001[Music] Come [Music] on. Come on. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I [Music] feel a little better. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Good evening and welcome to the business meeting for the board of education of Gley Evans School District 6 on April 28th, 2025. This meeting will now come to order. Please join us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Miss Lemon, will you please call
002the role? Director Ozari, present. Director Bentley, present. Director Campos Spitzy, present. Director Mash, present. Director Matthews, present. Director Norwood, present. Director Sullivan present. All board members present. And I would also like to welcome our council of student representatives that are sitting with us tonight. We have Timothy Longer who serves as president from Northridge High School and Sarah Venegas, member of the CSR from Early College Academy. Thanks for being here. Um, tonight is another great night for celebrations and for gratefulness. Um this evening we will be receiving a gift from one of our community partners um whose one of their um core foundation points is to be local and to provide um not only their services to the community but also to to utilize local businesses as they as they do business in the community. And
003that was a point that I made that I learned tonight. So I'm very um grateful that we have community partners such as them. Um, I also wanted to thank the community members who came out to celebrate President Michael Matthews. Uh, we had a great time just recalling all of the wonderful times these last six and a half years and also um and also the steady leadership that he provided through some of those more difficult times. So, thank you all for supporting him through his tenure as board president. And um when I asked him for some advice on how he is such a fantastic public speaker, he said that he always speaks from a place of gratitude and just speaks from the heart. So that is what I will also endeavor to do as I take
004over the reigns. Um another thank you to our community for our mill levy override. This evening we will be refreshing our K our 9th through 12th grade English language um curriculum and that was the very first curriculum that we were able to refresh um seven years ago when our mil levy override was originally passed. Much of our curriculum was 12 to 20 years old when we began the refresh process. And now, thank you to those extra dollars from our community, we've been able to refresh every subject at every grade level. Um, and now we're back to the beginning. Um, so that our students can have the most up-to-date, the best um, datadriven education possible. Want to just encourage all of our students who may be taking AP exams this next couple of weeks. they have
005been working very hard. I know there's extra study sessions going on. Um so all of you just take a deep breath and um and try to focus on all that you've been working and learning hard. Um and now I will turn it over to Dr. Pilch for her superintendent's honor role. Thank you, President Mash. Um good evening, Board of Education and President Mash. I have um a group I'm going to honor tonight in my superintendent's honor roll. I am going to honor the Gley West High School student council. Um and I I I'm going to ask them to come up to the podium um and let you see them. So come on up, guys, all of you. I'm going to let you introduce yourselves here in just a minute, but I want to first talk
006about why you're getting honored. Okay. So, uh, the Gley West High School Student Council, they have been recognized as a 2025 National Gold Council of Excellence by the National Association of Student Councils. Uh, they've been recognized for their exemplary record of leadership, service, and activities that improve the school and the community. Um, the program is supported by its parent organization, the National Association of Secondary School Principles. Um the Gley West High School Student Council is student driven. Um their project was called the Gley West High School Student Council Student Driven Change. Um and it has earned them the national recognition as again as a national gold council of excellence, proving that when young people are given the chance to lead, they turn their vision into real world impact. Um a student council must meet a
007variety of criteria to earn the National Gold Council of Excellence Award. In addition to basic requirements such as written constitution, regular meetings, and a democratic election process, the councils must have demonstrated successful sponsorship and participation in its activities such as leadership, development, and service to the school and the community. Um, we've got their sponsors with them tonight, Lee Samford and Zachary Armstrong. Thank you for supporting the student council. I bet you had something to do with this honor. And um I understand I'm going to bring the award up and then we're going to ask to hear from them to get this. I should have had a friend. You want to speak first? Yeah. you first introduce yourself and then have everybody say who they are here. Okay. Okay. Um good evening. I'm Madison Vela. I'm
008a senior at Gilly West and I'm student council vice president. Um I just wanted to talk about some of the impactful things that we have done um this year. Uh we have done a dodgeball tournament where we hosted a food drive for the Weld County Food Bank. our annual Spartan Choice Awards where we honor students beyond academics and athletics. We partnered with book trust to read with students at Sha Shasheen this year and our middle school leadership day where we hosted districts sixth, seventh, and eighth graders to host workshops on various aspects of leadership. Thank you all for joining us in this celebration. Hello all, I am Reundo Ruveno Campes Jr. I am a junior and I am the student council treasurer and one thanks from me for all of you for honoring us and
009allowing us to continue doing the work in our community. Thank you. Hello, my name is Kate. I am a junior at Girly West and I'm the vice president-elect for the 2025 2026 school year. Hi, my name is Mackenzie Malti and I'm a 9th grade representative. Hi, my name is Cody Gizick. I'm currently sitting as the communications liaison as a as a junior and next year I'll be the president. Hi, I'm Cam Cooney and I am one of the junior representatives. Thank you and congratulations. Thank you for being here. Our next item is to approve the agenda. This is an action item. Will require a motion. Move that the board of education of Green Leav School District 6 approves the agenda as presented. Second. Thank you both. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none,
010Miss Lemon, will you call the vote? Director Ozari, I. Director Bentley, hi. Director Campos Spitzy, I. Director Mash, I. Director Matthews, I. Director Norwood, I. Director Sullivan, Motion carries 70. We are on to our special items this evening. And the first is our project teacher find recognition. I'll give this over to Dr. Pilch. Thank you, President Mash. I would like to welcome uh Mrs. Zanette Overton, assistant superintendent of human resources to the podium. uh to lead tonight's presentation. Good evening. I would invite our um director of human resources, Dr. Matt Thompson, to come up as well. He's been participating in this work. And we're excited to talk to you again tonight about project teacher find and what all the students that we had and the interviews. So, I'll turn it over to Dr. Thompson. Thank
011you, Dr. Pilch, President Mash board, and our members of our council of student representatives. Uh in 1988, uh UNC and district 6, uh created a unique opportunity for students, uh which provides for a scholarship for us to be able to grow our own. Uh this is uh for us to be able to uh identify and uh recruit and train district 6 students uh to become future teachers. Uh we are pleased to announce that this year we have uh three recipients of this award uh who are identified by our school counselors and then a team that's made up of district 6 uh staff and UNCC uh staff that help identify who receives this scholarship. Uh it is a renewable scholarship in the amount of $2,500 and is going to be awarded to three students uh two
012of them who are here this evening. And so I have a little information I'd just like to share about each of these three. So first we're honored to recognize Sky Escabedo who's a graduating senior from Northridge High School for her outstanding commitment to pursuing a career in education. These are a few words that were said about her. It says, "Though she initially considered the medical field, Sky shared that becoming a teacher wasn't one of the first things that came to mind when looking at a future career option until fairly recently. However, through the challenges and growth that she's experienced during high school, she came to a powerful realization. The people that make the biggest impact are none others than those who teach. Motivated by a deep desire to make a meaningful difference in the lives
013of others, Sky discovered that education was her true calling. Her compassion, resilience, and natural leadership have already left a lasting mark on her school community. Lauren Gorman, who Sky student council adviser, shared, "Sky consistently demonstrates a genuine concern for others and possesses the remarkable ability to positively influence those around her. Uh with clarity of purpose and a heart for service, Sky is poised to become an inspiring educator and a force for positive change in the lives of future students. So congratulations. Next, we're proud to recognize Jilliana Ut, who's a graduating senior, also from Northridge High School, whose journey toward a career in education is deeply rooted in personal resilience and a desire to give back. Juliana shared that growing up, home was in constant chaos, being a battleground of tension, neglect, and uncertainty. But school
014became her sanctuary, a place where she could think, breathe, escape, and just be a kid. It was within the safety of the classroom that she found comfort and connection. And now she's determined to offer that same support for her future students. She said, "I want every student to feel like school is a place they can depend on, a place where they are safe to learn, grow, and explore." her teachers uh made a lasting impact on her life and she now aspires to become a person who makes a difference by offering more than just education but a genuine connection. Uh Jilliana student council and theater adviser Lauren Gorman described her as this. A student whose enthusiasm for learning and passion for teaching are evident in the care and effort she puts into every task. With heartfelt
015purpose and a remarkable sense of empathy, Gilana is ready to create the kind of classroom that uplifts, empowers, and transforms lives. Congratulations And I'm going to share a little bit about Kayla Kimizuka, who's our third recipient who's not here this evening. Uh she's a senior from Early College Academy. Uh her passion for teaching runs deep. Uh and it's a family tradition as she shared about her experiences. Uh really talked a lot about her family. She said, "Education's in my blood. I had a rough childhood and home was not always a great place for me, but having a safe place at school was always an option. It's a safe haven that has shaped her future. And today, she's determined to become the kind of teacher who offers not only education, but stability, encouragement, and connection. She
016said, "I want kids to be able to have a safe place and a trusted adult outside of the home." Her dedication is evident in her academic and extracurricular efforts. She works on in the summer with college for kids which is with Ames Community College and is already making an impact on young learners. Uh her political science professor Kenneth Howell said this of Kayla. Kayla is an extremely inquisitive student regularly asking questions that go beyond the surface uh and into real world understanding. With a heart for social studies and a calling rooted in compassion, Kayla is on her way to becoming a truly remarkable educator. So if you join me in congratulating these students for their accomplishments and their commitment to a profession and [Applause] [Laughter] education closer together. Thank you. [Applause] [Laughter] Congratulations and please
017come back and apply for IT district 6 when you are teachers. We would love to have you back. Our second special item is to welcome Aloe Fiber. They will be presenting a check for $24,000. Every new residential customer who signed up for Aloe service from November through December 2024 was presented with the opportunity to select a school to receive a $50 donation from Aloe and then Aloe matched those dollars. So, we would like to say thank you to each individual $50 donor as well as Aloe for doubling that impact. And yes, if you'd like to come forward. Well, good evening, doctor, Miss President, board of directors, uh, staff here at District 6, community members. It is my honor as the PR and events coordinator for Colorado to uh present this check to uh district 6
018tonight for $24,000 through our all for education program that we ran the last half of 2024 and the first couple of months of 2025. As you mentioned earlier, Aloe is thrilled to continue to love on local, continue to uh continue to love on our teachers, our staff, and most importantly our students here in District 6. So, uh, through this donation of general use funds, we hope that you will be able to use this, uh, to something really great, which we know you will do. Uh, thank you for, uh, the residents of our fine community here in Gley Evans. Uh, the last couple years, I know that we've kicked up a lot of dust, uh, throughout our construction process, but, uh, it's going to be great. Uh, I like to think of it as kind of
019a kitchen or bathroom remodel. Uh, when you're in the midst of it, it's a little messy, a little dirty, a little sawdust getting kicked up, and it's not always very convenient. But at the end of that construction project in your home, uh, a couple of months later, maybe even a couple of weeks later, you won't really remember all the messiness that went on. Uh, I like to think of that as the same way that we like to, uh, think of our construction process. So, kicked up a little dirt. Uh, Gley is now going to be fiberproofed for the future uh, for our students, for our residents, for our business owners uh, here in the Gley Evans area. And we're just uh, so thrilled once again tonight to present this check for $24,000 through our ALO
020for education program uh, to the district. So, thank you, Mr. President, thank you, Dr. Pilch, board of directors, and thank you for the continued leadership you continue to provide for this outstanding school [Applause] district. And for those like me that have a little grain in their beer, possibly that remember Ed McMahon from Publishers Clearing House, we have one of these cool big checks uh that we get to present. This one won't be able to go to the bank. I gave that to Teresa earlier, but uh congratulations once again and we're going to snag a quick photo. All right. He's in the corner. [Applause] Thank you. Our next item is our superintendence report. So give it back to Dr. Pilch. Thank you, President Mash. Uh first I'd like to uh do some introductions as a part
021of my superintendent superintendent report, excuse me. And these are the individuals you see on your personnel report tonight who we have recommended for our latest administrative hirings. So first I'd like to introduce to you Ally Blog. Ally stand up. Um who we are recommending is the assistant principal at Winterrad K8. Ally is the current dean at Winterrad. Uh she was a seventh grade math teacher at McAlliff. She also was a CLLD teacher or culturally linguistic diverse teacher at Bella Romero. Before that, um before that she was at the Holio School District um teaching 2 grade and 7 through 12 English language learners. Ally, congratulations and I look forward to having you join our district leadership team as an assistant principal. I also want to introduce to you Caitlyn Fuio. Fuia, Miss Caitlyn. Hello. Welcome. So,
022we are recommending Caitlyn as the assistant principal at Shasheen Elementary School. Um, Caitlyn helped open Twinton Academy of Pre-Engineering. She has been the project lead the way or the pre-engineering coordinator at Twinton since 2022. So, this is going to be a big loss for that team over there. Uh, prior to that, she was a sixth grade teacher at Montford Elementary School. And before that, she taught in Milbourne School District in Illinois where oh, she was a special education pair professional. So, Caitlyn, congratulations. And I look forward to welcoming you as an assistant principal at Shasheen Elementary. [Applause] as part of our restructure. Um, we eliminated some positions here in the district office as a part of our budget cuts. And so, uh, we eliminated a coordinator position upon the retirement of the of our elementary
023literacy coordinator. And so, we created a new position of K12 English language arts and AVID coordinator. And that is who you've heard from once tonight and we'll hear from her again, Miss Lisa McGee. Uh, we are recommending her for this position. She has served this year just serving secondary schools with English language arts, AVID and international balorate. So she's going to take the whole K12 work um and keep AVID. And then uh Lisa was an instructional coach and the international balorate and AVID coordinator at Brentwood Middle School uh for three years and then prior to that she was an English teacher here in district 6 and um at the high school level at Agri Central High School. So welcome Lisa. Congratulations and thank you for being willing to take on this [Applause] challenge. And then
024finally, I'm excited to introduce to you Miss Brianna Tanner. And we're recommending Brianna for assistant principal at Gley West High School. Brianna has been serving this year as the dean of students at Gley West. Um she was prior to that she was a teacher at Gley West High School. Um and then prior to that she was an instructor at Early College Academy. Um before district 6 she taught in Weld 4. Um she also taught at Berth High School um and at Frontier Academy and then Weldon Valley High School. So she comes to us with over 15 years of experience and we're excited to have her um as the new assistant principal at Gley West. Welcome Brianna. And then and then finally Mrs. Mash, I'd like to recognize um some of our students who you all
025probably read about in the e-week bulletin this past week. Uh but 13 students across District 6 um and from the District 6 Career Technical Education Center competed at the State Skills USA competition in Pueblo. Um and out of those 13 students, we had three students who placed. uh Musab Aiden from Gley West High School who's in the cyber security program and his teammate Connor Roberts from Northridge High School uh in cyber security. They both placed third uh for their work in cyber security. And then I also want to recognize Ariana Munos from Girly West who placed third in Cosmo for nails um at the state skills USA competition. So, uh, lots to celebrate here in district 6 and really proud of those students coming out of the career and technical education center and and already
026placing at a statewide conference. So, congratulations. Thank you, Mrs. Mash. Our next item is our innovation 2030 update climate and culture goal 2 systems of support. And I see Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Gribble. Yeah, I'm a little taller. Good evening, President Mash, Dr. Pilch, and members of the school board. Thank you for the opportunity. It's a privilege to be able to share with you an update around the climate and culture. Um, goal two and then inclusive in that is the systems of support that you've heard of recently within the negotiations update. With me tonight, I have two people, Mr. Tom Gribble, who is our executive director of student services, as well as Deb Hec, who is our lead school counselor. Within this work, it aligns directly with our school mission and vision. And then we
027think about our values. It aligns directly with those three that we've kind of bolded in the font here within our four focus areas. Obviously, we're are focused tonight on the bottom left corner, climate and culture. And within that, we're going to spend our time specifically thinking about our goal number two. How we support the social and emotional physical well-being of students and staff. Within that goal, we have two objectives. The first one focuses on supporting our students, ensuring a sense of belonging, providing support for learning so all students are career and college ready. The second objective focus on staff supporting the social and emotional learning practices as well as improving staff social and emotional wellness. We have three outcomes that we're using to measure our progress along these goals. The first is at the school
028level knowing that each school designs a plan to support the social and emotional learning in their school. Knowing that this focus looks different building to building. The second is that our students will respond positively that their well-being is supported at their school. The third is that the staff will respond positively that their well-being is supported in their workplace. Let me turn it over to Tom Gribble to share with you some of the actions that we've been taking. Thank you, Wes. So, I'm going to highlight some of the actions that I've taken since the last time this information was shared to the board. Um, we're continuing to implement the approved curriculum that includes digital citizenship, bully prevention, social, emotional, and behavioral competencies as well as providing professional development to staff to support students in those four
029competency areas that is self-management, social awareness, self-efficacy, and emotional regulation as well as trauma-informed practices and sto restorative practices. and continue to update and communicate current district and community resources to staff to support students wellness as well as their own. Providing training to district leaders to support adult wellness in the buildings and continue to administer the panorama survey um and specifically regarding the adult well-being survey. Wes mentioned one of the outcomes is specific to schools and you'll see here that um our goal is having 100% of schools having that action step in that UIP um document and you can see for the second year in a row we have 100% of our schools um doing that and this outcome illustrates the commitment from each school to meeting the social emotional and physical well-being of students
030and staff. I'm gonna turn it over to our lead school counselor, Deb Hec, to talk about our student outcomes. Okay. Good evening. Um, our goal for outcome student data is that by 2026, district level data will show students at or above the 60% favorable on all four social emotional learning competencies as measured by the annual student survey. uh the four compet competencies that are measured. The first is self-management. Um an example of a question that might be asked about self-management is um during the past 30 days when you were working independently, how often did you stay focused? Another question, how often did you remain calm when someone was bothering or saying bad things? These questions are rated individually and then averaged for a percentage favorable for each category. Social awareness um how well we take
031perspectives of others and empathy. A question that was asked there is during the past 30 days to what extent were you able to disagree with others without starting an argument? Self-efficacy specifically about achieving academic outcomes. Uh, one of the questions is how sure are you that you can complete all the work assigned to you in your class? And when complicated ideas are discussed in class, how sure are you that you can understand them? And emotional regulation being able to regulate our emotions. Um, once a question example is once you are upset, how often can you get yourself to relax? um when things go wrong for you, how calm are you able to stay? So, let's look at the survey data we have from fall of this year and spring as well as past years. So,
032our outcome student data, this is from our grades three through five. There's a lot of colors on here. So, that first um set of colors, the blue and red, that is our fall of 20 22 23 and then red is spring. And then the 23 24 we have yellow in the spring and I'm sorry yellow in the fall and green in the spring. And then this year's data is orange in the fall and teal in the spring. And what you'll notice is patterns of improvement from each fall to spring. This improvement can be correlated to the strong culture and climate and student wellness work that is done through our multi-tered system of support process. The fall data clearly informs our staff where students um area of needs are. I often am getting text messages and
033uh emails from school counselors in October when is the panorama data coming in? They're so excited to see it. I'm really be able to look at where they can have some specific tiered interventions. Um an example that comes to mind is one of our K8 schools. The counselor worked with the mental health team and the principal and they really dove into that data and found that there was a need for some uh emotional regulation. There was a group of students who had very low favorable percentages and were able to do several different um tier 2 intervention small groups. um they were able to in that group to teach what emotional regulation is, even get into some of the brain science of how it works and then teach them very specific skills of what to use.
034And then the most important part is they got to practice those skills. That's how we learn new skills. So in that small group, they were able to practice school skills and then bring back um what they've used outside of school as well. So that's just one example of how schools use that information. While we have met and exceeded the 60% favorable for self-awareness and self-management, we'll continue to use our SEAL curriculum as tier 1 and our datadriven tier 2 interventions to support self-efficacy and emotional regulation. And then moving on to our grades 6 through 12. They again have the the fall and spring with the colors for 22 23 the the blue and then the red and then we have the next year of yellow and green and this year is orange and teal. What
035is positive is that we do see a lot of grow growth when students are with us. um the responses. It's important to remember these responses to the survey are individ individual questions that are then um averaged together. So, for example, you can see our self-efficacy. We're not quite at that 60% that we would like to be. However, when we get into the questions, we can see I'm give you a couple examples. Um, one question is, "How confident are you that you can complete all work that is assigned to you in class?" And our students responded 56% positively. Um, which is close to our 60% goal. However, when we ask when complicated ideas in class, how confident are you you can understand? And that was 42%. So, when those are average, that's where we see that
036closer to 40 to 50%. Um, so that gives our staff a lot of information of that our students feel confident in completing work, but we need to support them in that rigor and having that academic confidence that they can do the work when it's complicated and it's hard. Um, another question that had a significant increase in positive percentage is during the last 30 days, how often did you pay attention and resist distractions? Uh, this question went from 50% favorable in the spring of last year to 74% favorable this fall. Um, and there was a slight um, decrease between fall and spring, but still a 21% increase in students saying that they were able to pay attention. And I think about our new cell phone policy as being a possible effect in that and that students
037are there and just how we have changed the climate with this cell phone policy can make that much of an of an increase. Um, we also know our students 612 continue to show consistency in their responses for need and this illustrates a continued need for support in their social, emotional and physical wellbe well-being among our adolescents. I am going to turn it back over to Tom outcome. Thank you. So, our third and final outcome is a focus on staff well-being. Our goal is 90% of district staff that completed the survey uh respond favorably that their well-being is supported in the workplace. So you'll see here the results for the last three years that includes sitebased staff, operations staff there in the middle and then teaching staff on the right hand side. So I mentioned the
038goal is 90% of our staff are responding favorably to these results. Um so while the staff well-being survey results are lower than the 90% um but what we have found that these results compared at a national level aren't what we thought. So to be at the 60th percentile, meaning that 60% of other districts that take this test score lower than us, this isn't too bad, right? This is actually kind of more impressive than we had thought because when we look at the 68, 69, 68, like we aren't meeting our 90% goal. Um but when we compare this nationally, we are actually doing we're doing much better. Some of the questions that um we want to highlight are are uh these three. Um during the past week, how often did you feel excited at work? And
039you can see how the three groups responded there. Um the next two are real bright spots, I believe. How much does your work matter to you and how meaningful for you is the work that you do? And to have that kind of um response and how favorable those are, that really tells you that the people who work in district 6 care about their work and that work matters to them. One of the questions um or while the panorama survey provides us a lot of useful information, our committee believed that there was not a question specific to our goal. Meaning we don't ask in the panorama survey are is your well-being supported in your workplace. While we have a lot of other information, we don't ask this question. So we added it to the survey this
040year. Um and as a result here are the um the the number of responders for operation staff, sitebased staff and teachers and staff. Um and you can see the percentages there and again our goal was 90% and this is the first um time we've asked this question um because we added this question here at the end. It's not in the bank of other panorama questions. So there's no normative data to for us to compare this to. But um uh Tammy Brandon, our director of student and staff support um shared this information with us regarding the 2024 teacher and learning condition survey. So this is a uh an annual or sorry every other year optional statewide survey and the results of that um survey with quite a few teachers um completing this was 88%. So I
041think that's that paints a little different picture than let's say the 60% favorable that teachers have. So, this is one thing that our committee will be looking at as far as do we continue with this question or do we consider some of those questions that were in the the teacher and learning condition survey. And so, we're excited about uh our next steps that is to continue to implement the curriculum and monitor the impact that has on our panorama data, merge um the multiple district wellness websites into one useful and powerful resource. um create and provide training to district leaders and like we did last year uh start the school year off with a district-wide professional development um for all certified and schoolbased staff around supporting students in their learning. Well, thank you so much for
042letting us share this presentation with you guys and we'll entertain any questions if you have any. Thank you very much. We have a few questions. Mr. Aari. Yeah, this is a a question that I'm sure some folks would ask. Uh there's actually two. The first question is how young what what are the youngest students in the district that we survey? So we have our Panorama survey starts at third grade and it's third grade through 12th grade. Okay. So then a follow-up question to that is how confident are we that the students at the youngest levels actually understand what the question means. It is normed to other elementary school students. So in that sense we have some sense of comparability. um we do not define it for them in the survey because the minute you start
043defining terms and defining the questions you end up tainting the survey for it. So we do ask them to complete it on their own. We do give them time to do that there at the school. Do we uh offer any sort of assistance uh prior to the survey and educating students about what these words mean? Again, I'm talking about the youngest students because some of these words are higher order than the words. So, there are occasions that they will go ahead and preempt some of that as far as just kind of orienting the to some of the types of questions that they'll be encountering, not trying to persuade them to answer it one way or another, but to explain some of the concepts, some of the terms that are in it. You're exactly right that
044some of the terms are higher order thinking as you alluded to. Yeah. Thank you. Um, Dr. Campos Spitzy. Um, just to piggyback off of Director Ozari's question, um, the three the third grade through fifth grade survey, is it the same as the 6th through 12th? It they're the same items. The the secondary one adds one additional question to it. Okay. But the questions are like the third graders are asking answering. Yep. Um because I have I forget if this came up last time we talked about the panorama survey and I forget it if it came from the CSR rep, but that they remember the question, you know, they've been asked the same questions year after year and um and that they kind of just choose the same answers like they don't change their answers like
045they it's almost like they've memorized the question and don't necessarily like critically think about it. Yeah. When they've taken it 20 times, not 20 times. It's just given once a year. So you're right. by the time they start in third grade and through 12th grade, they do have what nine opportunities to answer that same question. Um but um we've kept it that way. So we have the normative ability to be able to compare it against the nation. That makes sense. Um another question. So you know the four areas that are surveyed, one is self-management and another one is emotional regulation. They sound really similar. like what are the nuances that differentiate those two outcomes? So self-management is looking at their um management of academic behavior management with other people too whereas the emotional regulation is
046looking at those moments when um for a brain place where like maybe we flipped our lid a little bit like how do we get back into a place of regulation. The self-management is more looking at those academics, behavior, and mental well-being. Does that make sense? That's that helps. Um I did want to point out the positive uh 90% um ratings uh when we interview when we um surveyed our staff, you know, the teaching staff, 92% of the time they can they they felt excited to be at work in the past week. 98% answered um that their work matters to them and 96% felt that their work was meaningful. Um it does feel discordant with the 60% you know my well-being is supported in my workplace. Um I think it speaks nationally to the teacher shortage
047and um the importance of educator pipeline work uh that we highlighted even tonight with project teacher find. um the the teachers that come into this come into it for the right reasons. Um but sometimes the support can be difficult. Um or just dealing with behaviors which we hear a lot about as a school board um that the behaviors in the classroom over the last 10 years have really changed and um not in a positive direction. Um, so I have a question for you guys as experts. Besides what our teachers are doing to help our students with social social and emotional learning, what would you tell parents of, you know, elementary school students, middle school students, high school students? what can they be doing at home um that might improve our outcome so that students do
048feel more self-efficacy and more emotional regulation which were are two lower outcomes. I think that's a great question. I think um these like I talked about these skills aren't something you just practice in one place. It goes with you outside of that office or out of that classroom. um all of our social emotional learning like our SecondStep program has parent links that go home. Uh I know schools use that a lot to um to help work with parents and more we can work on it together the the better it is. Um also our our mental health staff and um admin are very open and communicative with parents. So to be able to have those conversations, I think just keeping that open line of communication is our best um our our best choice for that really.
049Yeah, Mr. Bentley, uh Brenda kind of stole my fire, but I also wanted to point out that same graph of the outcome data for the staff. Um how much does your work matter to you and how meaningful is the work you do to you? Um it it just kind of conf confirms uh the biggest difference I noticed from when I was in high school to when I go through the schools now. Um you know I just remember it being like really authoritarian and we were scared to see the principles and now you know the little kids and the high schoolers alike running up and high-fiving and you know really have a good relationship with their with their administrators and teachers all all together. Um, I told the story once, but I was waiting for an
050Uber one day and I had a I didn't even know how to about you, about the driver thing, but she had a master's degree in in education. And so I got in, I asked her, you know, what's what's up with that? And she said, I I made more money the first full year driving an Uber than I did as with a master's degree teaching. and uh kind of highlights a problem in our society that's a little bit out of our control, but but it also just reinforces the fact that the teachers that are doing this really are doing it out of love and kindness and and for the right reasons. And it shows um you know, from me, an outsider, I guess, in public education. You know, I'm basically a parent that decided to run
051for the school board. But to to go into a school and just see the amount of love and and the outpouring of support that on a day-to-day basis and then just just to see the data confirming that the teachers really do enjoy and care about what they're doing. It's makes me pretty happy as a as a parent and as as a board member to to see that data. So, thank you guys for keeping track of that and excited to see improving on it and working to support the teachers. Mr. Matthews, thank you, President Match. um when when you guys look at the student data on on this and when I look at it, I sometimes can't can't um can't analyze it very well. Just just only looking at this data every every once in a
052while. So, I'm curious as you analyze the data, what when you look at our especially our student data, what what encourages you the most? What did you see in the data that you maybe didn't expect to see and it was a good surprise? What what concerns you the most in our student data? Yeah, just it's a thinking question. One of the celebrations was one that she shared that 20% increase on ability to control the distractions. I mean, that's a huge increase um in students abilities to do that. So, that's a a celebration of where our system is at. and and and as she alluded to, one of the factors there is the implementation of our cell phone policy that has contributed to that. So I think that's definitely one of the positives. Um I'll share
053another while you're thinking you can add to this Deb. Um but uh another example of a school. So um some of our elementary schools, they have their whole specialist team take on the the area that the students are struggling with. So, one of my elementary schools takes on and so their specialist team created an announcement. It was around self-management and kids ability to manage when they're not getting their way. When somebody around them is having a problem, they they can't control themselves. So, they started teaching the strategies in specials at the elementary level. They started weekly announcements that was teaching the strategy schoolwide. So, this became a schoolwide focus on how do we control our emotions? And so that's another example of a school identifying, hey, this is an area that our students are struggling
054with and what can we do about it and let's go after it in in one way. Anything to add there? Um, I too looking at it, it can be overwhelming of where to look. I mean, you start looking at the individual questions and then the national norms. I mean, and three hours later I'm like, what did I just look at? Um, so I think what's really great about it is that we have a team in each school that looks at it together, that collaboration. So our PBIS teams are looking at that like where can we retach some things. It's not just in isolation. So um I that's what's exciting to me is that it's Panorama gives us this information but then we have interventions that we can look at other data too. We can I
055forgot to mention the small group that this K8 school did. They they surveyed in spring and saw an increase a pretty significant increase in their panorama results, but they also looked at other outcome data too like discipline referrals talking about behavior like um attendance. They had some increase in attendance for students too. So that's the exciting part for me is how this these tiered interventions then go to student outcome data as far as like the grades and our graduation rates how that is all um connected to to where this starts. Yes. So the only thing I would add to that is you talked about the questions being the same over and over again kind of rinse and repeat maybe but what's not rinse and repeat is the free response opportunities that students have and so
056they tell their story. So inside of that too much for a presentation like this for tonight but um lots of celebrations in there and then if there's little red flags we communicate with our our you know mental health staff right away to follow up with those issues. So that's, you know, beyond the the bar graphs and things of that nature and those little trends, we read the stories inside of that and that's that's where where some real real data, I think, comes up. Not seeing any other questions. I was just curious um can students take this survey in their first language? Looking to Jenny, it's available in English and Spanish. Okay. Mhm. So then students who speak other languages, we have to wait until they have a proficiency. Yeah. Okay. And we would do the
057same accommodations that we would use with anything else for students that would need that. So if a student needs something to be read to them, we would be able to read it to them. Okay. So we can do it with an interpreter. Okay. Great. Well, thank you very much for that presentation. Our next item is public participation, but we do not have any speakers this evening. Moving on to our consent agenda. We need to approve our consent agenda. That will require a motion. I move that the board of education of Gley Evans School District 6 approves items as presented on the consent agenda and authorizes the agents to sign the officers to sign any and all contracts. Second. Is there any discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, Miss Lemon would give us a vote,
058please. Director Zari, I. Director Bentley, I Director Campos Spitzy, I. Director Mash, I. Director Matthews, I. Director Norwood, I. Director Sullivan, I. Motion carries 70. Our next item of business is to cancel our board of education meeting on June 23rd, 2025. And this requires a motion. I move that the board of education agre school district 6 cancel the board meeting of education. the council the board of education meeting scheduled June 23rd, 2025. Second. Thank you both. Miss Sullivan, I see that you had a comment. I'm sorry. Which item was that? Um I was actually going to ask you said that you uh follow up if there's any um issues with um the comments that are put in. If it's an anonymous survey, how do you know what students put um their concerns in? I apologize.
059I think I missed that. Miss Sullivan had a question for you. Do we need to handle the Do we Yeah. motion on the floor, Mr. Fall. Do we need to handle the motion before we go back to a question? I I didn't realize that Miss Sullivan had a question for Mr. Tuttle. And then we have a motion on the floor. My bad. Was the motion to approve the consent agenda? Yes. We passed that. We're on the cancel the meeting. Cancel the meeting. Yeah. We have a second. So we need to handle that first, right? Yeah, I would finish the motion and then Yeah. Okay. All right. Um so for cancelling the meeting um we believe that we will be able to finish our business regarding the budget um with the first meeting in June. Is
060there any other um conversation about cancing that meeting? All right, Miss Lemon, would you give us a vote, please? Director Zari, I. Director Bentley, hi. Director Campos Spitzy. I, Director Mash, I. Director Matthews, hi. Director Norwood, hi. Director Sullivan, I. Motion carries 70. Great. Thank you. And Miss Sullivan has a question for Mr. Tuttle regarding the panorama survey. I I think that you could not go back if that was already if you already took a vote on that. It didn't require a vote. It was just a pres. So, I think it'd be open for discussion if you want to qu have a conversation about it. Okay. Do you need me to restate that question? No, I think it's a good question. Um, so Taylor, the survey is anonymous in the sense that the kids' names
061are not attached, but there is demographical information around like what grade level, gender, some of those types of things. So, we can identify the group of students that that student might be a part of and be able to target some of those skills for those students. But it is anonymous in the sense that they don't we don't have their name. We don't know exactly which students, but we've got enough information to be able to strategize to be able to meet those needs. All right, our next item of business is the curriculum adoption. I'll give this over to Dr. Pelch. Thank you, President Mash. Uh, you heard a a pretty thorough report of this proposed curriculum adoption during the work session um by the same individuals who are coming to the podium now. And so I'll
062pass this to Assistant Superintendent Anthony Osmus. And joining him are Dr. Dean Andrews and Miss Lisa McGee. Thank you very much. Good evening, President Mash Mash, members of the board, Dr. Pilch, and our members from the Council of Student Reps. So, it um it's an honor to bring tonight to you the recommendation for a new high school English language arts curriculum. So, what brings us here tonight is our current language arts curriculum, springboard is at the end of its contract life and was sold and as a result um we've really have no platform next year, no textbooks uh and no student workbooks. So, it gives us a great opportunity to look for a new curriculum. So the charge was to select and and adopt a rigorous curriculum that offers grade level instruction and differentiated supports
063for all students to interact at a high level. Lisa McGee, our English language arts coordinator, led a group of 9 through 12 English teachers, multi-ingual teachers, gifted and talented teachers, and special education teachers to come to this recommendation. And then Dr. Degan Andrews facilitated the facilitated the final consensus conversation. So Lisa and Dean Andrews will walk us through the process used to recommend this curriculum tonight. Yep. Uh thank you Mr. Osmus. With the recent sale and taking apart a springboard, our previous curriculum, we needed to find a new resource to ensure every student has the opportunity to achieve high levels of standards mastery. Throughout this process, our team remained focused on three key priorities. First, ensuring alignment with District 6 goals and 2020 Colorado academic standards. It's critical that our new materials support our district's
064priorities of evidence-based reading and writing, career, and college readiness, and meet the state's expectations for reading, writing, and communication. Second, promoting equity and access. We prioritize resources to provide all students, regardless of background, with the tools and opportunities they need to succeed. Finally, supporting rigorous and personalized learning. Our new materials will empower teachers to challenge students while offering offering personalized pathways to prepare them for success in college, careers, and beyond. This adoption is about providing every student with the resources they need to thrive while supporting our educators in delivering exceptional instruction. This slide showcases the dedicated members of the 912 English language arts committee who have collaborated extensively, exchanged ideas, and meticulously assessed resources to select the highest quality materials, ensuring they effectively address the diverse needs of all students within District 6. As we
065present our curriculum recommendations, it's essential to outline the critical musthaves identified by our committee. Student consumables were a high priority. Teachers emphasize the need for materials that students can write in and interact with directly. A strong digital platform was also non-negotiable. It needs to be accessible, intuitive, and supportive of both in-person and digital instruction. Teachers wanted clear built-in differentiation resources that support a range of learners. The committee also prioritized a diverse range of texts and authors to reflect and engage our students varied backgrounds and prepare them for college level work. CLLL and special education supports needed to be fully integrated, not add-ons or afterthoughts. We also look for platforms that provide meaningful data and reporting tools to help guide instruction and interventions. And finally, the resource had to be easy to navigate. These priorities guided
066the final stages of our selection process and helped ensure that the curriculum we choose is not only high quality, but also a good fit for our district's unique needs. To determine the final recommendation, the committee was guided through a decision-making process and reached consensus. This chart is a representative of the committee's conversation. Ultimately, the committee identified into literature as the best curricular resource for our students, staff, and system based on these essential criteria. To take a deeper dive into the resource, I will turn it over to Lisa McGee, our K12 ELA and AVID coordinator. Thank you and good evening. One of the core components of the digital platform our committee was specifically excited about was writable and its potential to give students timely, meaningful feedback they can immediately implement in their writing, ultimately building confidence
067in their writing ski and increasing writing skills across grade levels. Writable is more than just a place for students to type their essays. It's a full writing workspace. It walks students through every part of the writing process, planning, drafting, revising, and taking feedback. It also allows teachers to strategically group students so that they can share the writing with their peers and they can track the progression of every student through the writing process. Another great strength is that Writable is fully integrated into into literature, which means students are responding to texts they're reading in class. Everything from short stories to highinterest essays. And for our multilingual learners, many of those texts are also available in English and Spanish, helping us reach every learner. In a study from Houston County School District in Houston County, Georgia, despite
068a statewide decline, Houston County EL students using both HM into literature with Writable showed significant growth and resilience in writing skills. Across Georgia, the percentage of English language learners who reached a developing or higher level dropped from 23.6% in 2021 to 12.8% in 2023. In contrast, students in Houston County using in literature and writable saw significant growth. 20% were at or above the developing level in 2021 and jumped to 34% in 2022. The average achievement level of ELEL students also remained higher in the state than the state average at 18% in 2023. We believe our students who are learning English stand to benefit significantly from the adoption and we are anxious to put tools like Writable to work. During the evaluation process, we were also able to gain additional insights into the strengths the committee
069identified in HMH into literature curriculum. And here you can see some of the comments that were provided. When compared to previous curriculum in our system, the strengths of into literature offer a promising glimpse into how this resource will better support our students, empower our teachers, and strengthen our overall instruction. Into literature is known for its intuitive, teacher-friendly design. Teachers using the resource often report that its platform and materials are easy to navigate and implement, especially for new or less experienced educators. The new curriculum includes embedded supports for English language learners, students with disabilities, and varying reading levels. These are built directly into the lessons and resources. The curriculum also continues to provide consumables uh for our students to engage with annotate text and build ownership of their learning. Into literature features a wide range of
070diverse authors, contemporary voices, and engaging media to reflect the lived experiences of today's students. The platform also offers strong formative and summitative assessment tools with real-time data reporting to guide instruction. These systems are more seamlessly integrated than those found in previous curriculum and tie into existing assessments like NWA and SAT. Pending board approval tonight, the total cost for the literacy adoption covering high school students in English 912 for a 7-year period amounts to 1,82,3547. This comprehensive package encompasses all essential components of the program, including teacher manuals for not only our English teachers, but our co-teers, student consumables for seven years, digital licenses for both teachers and students for seven years, as well as the purchase of enough core novels for every building to be onetoone student to novel. We are pleased to announce that the
071funding for this initiative will be sourced from the mill levy override. We express our greatest or deepest gratitude to the voters and their invaluable support in passing this crucial funding measure which this allows us to further enhance the educational experience for our students. We know that into literature is going to support our students in accomplishing high levels of growth and achievement and we are grateful for your support. Thank you very much for that presentation. Are there any comments from board members? U Mr. Aari? Well, we didn't make up a motion, but I think we could talk about it first and then we can do our motion before we vote on it. So, Mr. Ozari. Yeah, just uh if Mr. Osmus can just uh speak to a question that was asked during the work session on
072the end of the contract with springboard and how that ties into the advent of establishing a new curriculum. Yeah, I think President Mash mentioned before that this is one of the first curriculums that we purchased with the MLO. Um it is now at the end of its contract and we would like to continue as we do sometimes even after contract but this was purchased by a new company and they made enough changes that we just no longer have access either a don't have access to the platform or the workbooks or we just don't feel like it's rigorous enough for our students at this time and so therefore um we just we are moving ahead with a new curriculum that allows more rigor and more supports for our students. President Mash, if I may, um, we
073this was up for adoption regardless. Uh, however, considering the budget cuts we have, had we been able to extend our current curriculum, we probably would have put this purchase on hold for at least another year as we work through the budget situation that we're facing with the state right now. But um because we were in a situation where the contract was ending and they did not have a renewal for a year for us, we were forced to go ahead and move forward on this. But uh sevenyear is a typical uh cycle for curriculum adoption. Thank you for that input. Um Mr. Longre, thank you very much. President Matt, I just really wanted to comment on the experiences and the opportunities is going to grant students. I do find it very valuable to start bringing AI
074into the fray, especially when we have a lot of students that are taking classes that are mixed with as AP classes, things like that. Especially in the high school area, having AI helping with these very complicated essays that a lot of us work on, especially multi multi-page ones that she will actually tell you about. being able to have an AI there at all times compared to something like Grammarly. An AI, especially on this level, just having more personal writing like commentary and helping you more on a personal level is going to be more valuable to actually teaching our students to write properly rather than what things like Grammarly naturally teach our students to do, which is just click a button and it rewrites everything for you. So, I think it's very valuable to have a
075teacher like substitute around as much as possible because as we all know, teachers can't be home with our students. So, I think this is a very valuable thing to bring on for all of our students. Miss Venegas, thank you, President Mash. I just kind of wanted to add on to what um Timothy Longacre was kind of saying. um helping with the help of AI offers that positive instant feedback as you guys were mentioning. It offers that feedback of revising that sometimes maybe teachers and tutors might miss or not um catch at first sight. So it um allows that quicker feedback especially on those smaller points where you might not think about oh I need to change this I need to improve this where sometimes tutors and tutors and teachers might not catch as well because
076they have to revise billions of students not just you personally. Um, so as Timothy has mentioned, uh, in my higher level college English class, we have already been introduced to the idea of using AI in order to help us with our grammar and, um, help the clarity of our paper, not necessarily rewriting our paper, not necessarily telling us what to write and how to write it. It's simply giving us the understanding of this is the feedback we're giving you. improve this part how you wish to do, not improve it exactly with these words, which is what can be misunderstood when using AI for your writing. Um, but in this sense, it's just for that clarity and organization within your papers, which can be very helpful extremely for like what Timothy had mentioned, those college level
077classes where you have to write those 20 plus page papers where it just takes so much more time to revise where AI can help quicken that. um organization. Thank you, Mr. Matthews. Thank you, President Mash. Um I'm just looking at the committee that you you guys put together, and it's a very impressive group of of names in our school district, administrators and teachers alike. And I just I know this is their recommendation for uh for this curriculum. I know uh it's very easy to see why they as a group chose this curriculum. Was there any disagreement on on the committee or was this pretty much a unanimous decision? It took a little bit of time as we looked at the must haves to go through the process to really illuminate what the advantages into literature
078had. We really started with three highquality resources and so it really came down to those must haves to meet the unique needs of our community. Thank you. Miss Sullivan. Well, I appreciate the comments from the um student representatives because you guys had some really good um solid points and it's good to hear from your aspect of it. I guess that kind of triggered a question for me then. Um, is AI available when they're doing their assessments or is that a component that's turned off so that you're getting their true writing skills to make sure that they're writing it and not the computer? And just to be clear, AI doesn't write it for you, but it would just give you feedback. And so, it will look at your writing and it will ask you questions um
079to interact with your text a little bit more and give you give you areas that you might want to go back and improve, but it's just to help you with the learning process, but once you take assessments, then it's no longer there with you. Any other comments? All right, we need a motion to accept and adopt this curriculum. I move I move that the board of education of Gley Evans School District 6 approves the adoption of grades 912 English language arts curriculum as presented. Second. Thank you. Thank you both. Um, I will just add my comment and that is that I like teacher friendly. I like we have the student voice. Um, and also the opportunity to really be able to measure the progress and where students need additional um, assistance and scaffolding. Um, it's
080not always super useful to have a program that we can't measure. It's an efficacy. So, thank you for your diligent um, work on this. And Miss Lemon, will you give us a vote, please? Director Zari, I. Director Bentley, I. Director Campus Fitzy I. Director Mash I. Director Matthews I. Director Norwood I. Director Sullivan I. Motion carries 70. Well, thank you for joining us this evening. That is all the business we have and we will see you in May. This business or this meeting is adjourned. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]