanted to strongly um encourage that they attended while they were at their conferences so we parents were well informed about what summer Scholars was going to be so it was very very helpful to have um those coordinators hired we also staffed about 6 to 12 licensed teachers at each of our site and then we had that lead coordinator that really handled the logistics the parent communication um all of the training registration and then of course our school health office Aid and then we also provided Paras to support those other um duties that a per would need to support so when we closed out our uh summer Scholars Program many of you joined for our presentations of learning
142these are just a few pictures to um capture what students learned it was different at every site how they uh chose to present their learning but it was really exciting exciting to hear what students were learning over those three weeks so as always we wanted to ask our students for feedback and they were able to write their feedback to us because of course we wanted to take student feedback for next year which will now be this year and hear what did they appreciate but also what would they do differently in the upcoming years and so we have a few pieces of feedback from our students here some of them loved that it was fun which is always a positive um but they also loved their enrichment activities and then on the next slide you will
143see exactly um a few quotes that they really appreciated learning together which is a huge um success for me and I appreciated the student gave it a four out of five um but also had evidence there provided of why they thought it was a four out of five so great success um hearing from our students here we've got our middle school program 6th through 8th a few pictures capturing what our middle schoolers did similar to refresh your memory here's our schedule and then our structure is uh we hosted this year at all of our Middle School sites we had about 70 students and so again similar to Elementary we um transported our students breakfast and lunch was provided and of course this one just like Elementary was free of cost as well so Staffing again
144was um similar but different in the sense that we had three licensed teachers um the structure looked different but we also wanted to make sure that um we provided the enrichment opportunities we had a lead coordinator that handled that Logistics and trainings communication with parents and then of course a showa um and then one par professional at all of our Middle School sites so this captures some of our presentations of learning for our middle schoolers and then we had students write their feedback as well for middle school so you will see in their feedback they appreciated learning more about summaries and language arts um the students appreciated the math because it goes hand inand with what they're learning throughout the year and we even used Zell which is our um program and they were learning
145personality words so they could start digging in some job opportunities so things that went really well we started marketing through Mike housman's team really early on we also were able to have parents register through Infinite Campus and I want to point out the beauty of that um was that we are now able to track a student's data because they're rostered in Infinite Campus that now I can compare their end of year I ready score from last year to their beginning of I ready score this year and so now we have a cohort about 700 students that now we're able to really progress Monitor and see what was that return on that investment which I know is huge so we also were able to do attendance we were able to make those calls um and then
146really our teachers all did progress monitoring from the beginning of our 3-week program to the end of our 3-week program so not only did we ask feedback from our students we asked from our families we um had really positive feedback from our families they appre appreciated that it was a good balance between academic and enrichment um they appreciated that we offered something for them for their students over the summer and it was really great that uh we were able to review some of that content so it uh the students didn't forget over the summer we also asked our staff for feedback because we wanted to hear from them as well so here are just a few quotes about our or feedback from our staff and as we consider what really needs to stay the same
147or what we would suggest staying the same we want to make sure that all of these items um that we continue to be successful and it's again using that TSD provided curriculum we ran summer Scholars just like school we did emergency drills we did a fire drill we did a presentation of learning we did communication to our families to make sure they knew each week what our theme was and um what was going on in the classroom of course we wanted to gather that data and then of course we wanted to make sure that we have that budget for Staffing so we can keep um our staff retained for the summer Scholars Program so what we learned is my way of also including our feedback but making sure that we had some opportunities for growth
148this year and so when we think about how are we going to provide a day-to-day lesson for our program we hired some staff that either went for Middle School or high school down to elementary school our staff isn't all trained in science of reading and so our own teachers gave us really good feedback on can you provide the lesson plans and that way it is really tight across all of our programs and then they get to put their teacher finesse on top of our lesson plans and that came directly from them the other piece is they wanted consistent themes and enrichment opportunities that we scheduled on our team to ensure that everybody had the same opportunities to see the k9's to see the the fire department um but that we would schedule that so it's
149not a barrier of plain phone tag and that our students in elementary school not everybody took home a device and so we need to make sure we're providing them with that workbook opportunity as well um and so we've got a great balance there we really want to partner with its transportation and um ESS earlier because of course a lot of this communication is happening in May and we all know what may brings it's that kind of end of the year um busy time and so we want to part with partner with them earlier on starting in about February so we can get this rolling and then that way everything is handled and then we can start um closing out the school year we also want to make sure that we do something different with middle
150school I'm not sure what that is yet um but we want to want to take some time to really meet with our kids and hear what would entice them to come to Summer Scholars um or give us feedback on why you're not coming and so the other piece that we had here that we learned is that having a floating counselor at any given moment was really a great success for us so as we think about how we're preparing for next year I am scheduled to go and do uh Middle School listening sessions which with each of our middle schools and our k8s to start picking our kids brain on what happened why aren't you coming um again how can we get you there and what can we provide we're going to start working with operations
151early on so we can review our sites for next year so we can identify those sites in order to start um getting that planning started we already have a meeting set up with boys and girls club in YMCA because we really try to make a partnership of we're at the same sites they are so the families can have a student at summer Scholars and then they go right into the afternoon program with either boys and girls in YMCA we'd really like to hire our leads and so that way we um are also hiring somebody to to get ahead of the lesson plans and then we want to make sure that we are developing a a tight marketing timeline to give parents information parents gave us some feedback that they really do want to know by
152February what our summer Scholars plan would be because they're already scheduling their summer programs by February and then of course we want to make sure that um we listen to the teachers we actually sent out a personal survey to every teacher who has a summer scholar student in their class right now to see if they notice a difference of those students in their classroom when compared to somebody who didn't attend summer Scholars and so we're going to go through those surveys went out and so as soon as we get them back we want to go through and see what feedback they give us what questions do you have any questions no thank you okay Denise I just like to see that data when it becomes available I think it'll be very interesting yeah I'm same
153as Denise I actually wrote the note down be really interested to see the end of year I ready and then the new fall I ready that'll be good just a couple of things Tiffany um I'm very impressed with the advanced thinking that you're doing for next year preparing for what summer Scholars will look like next year uh thank you for answering some of the questions that I submitted one question question I submitted and and perhaps the answer to the question is embedded in two or three of the slides but the comments that I read from uh student and family were all positive one staff memb was not necessarily negative but was perhaps a concern uh I'm curious did you receive any comments that were concerning from either students or family or other comments from staff
154and if so what did you do about them in other words are they embedded in some of the slides in in terms of what you talked about and if not how did you handle um people of whatever age were not completely pleased with some aspects of the program does that make sense it does so we actually only had one survey that had a concern it was around the meals and so our birth at school because our sites are different based on uh free and reduce that's how our summer programs receive the free meals our birthed um Elementry is not qualify for free and reduced meals however the families still had breakfast and lunch but the only comment we had was how do we make it the same meal that the other sites had because of
155course families were chatting and we've already been working with Lisa Kendall on what that might look like if we um continue to have a site that does not qualify for free and reduced and so we've got got a pretty good pulse on how we can still offer them the same meals at all sites and then just one other comment about kids did you have any concerning comments from kids no no job this is such an important program is take summer school in a very different direction than it has gone before so Kudos and hats off to you and your team for what appears to be a really successful Venture going Cordon did you have a comment the you are read my mind thank you Madame President uh um to just U peyback on what Tiffany
156replied um regarding the meals just to be clear the summer program is the summer food program it's not the free and reduced meal or the uh hsma healthy School meals for all program so there's different requirements and birthed um the birth at area did not qualify for that program so it was um um arranged and taken care of a different way so I just wanted to make sure there was that clarification that birth it is certainly included in the hsma healthy School meals for all program summer food is a different program didn't qualify because that's correct they look they consolidate schools or look can look at Geographic areas and in Loveland we were able to group group our schools accordingly so they did qualify lovelin did not so that's why there were different meals that
157uh were served there thank [Music] you I'll just say that I visited the what did you call it the in the P yeah and um I could only get to the one at LinkedIn but it was fun and so engaging and see how motivated and I was amazed at how many parents were able to be there as well for that so it's pretty cool yeah I'll chime in on that I went to the one that Turner and it was excellent thank you very all right 7.3 I think we have back again it's the summer field finally property update yes thank you good M president of Board of Education Dr Schaefer yes this is a good news update um and really when we go when we look at stri 2025 and the alignment in audit of
158assets this allowed us to reinvest into conball and we've all seen what um impact that's had there but you know this 4.2 really takes into account um how this work um really impacted a lot of students but yes to fast forward this is a good new story um this has been a project almost uh three years to the date to work through um I will not go into details of how and what um took place over the 3 years but nonetheless um last Monday we did close on the uh land uh transferred ownership to the developer and they're working now with the city to finalize their process to ultimately develop homes there so the plan for the development is between our parcel and the parcel to the South is about 1100 homes um that will
159be developed there on that piece of property so um we were very um excited between myself and uh Mr Jones here to see those funds go in the bank and then um yeah the expenditures coming have already been accounted for out of that so just want to provide an update to the board and community that uh that project has been complete and we're wrapped up and it's sealed it was yes all right any question just and if I recall the proceeds from this that was used that went towards the Peak View it did so yeah yeah we put that towards the Peak View budget yes um did Amy have anything I don't want to forget her no thank you um are you part of this next one no okay okay um 7.5 is the Career
160Technical education update I just think of you as when I see pce the building all right Melissa okay thank you Madame President members of the board Dr Schaefer tonight we have um our last presentation of the night is an update on our Career and Technical education programming which is very exciting we have Andy Stevens here with us our director of CTE he is going to share with you um some work of the vision and Mission committee as well as some future thoughts for CTE Madame President Dr Schaefer member of the board good evening uh it is my pleasure this evening to be here with you to share uh an update about all of our CTE programming uh that is that is currently happening as well as what we're excited for uh in the future to
161come uh as we think about CTE and Thompson School District we make a connection with strive 2025 and focus area number one student achievement where we recognize that Career and Technical education is committed to student achievement by helping students prepare for both career and college readiness and life beyond the walls of the schoolhouse via Innovative Pathways and academic Choice um Dr Schneider mentioned that uh I formed a task force which I'll share a little bit more about with you in a minute but the main uh role of that task force was to create a new CTE mission and vision for our district and after uh meetings and and uh great work uh our new CTE mission is that Thompson School District will Empower students with Dynamic evolving skills that link both education and opportunity and
162our mission is that Thompson School District CTE will create accessible pathways through experiential learning collaboration and equipping students with the skills necessary again for both career and college readiness um when we talk about Career and Technical Education in Thompson School District it really is a three-legged approach so we focus on CTE curriculum and programming we look at the concurrent enrollment opportunities that we offer to all of our students and then also those work-based learning experiences that are provided K12 to all of our students in the system um so if we zoom out to 30,000 ft and look at the programming that we're currently offering we have over 40 credentialed CTE teachers in the district and those are both in middle and high school we have eight different career and student technical organizations which are organizations
163like Deca fbl FCCLA skills USA um with 21 total chapters in The District and I'm excited to announce this year we'll be adding a new so we'll have nine after this year uh as we look at HOSA which is for uh health science students uh some some uh current projects we're working on in CTE programming uh the EMT pathway which I'll provide more details about in a few minutes we have 21 students uh currently enrolled in the future educator pathway uh which is a district pathway at level and high uh High School of Business is underway also at level and high for the 25 26 school year and then we continue to grow our postsecondary Partnerships so for many years as and Front Range were our primary postsecondary Partners but we're looking to expand those
164opportunities for our students with concurrent enrollment Beyond uh two-year Partners to now also investigate four-year opportunities as well um when we think about uh who's taking our programming who are the students that are enrolling in all of these different opportunities that we offer you can see the total enrollment numbers in this table uh the one thing that I that I do want to point out as a stated goal for me and my team this year is addressing the disparities we see in what we consider non-traditional gender enrollment so if you look at construction trades of the 292 students enrolled only 61 identify as a female how are we tackling that disparity to get our female students more involved in skilled trades how are we getting more female students engaged in advanced manufacturing uh because we
165know those types of jobs are driving our local economy um so that is a stated goal for me and my team this year to really tackle that that uh enrollment disparity in addition to the overall enrollment in our CTE programs we also have Laur Le if you'll go to the next one for me thank you we also have what are called CP and CP is a program at the state level where students earn industry certifications as well as advanced work-based learning opportunities that are classified as pre-apprenticeship uh or apprenticeship level work-based learning and so this table here just provides a quick overview of the number of students at each of our high schools that participated in those tier one CP opportunities so again either in Industry certification or in a pre-apprenticeship or an parip another
166stated goal of my team in addition to the enrollment disparity is to create opportunities at the end of every program in our district where students have the opportunity to earn either an industry certification or complete in a tier one work-based learning opportunity so that these numbers can double and triple in size uh speaking of work-based learning um some of the the highlights for of our work-based learning experiences this past year for our middle school learners uh we do what's called get into the guts of healthc care and that's in partnership with our uh UC Health and Banner Health Partners where uh students go to Front Range Community College and they get to tour the Health Sciences Building at Front Range which if you've never been is a beautiful facility and then they also get to
167do uh basically a a like a career tour of different Medical uh careers in the region um and then we also every year host every eighth grader in the district at TCC prior uh we're moving it this year to October to capture those students before high school registration but it's really a great opportunity for our eighth graders to learn okay I've dabbled in CTE in middle school now what do I get to do when I go to High School uh and so that event has been very successful at the high school level when we think about work based learning uh I mentioned our our paid opportunities in internships and apprenticeships uh I've had the opportunity to present to you before about our it apprentices and the awesome program that that is that continues to grow
168as well and then we also have opportunities where students are able to go to events like construction con which is out at the ranch and it's a regional event where you know 80 to 100 skilled trades employers are all in the big 4 Hall and students are able to interact with those skilled trades employers uh they get to drive a backhoe and they get to practice welding and they get to do all these really cool Hands-On uh experiences in this kind of one-day field trip um we also every year host a work-based learning Fair uh where students get to come and larer County comes and puts on resume workshops they help students get their resume ready and then they can turn right around and walk out to the fair because we have employers there that
169are hiring for summer work uh lifeguarding is always very popular uh and so that's another great opportunity for our students when we think about concurrent enrollment uh again concurrent enrollment is the opportunity for high school students to earn college credit while currently enrolled in high school and I always love to you know shout this from the rooftop the credit is free it does not cost the students a single penny and so uh what I wanted to present tonight to the board was the trend in how much our students are accessing these opportunities you can see Ascent numbers in 2122 we had 16 students and you'll remember that Ascent is that fifth year program where students delay graduation a year and they essentially get a free year of college at a postsecondary institution uh this year
170uh last year I'm sorry we had 65 and for the 2425 school year that number is closer to 80 so another year of of substantial growth when we think about number of total credits earned you can see that that number is almost doubling year over-year which again is a fantastic uh thing because ultimately we're we're providing Advanced learning opportunities and saving our families money which is which is great so I mentioned my uh task force that I formed uh in the spring and the work that we did was to create that vision mission and guiding principles for Career and Technical Education in Thompson School District I'm excited to share that that task force is going to continue to help us continue to craft and mold what CTE in Thompson School District is going to look
171like um the task force is is made up of internal and external stakeholders staff building administrators obviously our industry partners and most importantly students uh will be added this year so that their voice is heard and recognized our big project right now is our EMT pathway uh you may recall uh that Thompson School District was awarded $2 million uh from larer County and from our partners at Bohemian and that $2 million was part of a larger $4 million uh Grant uh and donation and so we are using our $2 million to expand the physical infrastructure at TCC to launch an EMT pathway um and I'm not sure Laur if you can click on that link that's in there I was just going to show the designs very quickly okay no problem if you can picture
172the TCC we're going to add the 2100 Square fet directly to the north of the existing building so it's basically going to be flush with the Health Sciences room and it'll just be a nice Square 2100 square feet um the the room will be designed for flexible instruction so it will have space for demonstrations it will have a large kind of learning platform so we can do demonstrations students can interact if we need to have them practicing loading a gurnie or you know draw blood pressures on a dummy we'll have plenty of of space to do that but I'm also excited because it's going to have a riser effect and so it will be kind of that stadium seating so that it it'll have that kind of college lecture hall feel uh which I just
173think kind of gives Credence to the program um oh here it is so you can see this is kind of the bird's eyee view uh from above uh looking East is kind of the top of the of the monitor there so you can see the the we'll have have four rows of 10 seats those will be fixed to the risers and then this last row of eight will be flexible seating so if we don't need the the 48 seats we can move those eight to give us a a bigger learning space but if we need the eight then we still have about 1,000 square ft for lecture there you can see we have storage and then we're also excited because we'll be working on putting an actual ambulance simul later in the room for students
174to be able to actually practice um so this is obviously very exciting um hopefully breaking ground in December uh is is the plan at this point um speak yes absolutely so um this program will be designed for uh Juniors and seniors we will utilize our partnership with ases Community College they have a public safety Institute and so we they will be receiving concurrent enrollment credit through as and we will also be leveraging our partnership with Big Thompson EMS and they will be providing uh at the end of the two-year pathway the state of Colorado requires students do a clinical experience so they have to actually get out on a bus go on rides help the current EMTs and so we'll be leveraging that partnership with Big Thompson EMS uh to do that for them like
175all of our other District Pathways students will also earn Core Credit they will earn uh those CB certifications I spoke of earlier at the end of each year so multiple uh certifications earned and then most of all and and equally important part of the the money part of the um hope when the money was given to us was that we would create opportunities to promote Regional collaboration and so we'll be working in Partnership with pter school district and Estus Park School District to provide these opportunities to their students as well and in exchange uh pter school district is opening spots in their behavioral health pathway for our students to go and access that so yeah so those that partnership has really grown as we've worked through this project together questions questions start out by saying
176thank you just what we needed to hear where we're going with all so very exciting Don you want to start I can tell you're just bursting um I'm very excited about the behavioral health I we do it ourselves sometime soon and um also really excited about looking at theity my daughter is the only female in like 40 kids in transportation right now yeah although I will say for my language but it's after 9 o' she feels like a badass because she's only a girl in there you should tell people that that should be on the post Shure um I am really excited about all of this it's it's just so fun that every time we look at this it's exciting all over again my favorite part is the way that the numbers are growing and
177what was also ringing my head is something that de said um hours ago now about what what we wish we knew as freshman parents compared to senior parents and I think CTE is probably one of the biggest places where that's true and so I'm excited that you're moving some things up the stuff for Middle School the stuff for high school I think you know every chance we get to be talking about this more is a way that we get people involved earlier and excited about it um I also think that there are so many great success stories from students that we can share I know that you know many students have shared how they're doing CTE now because they know that that's something that they're maybe passionate about even though they're not going to do
178that for a career or vice versa um and so I think talking about some of those success stories is going to be one of the ways that we really get um people to pay attention to this who haven't yet so uh very excited very glad for all of this it's just so much fun thank you yeah Don covered two or three of the things that I was going to to comment on as well so I won't repeat what she said Marley could you put the slide back up um who is taking CTE programming can we look at that again I have a question about that Andy so the numbers in the far right column are the total number not the total number of students but the total number of classes uh courses that students of
179the various high schools are taking that fit into that particular category is that correct no so that that's a good point um so the the programs are the state approved programming so for example I I'll use a business management and marketing there that third that third row So within business management and marketing there are over 15 classes that are state approved that we offer as a district so what this data tells us is that in those 15 classes in business and marketing we had 1148 total students enrolled districtwide in those 15 classes of those 1148 479 were female 669 were male sure drop down a couple of row I'm interested in education um not so much the numbers but what courses what classes do kids take that would qualify as uh preparing them for a
180career in education a CTE emphasis in education yeah great question so some of the cours work early on is all about like uh they call it teen choices so it's understanding kind of the the psychology of students working with adolescen uh the they move into some early childhood education study and then ultimately if they choose to enroll in our new future educator pathway they participate in a program called teacher Cadet and teacher Cadet is a year-long double blocked District pathway where the first semester is instructional learning methods learning pedagogy learning what it is to be a teacher and then the second semester is a field experience that is supervised by our teacher at level and high and that's really what would then move them into higher level work-based learning opportunities being potentially an apprentice or
181a classroom Aid or really starting to work in the field of education and then hopefully fingers crossed they would take advantage of the Tre program which is very similar to Ascent where you can delay graduation for up to two years and pursue your first two years of education towards an education degree and that is paid for by the district that you mentioned are housed in consumer and family studies and then they translate um into other uh uses as as the kids go through can you tell me just a couple more things about this teacher Cadet program I'm interested in that just yeah so it's it's a district yeah so it's a districtwide program uh housed at Loveland High because that's where our teacher was located who had the correct credentials and so it's open to
182any student in the district so we have 21 students just launched this fall so we're on day four I can actually Prov testimonial is a member in the schaer household that is one of those 21 students that's not Dr schaer I will tell you my daughter who aspires to be a future educator uh she is in this uh class um double blocked and um she's loving it it's a rigorous class it's an honors class um and she's eligible to earn college credit but more importantly um it's very practical so she is uh teacher very inspiring very talented level and high teacher my daughter who doesn't attend level and high uh is able is eligible to take it so she drives there um and um again she's just a week into the class um my daughter
183is very select itive in in what courses she works on with homework but she's always doing it in that class so I I Can Tell She's highly engaged so we're weekend and she's joined so just one last comment from me and congratulations on expanding a concept at least for this guy in terms of what CTE is because I tend to think of CTE as preparing kids in Realms and for careers in something other than education and I think that's terrific as a school district should we be preparing future teachers absolutely we should and that we're doing it is exciting so kudos for that thank you um you know I love the CTE program I think it's a good way to show kids that they can have other Pathways that may not always involve college but
184they can certainly make a good living at I I will be honest I was a little struck by your comment when you started talking about the disparity disparities with with um female male you know because when I I look through that it's like well you kind of have the same thing with hospitality with education fashion and so for me it's like I just think the focus should be like if that's what the kids are drawn to then we make sure that they can be successful versus trying to um call it disparity I mean not everyone's drawn to something I think it's still great that there's guys that are drawn to Fashion Design so but the program is I especially like the ENT stuff it's going be starting so with our existing programs and the new
185ones rolling up can we meet the demand for students that are interested or are we still cutting um just taking the top applicants that is a that is a challenge um hiring staff is very hard um and if I don't have enough teachers I don't have enough sections in a master schedule to meet the demand um so yes we we are having to make some hard decisions around access um to until I you know I would love to have 10 Auto teachers at Thompson Valley and get every kid in there that I can but the reality is that's just not where we are so yeah so just to extend on that um I think um positive news is obviously we have there's a lot of interest there's a lot of student interest um downside as
186Andy said is that we have more interest than we have um ability to to meet those needs um we have very talented teachers uh that are um currently working for us at the TCC as well is in our CTE programs um the challenge is that they not only have to to be uh certified to teach in our high schools they also have to be credentialed um to be able to award college credit you dual enrollment as well as credentials maybe uh to give industry industry certificates Etc um We are continuing to explore um compensation models to better attract and and recruit um individuals you know recognizing that um these are highly skilled um individuals so we're we're we're exploring um we're also explor exploring and I've charged the team with um maybe looking at evening
187Pathways uh as well as opening up maybe Pathways for our community so not just relegating it to our students but maybe there might be um adults education opportunities as well um we have a beautiful facility and I want it used all the time not just during the daylight so um part of the challenge again is just instructors right so we built it people have come we want to make sure that we have um people that are by the teach but I will tell you that Andy and his team are are doing extraordinary things I I couldn't be more proud this is an absolute point of pride of our school district um again also just recognizing that the pathways can begin in middle school and quite honestly we're exploring at the elementary level as well we
188want to illuminate for students opportunities um and you know again it's our focus on College and Career and Community Readiness um these a lot of students when they mature regulate and graduate from our programs are immediately employable um at fairly High pagents Amy do you have any um Denise actually asked my um my question about the band um but you know thank you Andy this is just really great um news to hear I love love love that we are reaching out to um Middle School students um I just think that that's you know that's a way to keep students engaged um and yeah so I just I love that um and I love everything CTE um again I really think that it's important um you know that that we sort of do shift that narrative
189about um you know it's for folks not uh pursuing College um that you know it's part uh um it it's available for every student so um thank you and Denise thanks for asking my question all right thank you Andy yes thank you have a great even okay um item eight is written reports and there is one it's the um Early Childhood August 2024 meeting which I attended for um and then uh nine is request for information any requests all right meeting is a jerk yes