001[Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. All [Music] right. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Don't. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Welcome to the board of education. work session for Gley Evans School District 6. This is Monday, April 14th. Miss Lemon, would you please call the role? Yes, the work session is called to order. Uh, the work session is called to order. Thank you. Director Oari, present. Director Bentley. Director Campos Spitzy, present. Director Mash, present. Director Matthews,
002present. Director Norwood. Director Sullivan, present. With five board members, present. First item on our agenda is our calendar review and community engagement. We are rapidly approaching the end of the school year. There are a couple of events I would call to your attention. Um the boys and girls club dinner and I assume Miss Lemon needs RSVPs as soon as possible. Also the retirement celebration. Um, we have one more school visit to Jackson Elementary and then we start all of our graduations and end of year celebrations. President Mash, um, if I could mention if everybody could please RSVP as soon as possible to all of the graduations. Um, our schools are putting together their programs to get printed. So, if you could do that right away, we'd appreciate it. And there in the one of the
003board docs um our weekly email has um has all of the who's speaking and who's the liaison. Correct. Yes. Okay. What we're wearing and what we're wearing. Yes. All right. Anything that's missing or any other comments on the schedule? All right, we will move along to our board member comments and reports. And Mr. Matthews, would you like to go first? Wow. Uh, wasn't expecting that. Um, yeah. So, just looking back at at the calendar and and what we've uh what we've been doing just in the last few weeks. Um, Monday got to go to the capital and testify on student finance or school finance bill and that was it was good and made it out of it made it out of committee later that day. So, we're it's good to see what that were maybe
004not getting cut as much as we we thought. That's that's very helpful. and then spent this uh Friday night and Saturday night at at Gley West seeing oh someone what did we see? What was the name? Hades Town. Um yeah, saw Hades Town twice. Just fantastic show and so congrats to all those Gly West students and uh faculty that put that on. So that's about it. Thank you, President Mash. Well, I attended uh along with some of my other fellow board members uh the Maplewood One School many cultures event in March and it was great to see the different stations and have the opportunity to learn about the different customs and traditions of our students and all the native uh countries they all the countries that they are native to. I also attended the dream
005team banquet that same night. So, it's kind of turn around and rush into that. Uh this was my second year and once again I was very impressed by the successful experiences that our students have during their time here in district 6 and I wish them the best in their future endeavors. And then finally I also had the opportunity to attend the Holocaust survivor presentation of the UCCCC for eighth graders. Janet Singer Applefield sharing of her experiences while she was a young girl, from having had to change her name several times in order to survive, from losing almost every member of her family, including having her pet killed. Those can be challenging messages for our students to hear. And I want to share that I found our students conduct during her presentation to be outstanding. and
006I found the students questions to be respectful and insightful. Again, it made me proud to be a part of school district 6. And that's all I have. President Mash, thanks. Dr. Campus Spitzy. Yes. Um, I guess I wanted to start off with how excited I am that the school finance act or the new formula may be implemented or will be implemented this year at 15%. Um so only 15% but that's the first step towards um 100% and so I'm excited that our state is really um wanting to back public education that way and very proud that I feel like our district and our superintendent played a pivotal role in that decision. Um also have been thinking of all of our students in third grade through 12th grade who are CES testing right now. Um, I
007know, um, one of my friends was saying that the teachers had told them, you know, make sure you're eating good and sleeping good, and it just makes the kids more nervous that they're going to get tested the next day. But, um, also uh, loved participating in the Gley Dream Team banquet um, at the end of March. I was able to go to that banquet for many many years before I was a board member, but um always impressed by the dream team scholars. Um the scholarship recipients are also impressive. Um and I am looking forward to seeing Hades Town on Friday night. So Gley West is putting it on this weekend as well. Um if you can make it out. Uh I know that in our business agenda we will be honoring our Betcher and Daniels
008Fund scholarship recipients, but I wanted to highlight um Ta K. Bluo uh who was a Gley Central High School senior who won the Wilbert Weedman scholarship um that is given by the Weld Community Foundation. Um so it's $80,000 towards college. Um he had his his story in the Gley Tribune and it was just really powerful. Um he was born in a refugee camp in Myanmar. Um since leaving Myanmar, has been back three times to help with war aid. Um has a 4.0 GPA, started chess club at Gley Central, plays volleyball, um and is taking AP classes and is in band. Um so just an amazing amazing representation of our seniors um this year and a very um deserving scholarship recipient. And I think that's all I did. I got to have one student from Gley
009Central shadow me in the last week as Merald Davonia um who wants to be an ultrasound tech came over to clinic and I tried to convince her to be a doctor instead. So um anyway, it's been a fun few weeks. I feel like I haven't been here in forever because my last board meeting was maybe a month ago. Um and excited to have our new president um presiding over this meeting. Thanks, Mrs. Sullivan. I'm basically just trying to get back in. I was down for 3 weeks with bronchitis and pneumonia. So, um, just kind of first day back to work was today, actually, but congratulations on your new bowl. Well, we're glad to have you. Hope you're feeling better. Um, I also enjoy the Maplewood Cultural Night and similar to the Gley Central Cultural um,
010assembly. The kids are so brave and and generous with their the sharing of their experience. Um, we got to dance a little bit and um, draw self-portraits and they were all very very proud to to show us around their school. Uh I also um attended the community council on education um leadership I guess is invited to that meeting with the chamber of commerce and representatives from UNCC and Ames all come and give updates. This time Dr. Pelch led um an activity of asking the business leaders what they would like to see in our graduates um that will make them workforce ready. So that was really good conversation and um positive feedback. Also, Dak took a tour of the Career and Tech Ed Center as well as nutrition services and it was really fun. Um they
011were all just very um excited and impressed. And all of our students at the CTE center were off in competition, which I didn't realize how many opportunities for competition we have with varying clubs. Um but the um cyber security kids were competing as well as um I think the the construction pathway. But just amazing to see that space completely filled with equipment, filled with students. Um I don't know when the last time the board was there, but I did feel like it just it really looks um it looks it's so exciting that it's it's going really well there. Um as well as our nutrition services is always um an area to to celebrate. Um we got to see all the varying um places of production and then the innovative tools that they're using to make
012things more efficient and get back to our precoid um scratch. Uh we're trying to make as many things from scratch as possible. And the I think the menu items are exciting. There's things coming back that were there before and and new choices. So, um, if you have a student in district 6, you might look at the menu, um, and and see what day you want to go and and try out the lunch as well. Um, I also have the opportunity of working with one of our district 6 interns at Banner Health, Caitlyn Luther, from from Gley West, and she's just really excited to be there and learn everything that she can. And I also encourage everyone to go see Hades Town next weekend. It's um just visually stunning, excellent vocals and um congratulations to Peggy
013Free on her last show. So um our next item of um is our budget update and we'll give that to Dr. Pil. Thank you, President Mash. And um I will just say I had a couple of um conversations over the last few days with with Miss Sponsor. I think you all are aware that she's out with her husband um who has had some pretty significant um procedures done and so she'll she's been out several days now and and will continue to spend time supporting him, but she has been able to work from home some and and did help me some um putting some information together for you tonight. Um, I just didn't want to wait until too long to to give you all an update on where we are with the budget and where we
014are with budget cuts in particular because I know you're starting to hear things and you're getting information from me about cuts that we're making. So, I wanted to to give you some of that and give you an opportunity to ask questions and and um inquire. So, uh, we started out the year building the budget looking for about, um, looking to fill a deficit of about 12 million, uh, dollars and most of that is based on two things. One, the increase in cost in benefits, um, so health insurance, uh, as well as parah. So, we we have an increase that we pay into PAR for each of our employees. Um and then salaries because it is our intent to do steps and lanes and some raise for our employees. And so when we increase salaries, we
015also increase the co-curricular pay. So that that is seeing a significant increase as well and what that co-curricular pay will cost us throughout the system. Um and then of course we're seeing an increase in utilities and we are anticipating an increase and have already begun to see an increase in equipment and materials and supplies as a result of of you know the changing um economics and the result of tariffs. And so we're currently looking at about um a a gap of filling of about 6 to7 million. And so we've worked hard to to fill that gap. Um and as as u Miss Campos Spitzy, Dr. Campos Spitzy indicated, we're close to having a school finance act. We're not we're not quite there yet. It's in a props. Um Nate will give us some update during
016the legislative piece on where we are with the school finance act, but we are hopeful. Um, so I want to be clear that as you've heard about cuts that we we will be getting more funding from the state than we did the previous year. However, cost is outpacing that pretty dramatically. Um, as it is for every school district in the state of Colorado, I would guess. Fortunately, we are not in declining enrollment like some of our neighboring districts. We are going to uh budget flat for next year. the state is projecting us to be in increasing enrollment. However, um there's just enough uncertainty in the climate that we uh do Dr. Miss Sponsor and I both have agreed we really do need to to budget with a flat enrollment as if we are not planning
017to grow in the district. So, um I'll walk you through this and then we'll provide you some of this in a a weekly memo also as it gets clearer and clearer. But um we did increase our staffing ratio by one student. Um so that that was some savings in the system. As you know uh we did make the decision to close the Jeff Jefferson Junior High School program. Uh we've also eliminated the deans um at our large K8s and at our high schools. Some of our high schools have chosen to use teacher FD to convert back and to keep a dean. Um but but we pulled those dean positions back. We pulled back an assistant principal position at Bella Romero. They've had uh five administrators on those two campuses and and um looking at that
018and studying that carefully, we really feel it's appropriate to to pull another position back. We had added another position when uh when John Cooney left, feeling like the new principal needed that additional support and and so we we feel like it's reasonable to pull that back at this time. Um, so then, so those are the big pieces that hit the buildings. In terms of the district-wide cuts, we've eliminated three coordinator positions out of this building. Um, so three administrators out of this building. We've also eliminated an administrative assistant out of this building, actually in our school leadership department. um we have eliminated some of the technology replacement um budget for Chromebooks and for laptops uh mostly for staff and so that that's that's a sizable um savings there to do that. Um we are eliminating
019a position in instructional technology services. It's an instructional technology services tech position we eliminated. Uh we did not reinstate the counselor core grant positions um out of the general fund. We had hoped we would be able to do that out of mil levy override, but we we just can't. I'll talk about mil levy override here in a moment as well. Um we also eliminated the zero dropout 9th grade interventions positions. Those of you who've been on the board for a while, you're aware that we have um numbers of contracts with zero dropouts and we felt like we've done a lot of work and and um shoring up our high school teams and they're they're prepared to take that work on. So, we've pulled that contract back. We also have been evaluating all of our software
020and curriculum positions to um to make sure we don't have redundancy and uh we can produce some savings there. So, uh we we have made some cuts there as well um through the support of the IT department um to save some dollars. We will also postpone uh the the additional security camera projects um that were scheduled for next year. We'll hold on that. Um and then we'll also eliminate the contracted additional security officers that we've had at the uh large high schools. Um, and so all of that, uh, results in a savings of about $7 million, um, that we were able to recapture. And, and we're still looking, so as positions open up, we're looking to to say, do we need that position? Um, can we absorb that position in other ways in the system?
021Um, as as contracts come up for renewal around uh curriculum and software purchases and and other things that we purchase contracts on, we're looking at each of those saying, is this something that we could hold on or wait on or or do in another way in the system. Um, you know, it's really hard. We say and we believe in keeping the cuts as far away from as we can from the schools, but the reality is that most supports in the district are here to support the schools. So, it's very hard to make cuts without impacting our schools. I mean, that is just a reality when you're looking to find budget savings. So, I'll stop there for a minute and let you um ask questions that you might have uh share your comments and wonderings. So
022you said you saved 7 million. What's the difference then your guesstimate of how much more you need to So probably a couple of million uh I think Taylor based on the the school finance act and um there's an amendment right now for supplemental funding the atrisisk supplemental funding to to stay in the school finance act that was a thing from the old school finance act. If that comes back in, um, that is that will benefit district six significantly. Uh, it's about a $7 million statewide budget and we we receive about 2.2 million of that currently under the current finance formula. So, because we have so many students who live in poverty, um, so we think that we can fill the gap um, with that passing. If that doesn't, we're going to have to look to
023go deeper. Thank you. I also wanted to talk mil levy for just a minute. Um you may remember from the the this previous budget um that we we had in the past collected last year it was about 6 million more dollars. um we should have collected in mill levy override and this year this coming year would have been over seven million more in mill levy override and that that's based on that the freezing of the assessed valuation that was done statewide um to save homeowners on you know tax dollars and so that's um those are dollars that we don't have coming in that we have had coming in in the past. So the money that we get from the state is roughly the same. It's our it's our own MLO money that we're down about
0247 million. Is that Yeah, it's we're down council of core grants. Yeah, we're down the MLO. We'll actually receive more from the state than we've received in the past. Our PPR will be greater than it was this current school year. We believe depend on where the the finance act lands. And then how about federal dollars? We just really don't know yet, Miss Mash, about federal dollars. We just don't know. Uh we are planning for a 15% reduction in title dollars in title one in particular. And so the budget we've built around title schools um is about 15% uh less than what it has been in the past cuz we anticipate that kind of a cut. And we've been seeing cuts like that, you know, for several years now. That's been dwindling for a while now.
025So, um, you know, our our schools that are are very high poverty that that receive a lot of title one dollars, you know, they may have seen one or two positions go away with the loss of those title one dollars if they were paying for teachers out of those dollars. Can you explain to me um you mentioned like co-curricular costs. Uhhuh. Can you what does that mean? Yeah. So, those are extra duty contracts. So co-curricular is anything that employees do in addition to their regular employment. So it it there are extra duty contracts for coaching for um uh being a lead teacher in a building for s for leading um a you know being the theater teacher who does the plays with all those those extra duty contracts. Thanks. Mhm. And they're based on all
026those contracts are um that that amount is based on years of experience um that the employee has. The summer school programs won't have to be affected with Well, I do that is not included here, but we are we did we are evaluating that right now. Right. We did scale back. We did scale back some of summer school. I Yeah. So there there we are doing fewer programs at summer school. How about lunches? Because Well, right now, um, nutrition should be fully funded for first semester. So, what this has already passed the legislature. So, what passed is, um, to fully fund, um, school lunch for all, which the state passed a year ago, and to fully fund it for the first semester, but there is not enough funding to fund it for second semester. So, um,
027the intent is for there to be a ballot measure to take it to the state. um t statewide to the voters to determine whether or not the voters want to pay for for school lunch for all. So district 6 will be fine with the exception of one school. We because our students qualif our schools qualify just all of our schools except for one of our charter schools. Every other school qualifies. So we will still be funded on breakfast and lunch regardless. Um but but the schools that don't qualify um for those federal supports uh will not if the ballot measure in the fall doesn't pass will not be funded second semester. So then we'll have to go back to an application some I don't know I don't know what their plan is for that. I
028don't know. They've already identified those schools. So I don't know that they No, I don't think you'd go back this year. Yeah. And do we benefit off of federal grants that might be as we do we do benefit from federal grants? Um uh we have about 13% of our budget I think is federal grants. Um so but we just don't know yet. Um the big ones are the title grants, the title one, title three. Um those are you know those are the sizable ones. McKenna Vento for our homelessness population. and that's a that's a federal grant as well. Um our afterchool 21st century programs are federal grants. Um Gear Up is a federal grant. So I we just really do not know yet. Um Mr. Aari and um I'll wait I'll wait till Mr. fall
029comes, but perhaps we'll talk a little bit about um where the state of Colorado is around, you know, signing off to to not offer certain programs in order to guarantee receiving federal grants. We just really don't know the counselor core grants. Can you explain? Those are state grants, um not federal grants, and they're they're typically for three years. And we had so right now we have eight positions in counselor core grants. Am I right? Currently eight. So all of our high schools and middle schools. Um next year those that grant ends and the intent had always been to pay for those positions out of mil levy override dollars. When the grant ended with receiving fewer mil levy override dollars, we did cut those positions at middle school. We we do have the high the additional
030high school positions in the budget right now. We do expect um we have been awarded council core grants for our K8 schools. Right now we're still being told we we will receive those counselor core positions. So new positions for three years coming up. Um right now we're told we will still receive that funding. So it's likely that some of the folks that were in middle schools uh would move into those K8 positions. And so they they will there will still be counselors in high school and and in our K through8. Yeah, these were just additional positions to the what we typically staff for. This was an additional position really uh with more specific duties than a traditional school counselor. Um that and those duties come as a requirement of the grant from the state. So
031uh we at the high school level we still funded the additional counselor. Yeah. The the middle schools have one or two counselors, Anthony. Um, one or two? They have two. They'll have two. They'll have two. What else are you wondering about? Did the legislature say when they might have it finalized? Um, we there's we we don't know. Do we know Nate when we might be finalized with school finance act? No. I mean it's got to go through appropriations and then through both changes. So yeah. So we're probably into next week maybe. That still would be early. It would be early. They're trying to be earlier. I think that would be the earliest we would know. Other questions? This is a time to clarify those myths that you're, you know, the things you're hearing out there.
032Is it truth or a myth um around around funding and and around staffing and budgeting? And it's also time to if there's things you want to make sure we're looking at or considering that we're doing that as well. Well, I'm grateful that the student to staff ratio was only increased by one. I think that I am too. I was fearful we may have to go deeper than that. So, and and part of this I want to be really frank and I think you all know this especially those of you who have participated now for multiple years in negotiations. You know that um the our cabinet team our philosophy is to pay the people we have well first and then to add more people. So, um you know, the decision was made to to do everything
033we could to honor um steps and lanes, which is honoring education as well as years of service. And then also, um looking at the possibility of at least some small raise for everyone. Um that that was more, you know, that's the priority over over the staffing quite frankly. So um um when you say increase the ratio by one student, so that's where you're asking each individual building to decrease FTE. Yes. Yeah. So if um so a high school that um may have been at a 25 to 5 to one. So every 25 and a half teachers or every 25 and a half students you get one FTE. That w that went to 26 and a half you get one. And I may have the original number wrong on what it is, but it went up
034one um when we we do the math to determine what they get. Now, it's not as easy um to make that work perfectly at the elementary level because you have to it's based on actually round, you know, rounds the number of classes you have at at kinder and first and second and they just don't work out perfectly to be 22 to one at, you know, in every building for every kindergarten section. So in some cases you may you know you may have 17 kids in a kindergarten classroom or or 16 and in some cases you might have the you know the 22 23 depend on how the numbers fall. All right. Thank you very much for that update and I'm sure there'll be more to come once we have solidified numbers. And yes, at this
035time we'll invite Mr. Fall to come and give us our legislative update. I'll just while he's transitional, I'll add one more thing. Miss Mash, we are um Miss Snder, our GRE Education Association president, and I met last week. We're beginning to to try to plan backwards to when we might be able to bring the master contract language to you all for a vote. Um, as you know, the association has to ratify it before we can bring it to you for a vote. Um, so our compensation committee has to finish compensation and and be able to come to agreement there and then Miss Snder can work with her association to to begin to put that out for possible ratification. So hopefully what we we said May, right? We were hoping there's just one meeting in May
036and so we're hoping that one meeting in May we would be able to do that. So thank you President Mash and members of the board, Dr. Pilch. My name is Nate Fall. I'm in House Legal Counsel for the school district. We are doing a legislative update today. Um I we will talk at the end about school finance act. Um hopefully I can answer some of those questions that were brought up just now. Um but let's start with board priorities. I'm just letting you know that house bill 251192 that's that financial literacy graduation requirement bill hasn't made any movement. It's still been referred to House Appropriations Committee and that was as of March 6th. We're still determining whether or not we can just supplement our current curriculum um and just create a graduation requirement for what
037students are already doing. Um but there's more to come with that and we'll see if this even goes through. Um House Bill 251135, communication devices in school. This is that cell phone ban bill where you have to pass a policy that did get through the Senate with a few amendments and it's now on to the governor's desk for signature. We'll we will be in compliance with that law when it's signed. We already are in compliance. We are in the clients. Yeah, that's what he what I meant. Uh now from a federal level, uh in here I have embedded links. It looks like I don't know if I've shared this with you, but embedded links that we've talked about in the past for dear colleague le letters as well as executive orders from President Trump. I
038did include uh some new information from the US Department of Education. That's bullet point two. On April 3rd, uh the US Department of Education issued this title six certification letter and they sent it to all state governments asking their kind of commissioners of education or superintendents of education, whoever may be that authoritative figure to sign a certification uh essentially stating that um we do not violate title six, which is the um federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and national origin. Uh really the focus is that uh state education systems do not promote or have programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion, also known as DEI. Um ultimately what this letter does is they are threatening to pull Title One funding if a state does not follow the federal government's interpretation of Title
039Six. Go ahead. Um, does that require us to change our language in our documents and on our website? So, it it it would depend on how this ultimately becomes enforced, I would say. Um, so, but I can get there. Let me let me try to answer that. I'll walk us through a little bit more. Um, Director Zari. And so what this letter said is that all state um officials are required to sign the certification within 10 days and then return it to the department of education essentially saying that we'll comply with this new directive. Uh and then last week on Friday uh Commissioner Susanna Cordova issued a letter essentially saying that they're not going to be signing the certification and they're not going to be collecting signatures from ELEAS or local education um agencies. uh
040to um sign the certification. Uh the reasoning that they gave was really similar to what I've seen from other states. I think the state of New York did something similar and they just said that we are already we've already made assurances that we will comply with title six. Um and so there's no need to make renew those assurances that we are going to comply with title six because we're already doing that. Um, and then the other kind of main part about Susana Cordova's or Commissioner Cordova's uh letter is that we don't really have the state doesn't have any obligation to actually sign this. Uh, in order for the federal government to issue such a directive, they have to go through a really specific process that involves notice and comment. Uh, and they didn't do that.
041They essentially just released guidance saying that you have to follow this. Um, and that violates agency law uh around notice and comment. And then the second piece is that federal guidance of this nature doesn't carry the force of law. Uh and so they didn't want to be bound by something that's not law. Um but but again, could that jeopardize our being able to receive grants from the federal level? I mean, with or without the state compliance, are we required to comply as an individual school district with federal um directives? So, I think that's something we can certainly consider. Um I I think it's certainly possible that they could enforce this and start withdrawing Title One funds from states that aren't in compliance and then um that would obviously trickle down to school districts. Uh I'm
042not sure what it might look like if a school district were to sign on um whether or not they would still funnel money directly to that school district. So um I think that's certainly a possibility. Okay. But I was under the the understanding that we're waiting for um Susanna Cordova to make a decision and that she basically speaks for the 178 school districts in the state of Colorado. Yes. And it's been um our position to just kind of follow what CDE is planning to do with this. So um that's just the position we're taking at this time. And we're watching the other school district, I mean the other states to see how this falls out in other states. It is. Yeah. Um and and we know that the state of Maine um right now may
043be facing a cut in funding due to some uh violations with um how the current federal government interprets Title 9. And so they're threatening funding now in the state of Maine. So it we will see kind of what ends up happening. Um, but whether or not the federal government can withhold funds without congressional action, I think is going to be a issue that's going to be litigated for years. Um, and so, but whether or not that means we're going to get funding while that litigation is happening is another question. It's it's just a lot of unknown. I I apologize. This might be the third or fourth time I've spoken to you all with nothing but vague answers to your questions and just I still say I don't know. But um to your point, Director Zari,
044yeah, it's possible they could pull funding cuz I still get confused um how much goes through the state and how much directly impacts us as an individual school district. Yeah, it all flows through the state. Uh okay. Unless we well that it's not act when we apply for um these one-off grants like the safety grants, I don't think those go through the state. They come directly to us. But but all of the big um the big title grants, the idea special education grants, um all of that comes through the state regardless. Um and with the proposed elimination of the Department of Educa, the state United States Department of Education, um all of those are supposed to go to the state level to be disseminated uh locally to school districts. So, um I think you know
045we don't we don't know. Uh there's a lot we don't know. Um we have been you know some of the documents that were released uh from the new United States Secretary of Education have have said uh none of the none of the changes in federal funding will impact special education or title one. And but then when you get notice that if you're not in compliance with the executive order, um you're at risk of having your title one funding pulled. that's in, you know, in conflict with what we were previously told and really kind of a whole separate thing going on around the, you know, the the executive orders around not not implementing any cultural proficiency work or title really, you know, title any of the the title six pieces. Yeah, I would hope that our
046district wouldn't take any preemptive action, you know, um, and would just stand our ground unless we're absolutely forced to. That's my hope. Well, as I mentioned, I I'll continue to keep you updated and I I do apologize that we haven't been able to reach a a determination on what what's the best approach here. Certainly, if there's a threat to cut title one funding, we're going to scrutinize that closely and decide if there's something that we have to do. But, um and and it we will come to our board of education for input on that. we will we won't be making a unilateral decision around that. We're talking millions of dollars. [Music] Okay. Um I did just continue to add on page two of your document um the executive orders that we have that we know
047have a real direct impact on K12 education. I haven't seen anything since uh that I added to that list. And then uh just talking about accountability, House Bill 25278, that's modifications, the accountability system that hasn't made any movement either since the last time we spoke. Just just as a reminder, there is a summary in here that I think really does kind of explain the task force recommendations and then how they included it in the bill. So you can kind of mirror and watch what changes were made and why. Um, I don't know if the board has any other bills or questions about anything else that uh you were wondering about. Okay. Well, if anything comes up, just let me know. We'll go to other proposed legislation. I have three bills we actually haven't talked about
048before we get into the school finance act. This first one is Senate Bill 25284, youth service organization engagement on school campuses. This bill would require schools to allow these youth service organizations to um present on campus about their organization. So, uh Boy Scouts of America, for example, would be able to come during school hours and present on what Boy Scouts of America does. And so, and then we would have to create policy on managing these outside organizations coming in to our schools to present. uh we would still retain that kind of time, place and manner restrictions that we do for um public comment for example. Uh I I think this bill is concerning for a number of reasons and I'll just highlight the two main ones. The first one is just allowing an outside organization
049to come take away time from learning time I think is problematic across many regards especially when we're really focused on academic achievement. This just takes more time out of the day uh for students to not learn and have to um learn about other organizations. We already allow these organizations to come into our building uh to provide information. Uh they have they have to sign the facilities use agreement. We have a whole process for these organizations already, but it takes place outside of the school hours. And so we find that to be a beneficial process. The second piece that I think is concerning is the administrative burden that comes with managing the request for which organizations get to come speak to kids and which don't. Uh it's a very challenging decision at times. Uh and whether
050or not an organization meets this definition of youth services organization um is going to be up for debate. And then depending on what is the content or nature of the organization and what they want to present on, it just may be challenging from an administrative standpoint to decide kind of uh what organizations we're going to be able to allow in as well as kind of how often they can come in, how long they're allowed to speak, etc., etc. And so it's just going to be a real challenge uh in my perspective for u managing all these requests. Nate, where where does this come from? And is there any support for it or do we just expect it to fail? So, this comes from the Boy Scouts of America, I believe. And, uh, last time I
051checked, they were the only org that was supporting it. Um, I didn't actually see if there were any other organizations that were involved with this at all. So do they currently from what you said do they currently come into the schools? Not during the school day. Okay. So it has to be after. Yeah. As now there are times that we do let um outside agencies in say during lunchtime in at on high school campuses when the campuses are open. Um there are some things where we bring in outside organizations, but we're, you know, we're pretty restrictive and pretty careful cuz as you can imagine, a lot of people want access to our students. A lot of organizations do. So, uh Colorado Association of School Executives is opposing, Charter Advocacy Coalition is opposing, CASBY is opposing,
052and St. Val St. Brain Valley School District is opposing. And then Scouting Colorado is in support. Colorado Children's Alliance is in support and Colorado alliance of YMCA's is in support. So I mean obviously this is really can get very very uh complicated but within the bill have have you examined it at all? Do they put limitations at all on anything like religious organizations or things along those lines or is it just open to if this bill were to pass anyone would be able to come into the schools? I always prepare for the worst case scenario. So what I can just read uh what a youth service organization by this bill means a youtherving nonprofit organization that promotes civic education and engagement positive youth development leadership training and opportunities social emotional well-being career and job readiness
053skills mentorship opportunities or community service opportunities to all youth and does not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, gender or sex. So, a non-discriminatory organization and it's a pretty broad definition of what organizations could meet this. So, and and I think for the most part it's brought with good intentions, right? I mean, these are YMCA, Boy Scouts of America. These are organizations that, you know, we've long worked with and um there's benefit for students participating in them. It just during the school day, I think, is what's most challenging for us. Any other questions on that one? Okay, this next bill is Senate Bill 25276. It's called Protect Civil Rights Immigration Status. This is up for the Senate tomorrow for some floor work. I believe this will be their second
054reading. Um I I provide a lot of information in in in the document I shared. So, I don't expect us to read through everything, but just know that this is creating kind of um barriers when it comes to federal immigration authorities accessing information about people, about citizens. And so, it creates really substantial restrictions on what can be released to federal immigration officials, when that information can be released, um what can be released. Um and it also restricts what we can ask in terms of our students and their families. I I will say for the most part we already do comply very much with this bill. I'm not saying we don't comply with this bill. Uh we've already done trainings about releasing personally identifiable information to any third party, not just federal immigration authorities, but to
055any third person that wants to come and review a child's record. We have a process in place for that. So that's not of most concern. What's concerning is this bill creates liability and it creates personal liability. Uh a significant amount of personal liability for somebody who intentionally discloses personally identifiable information to federal immigration authorities. Uh the last time I checked and I believe there was an amendment, but it could be civil penalties up to $50,000 per violation and they don't get any protection from statutory or qualified immunity. They're removing that immunity if you are intentionally releasing this information. Again, we our staff are not intentionally releasing anything to anybody. They know what Furpa is. They know what the rules are in terms of disclosing information uh to anybody. But in the event that a bunch
056of immigration officials come to your school and they really want information and they want it now, and you can just imagine somebody in that position may feel obligated to release that information in that moment and now they're subject to a $50,000 fine. Um it just doesn't necessarily seem fair. anytime any of our employees could face liability for anything, it raises a red flag for me. And I just find that to be very, very concerning. I think that the intention behind this bill is made the right way, right? We're not to intentionally disclose information uh that could affect somebody's citizenship status, but nonetheless, that's a pretty hefty fine uh to include um as a statutory fine. They would use that money for the benefit of the immigration legal defense fund, right? the money goes to a
057good place, but um I'm just concerned that if we don't make sure that all of our training is exactly right or if we miss somebody or we get a new person in the building that day, anything could happen, right? Um and we can only do so much preparation and training uh before perhaps something goes wrong. And it's really my goal to just predict plan for the plan for the worst and the most unlikely to happen. And and this is one of those situations where I genuinely have some concerns about this. That is of course my uh humble opinion. Um certainly uh whatever this board kind of is interested in or a direction this board wishes to go, you know, I'm I'm all ears for that. Leads me to ask, have we been asked to give
058information on students? No. As of yet? No. No. Okay. we that uh parents ask um I just had a parent ask me last week if if we would release that if someone asked about their their immigration status would we release that? And so we're still working to help, you know, educate our families that we don't release that information. Any other questions or thoughts or concerns about that one? I agree with the amend monitor. You know, if if there are some additional protections that can be made for that information without the steep penalty. Yeah, I'd be interested to see what amendments might come forward. And I do know uh organizations like HASSBY and Case and a lot of school districts have been looking at this. I know a lot of uh in-house attorneys have been looking
059at this just because of all that statutory liability that's being created. Um it's it's just very concerning. So I think you all heard me talk about before that one way we help recruit and retain teachers is we we make the work environment in which they work as positive as we can. of that. A big piece of that is what is the legislation that is coming down every year that is impacting the way teachers are able to do their job or not do their job or or something like this where they could have to take on, you know, significant liability for something. And so I think I think when I think about opposing some of this kind of legislation, I think about what helps me to to retain and recruit and have have quality teachers in
060the classroom, get people to go into education. Have we heard from any schools in Colorado that ICE agents have been asking school personnel for information? I have not heard that. I haven't either. I feel like it would make a headline. I haven't either. Headlines. Nate, would we not want to unless it's amended, would we not want to just oppose it? Um, I can work with Well, yeah. I mean, absolutely. I can work with um our lobbyist to see kind of what her recommendation is. Of course, because this is such a politically charged bill, you know, we want to make sure that we're kind of doing right by ourselves by not taking necessarily taking a strong position one way or another unless we really feel strongly about it. Yeah. Like to me, I I do think
061cuz right it's worded staff who intentionally violate the provisions. Like yes, I wouldn't love for our staff to intentionally be violating like even our policy, right? And saying like, "Oh, well this kid just got here two weeks ago, you know?" Um, so I I I think the spirit of the legislation is is good. It's to protect our kids. Um, but yes, I agree that if it were done unintentionally and you can't prove that it was unintentional or that person felt like a $50,000 fine versus like whatever federal, you know, punishment they're being threatened with if they don't disclose information, right? You're putting your staff in between a rock and a hard place. Um, so I I wouldn't oppose it. I would say monitor amend, but I would not oppose the spirit of the legislation. Yeah,
062absolutely. Uh the last bill I just wanted to mention is Senate Bill 25153. I apologize to Miss Sponsor. She's not here tonight, but um she did want me to bring this one up with you. Um th this is just a bill that's just adding more reporting requirements on the finance team. Uh it's asking for school by school financial reporting if this bill were to pass. Right now we just do district level reporting. Um this would start in 2027. I would it would also involve detailed tracking of marketing, recruit recruitment, lobbying and private funding sources for school districts. Um there are new accounting categories that are being created through this bill and an extensive reporting of private revenue sources. And I think the intention to this bill is more for charters kind of wondering where they're
063getting their revenue from. But this the obligation still goes to the school districts as well. So it's not just charters that are that are having to do this. It's all schools. So it just is going to require significant extra work for our finance department that's already strained with the amount of reporting that they're currently doing. Um this is a bill that I would also recommend we monitor or oppose. Yeah. I was going to ask what what is it in this bill that we would be doing differently than what we already do? I mean, we already report uh consistently. That's part of the requirements. I would presume we don't we're not currently required to report school by school spending. So we report district spending which includes the school spending uh which you know we have in
064our total budget but we're not required to report that um at the state level. Uh in addition um some of the other um there's it changes how we have to report. So maybe it's it's things we would already be reporting but it changes the detail that we must provide in that reporting. So Megan said to me um that she believed this would require her to hire one more person in the in the finance department if this passes. Okay. To be able to do this. All right. With no other questions, we can go into school finance. So, uh as Dr. Kipla Spitzy pointed out, uh we did get a school finance act bill. That's House Bill 251320. It's going to be in front of House Appropriations Committee tomorrow. I just put a couple of very very
065very high level highlights here. Uh obviously there's a lot more to this bill, but I just want to start and say that this really is a positive step forward. Uh Representative McCcluskey, the speaker of the house, uh has been such an advocate for 1448 as well as pushing 1320 forward. um utilizing kind of the foundational principles of 1448 that we're going to start supporting more of our atrisisk students in the state of Colorado. Uh I will also just give a shout out to Dr. Pilch and Director Matthews for going to the state uh and going to the House Education Committee a week ago and speaking to this bill and why it's so important for our students in our community. Uh they did an excellent job and the House Education Committee did pass it uh unanimously.
066I believe it was a 13 to zero vote and so kudos and thank you so much for continuing to um it was a twominut uh testimony Dr. approach, not three. Um, and so the, uh, but I'll just say this is going to be a gradual phase in. So, uh, we know that there's been a lot of conversation around how we can't fully implement 1448. So, I'm just using numbers. 1448 would be the school finance act last year or the the changes to the school finance act last year. Um, and so they're doing a gradual phase in because they wouldn't be able to fully support it. We just don't have enough money in the state to do it the way that they want to do. And so, uh, instead of them phasing it in over six
067years, they're going to phase it in over seven years. And this is going to help school districts, uh, who are facing declining enrollment or who have enrollment fluctuations year-to-year. So, those they'll be held harmless at least next year, which means that they'll get the same amount of funding that they were entitled to get for next year. Um, and this is an increase in per pupil funding. Uh I think that the state did a lot of mental gymnastics here to get schools more money. Uh this is a this is a year where we know that we have a $1.2 billion shortfall and schools are going to get more money. That's amazing. Yeah, that's really something to be thankful for. So um our lawmakers have been working really hard to to do this right. And so, um,
068I know we may sound like we're complaining a lot that we don't have enough money, but, um, it is it is remarkable and something that we truly should thank our lawmakers for, um, for for bringing this together. Um, so, as far as specifics, uh, as I mentioned, they're going to do a they're modifying the phase in from, uh, it would would be fully implemented by the 203031 fiscal year. That's been moved to the 203132 fiscal year. they're going to maintain four-year averaging for next school year and then from every year on they're going to kind of lower that number. There's this smoothing factor uh that I cannot explain to you and I wish m maybe Dr. Pilch can uh in the event that if they shift to three-year averaging uh they don't have the amount
069of money available to support the this school finance formula then they'll revert back to the old formula. Is did I have that right? the smoothing piece. I think I I don't know, Nate. And part of what they've talked about is um how do they how do they take care of especially um very small districts when if if they drop by 12 kids in a individual school year that's significant funding for example um so I thought the smoothing was in relation to the numbers of kids I'll get more information yeah I mean honestly I don't think most of us understand it. Um, and it's it's kind of a a term that's out there that's being talked about, but I don't know that most of us have actually been given a full explanation of it. Yeah. And
070the I will say the committee members were also asking a lot of questions about the smoothing factor, and it didn't answer any questions for me. So, no, I I don't I don't think we've seen a clear explanation of what it means. And so, are did we start with fiveyear averaging and we're going to four or has it always been four? I believe it started with five and it's going to four, which was already part of the plan. I mean, you know, was to continue to ratchet that down. But it was kind of the the deal is that they need to keep averaging in place to in some way just because of declining enrollment, fluctuating enrollment numbers. Um the number I have for the increase in per pupil funding is $195 more um for next year.
071So um that's great. and then per student. And then uh we had asked about the the atrisisk supplemental aid. So my reading is that for next year 2526 they're going to get the same funding that 7 million is going to remain and then statewide statewide and then in 2627 there it's going to be 50% of that level and then they'll be fully eliminated by 2728. So as the other numbers come up that number will continue to go down. That makes sense. Uh and then the they're going to delay the at risk measure implementation from next year to the year after. And that that again is going to work with the um the supplemental aid. And yeah, I'm not sure if there's any other kind of specific questions or thoughts around this. I was just curious
072how it works. So there 1448 was the school funding bill last year but now we have to have a do we have a new one every year even though that or that bill just said here's how the funding formula works and then there's a new one each year. So 1448 was a change in the formula. Okay like how how you weight different things in the formula. So it changing to 1448 took away the significant factor of cost of living. many districts were benefiting from cost of living um which is really an outdated and old factor and what it did instead was it increased the importance of the at risk factors. So the factors around students who are free and reduced lunch, students who are ELLL and students who are special ed and for us so
073in the current formula uh we only get funded one one lift on a a student who might have all three of those characteristics. in the new formula uh we will get funded on every student who's free and reduced lunch you'll get a lift for that and then of every student who's an English language learner so if I'm a student who is free and reduced lunch and a student who is an English language learner I'm going to get a I'm going to get a double lift on that because we know the the resources needed to serve an English language learner are different than the resources to serve a student who's living in poverty some of it might be the same but it but it's it it's not necessarily um the same for every child. And so
074that's what changed in 1448. And then annually a school finance act has to be passed. Okay. As part of the total budget. Okay. What would you add to that? Um nothing. I don't know there unless you have any questions about that. So I feel unfortunately I it feels like we will be we will be uh legislating the new school funding formula every year as we legislate the school finance act every year I'm afraid until it's fully implemented. So the triggers that um Senator Kirkmeer had referred to earlier in the year they uh did not come into effect. I'm presuming that was voted on. That was voted on. Yes. And and so I think uh Senator Kirkmire would say that the trigger is was triggered. Yeah. So the joint budget committee is who had to vote
075on had the trigger been met and it was a tie. And in the event of a tie, it's a loss. And so the loss was no, the trigger was not met. And Senator Kirkmire was one of those votes that said yes, the trigger has been met. So we are pretty lucky actually that this came through. We are fortunate. Very fortunate. Very fortunate. So in the beginning you said that um our student enrollment wasn't going to wasn't affecting us like it has other districts but I'm trying to remember where I had seen we had a 200 u pupil reduction at west or we have an increase in other schools to help offset that. So we're not losing that. Yeah we are. So, our Northridge and Central are both up for next year. Okay. Yeah. Um, Mr.
076Paul, do you have any information about the I don't know if it's a bill or just an initiative to examine the constitutionality of Taber? I I uh I do I don't I I don't want to speak off the top of my head, but I I'm very aware of that. Um it's so yes, they're they're just deciding whether or not Taber is even constitutional. So this is just another attempt to review Taber uh in a different way um just because they continue to take Taber repealing Taber back to the lawmaker or to the voters uh and that's not very effective. So they're looking at other angles, but I can I can provide you a briefing on on that and where we're at with that. But yes, that is that is a big big deal. Um and
077then I don't I I'll share the electronic version with you now. Um, just know at the school finance at the very end, I dropped the fiscal note in there as well, which I think really does a great job of summarizing kind of everything we talked about. So, will you share that with Miss Lemon and me as well? Yes. And then we'll put it in the weekly bulletin. Any other comments or questions for Mr. Paul? Thank you. Thank you again. Um at this time we will debrief the work session and we'll start with you Mrs. Sullivan. Mr. Paul, thank you for your in-depth um explanation and um formalization of bringing this down to our level of understanding but um this is a lot of information to intake but um once this goes through then tomorrow with
078the April 15th will you guys be providing an email then for the update on the uh school finance act? Yes. Okay. It won't go through tomorrow. Oh, I thought this was it's Oh, this is going just to the house of appropriations. Yes. Yes, it goes to appropes and um so that could take a few days. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Yes. Um thank you, Mr. Fall as always. Um and thank you for the budget update. I was uh I was wanting to hear about the number, you know, the deficit. Um and so I just keep thinking, wow, it could have been worse, right, if uh if if the um state finance act didn't pass um our school finance act. So I this is the first time that I'm on the board where where we have to
079make cuts and cuts are hard, man. Um, and for me it's, you know, the the teacher to student ratio matters a lot. And so I feel like we were able to have that have minimal impact, um, while still making some some tough decisions, you know. So, thank you guys for your work on that. I'm sure it is not the most fun part of your job. Um, and for doing it thoughtfully and and informing us and keeping us informed about it. Thank you. Mr. Well, um I I just keep thinking every time we say the word uncertainty, uh that is a destabilizing factor. It's tough for all of our employees and our community and I want to thank you for answering uh my questions and and for my seeking clarification. I think a lot of people
080feel that way right now, not sure what's going to happen and it's a big concern because we have a lot of kids that benefit off Title One funds and some of these other grants and programs that we have. So I appreciate your vigilance and staying on top of it. Thanks, Mr. Matthews. I I would agree with Dr. Campus Spitzy. Feel very thankful that given a$1.2 $2 billion deficit. That uh the idea that we're we're only going to lose 7 million. Um sound sounds really good and and still very hard. So, thank you guys, all of you for your work um to make those cuts as um limiting as as possible. So, thank you. Yes. Thank you for the budget update so that we can um answer those questions intelligently and and know exactly where where
081those cuts are being made. Um once again, we receive good audit for our finance team and so I just continue to be so thankful that we have excellent um reserves and and management of our dollars so that when these times happen um we can mitigate the the impact. So, um I think that we are a little ahead of schedule. Um we will be back for our business meeting at 6 p.m. This meeting is now [Music]