001[Music] pap [Music] h [Music] a [Music] o [Music] w [Music] w [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] la [Music] n [Music] w [Music] n [Music] nah [Music] there [Music] n [Music] well good good evening welcome to the Board of Education meeting for Greely Evan school district 6 tonight is March 24th 2025 this meeting will now come to order please stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance to our flag I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Miss Richards will you call the RO for us please director aari present director Bentley present director campus spitzy director Mash present director Matthews present director
002Norwood present director Sullivan five members present thank you Miss Richards well again welcome we are glad that you guys are joining us tonight whether you are here with us in person or whether you were joining us online either tonight or at a later date we really are glad to have you and glad for your interest in district 6 uh we are in the middle of March and what what that means we've just included spring break so welcome back to all of our students best wishes on all that lies ahead we have a lot of testing ahead of us uh in the month of April and then also in the month of May May for our AP students and so we we just want to wish everyone in the midst of that our administrators and our
003teachers and our students best wishes as we go into testing uh before we left for spring break our board met with our gy Education Association as well as our Administration and we did what we call negotiations and we do that every year where uh our Administration our board and our uh gy Education Association meets together and um I just I mentioned this last time but I wanted to say it again uh this is one of the one of the great secrets in the sauce uh for the Excellence that is in district 6 and so when I when I say that I mean the way that we negotiate as as a team and the way way that that the board gets direct access to teachers throughout the entire um or at least for the beginning parts
004of of that negotiation and so thank you Dr pilch uh for that I do I do appreciate that our Board gets to meet directly with our gy Education Association uh that we get to get to hear directly from them and then I also want to thank our gy Education Association and the people that they represent we have it fantastic teachers in this district and we say it often but we cannot cannot say it enough um the jobs that our teachers have and and we hear these stories each and every time we we hear and hear from and meet with teachers uh the jobs that they have to uh to educate students who who come from so many disadvantages and and have so many difficulties in in front of them the amount of dedication that it
005takes the the amount of of empathy that our teachers uh give on a regular basis uh um our superintendent has said this often that you cannot you can't be an average teacher in this District um we don't have average students with average challenges um our students many of our students work their way they don't work their way through college they work their way through high school they just they have a lot of challenges um with 70% free and reduced lunch and so our teachers do an incredible job and and you cannot be average in this district and so we just want to say as we go into testing uh just how proud of our of our staff uh as we are as a board and and congratulations on this year and we hope that that
006everything goes well um in these last last few weeks of testing so with that that's all I have tonight um and we will move on to our superintendent's onor rooll and Dr pilch I'll hand it over to you thank you so much president Matthews and uh we have we have several f folks here tonight to be recognized as part of the superintendent's honor role and to support those those individuals who are being recognized um tonight I am recognizing uh a group of individuals who actually intervened in a life-threatening situation um during a sporting event at mlli uh STEM Academy and as a result of the actions of these folks uh we um had the best possible outcome of the situation and we actually have a Survivor with us tonight um who who was attended to
007that evening U Mr Dave mccardy who is here um with us as well with some of his family um but during a a basketball scrimmage at mlla STEM Academy between students and their parents um Mr mclardy collapsed on the court while he was playing basketball and um thanks to the quick action of of many individuals um this parent is here with us tonight it I I will tell you that the actions were truly heroic and um one of one of the things about having cameras uh in our large Open Spaces is we were able to view the action you know that when Mr mccardy went down on the floor and the actions taken by uh family members and by staff and and other um attendees at the event and so um really proud that people
008did what they're trained to do and our equipment did what it is supposed to do and I have Jen Clark here tonight who is our coordinator for health science for Health Services um to tell us a little bit more about this and to talk about these individuals and then Jen we have some certificates to hand out to folks too thank you Dr pilch I can't look at them because I will cry um as a coordinator of Health Services I wanted to take the opportunity to come to here tonight and say how honored I am to stand before you to express my sincere gratitude to the board of education for its commitment to students staff and Community safy your decision this past year to approve the purchase and installation of nearly 250 additional top-of-the-line life-saving AED
009units across our district has had a profound impact thanks to this vote and support of district 6 leadership every district 6 building and athletic department now has multiple AED units readily available for the in the event of a cardiac emergency less than a year later we are here to celebrate the life-saving impact that this decision has made and it directly saved the life of one of our own District Six parents Dave Mardy you can wave [Applause] Dave on the afternoon of Tuesday February 25th 2025 Dave was playing a scrimmage basketball game at his Children's School mcalli STEM Academy when he suddenly collapsed suffering a sudden cardiac arrest in the critical moment these Brave parents coaches and staff members acted quickly they quickly recognized the emergency and responded immediately within seconds they activated the emergency response
010system by calling 911 they retrieved and deployed the AED unit that was was available to them and initiated CPR this immediate response quick thinking and teamwork ensured that Dave received the life-saving care he needed before paramedics arrived tonight we have the privilege of honoring these everyday Heroes who in the moment of Crisis acted with bravery selflessness and an unwavering commitment to the safety of others on behalf of district 6 we extend our deepest gratitude for your willingness to step forward when it mattered most Dave has also expressed his heartfelt gratitude and appreciation and would like to take the opportunity to do that here personally tonight as well Dave hello I think I failed every public speaking class I ever took so bear with me for one second uh I really appreciate the opportunity to speak
011today um on February 25th as Jen said I was going to just have a fun parent versus kids basketball game against my older daughter at her school when without warning I went into sudden Cardiac Arrest I left this world for 3 minutes that day and if it wasn't for the Brave and immediate actions of the faculty and staff that are standing behind me I wouldn't be standing here would later come to learn that the survival rate of such an event outside of a hospital is between 7 to 9% the only reason I'm alive today is because of the training and AED devices that this school district has in place at the schools the investment that has been made in the training in AED devices was not for nothing I'm not really sure how you properly
012save thank someone for saving your life over of course I say a profound thank you to everyone that's here and know that I'll be carrying each of you with me for the rest of my life our stories are now interwoven because of your actions not only do I get to continue on this beautiful thing called life but three children will get to grow up with their dad a girlfriend can keep her partner a father will keep his son and a brother will keep his sibling you have all affected many lives and will continue to be thankful for you every single day thank you very much there are tissues up here for anyone that needs them um thank you Dave we we are here to celebrate um the people that saved Dave's life Michelle McNair John
013Paxton Kyla [Applause] Beck Alexis badel Sumi [Applause] Smith Justin McNichol Ted Kane [Applause] lucrecia green not here tonight we'll get her certificate to her um Alonso Gallardo Ariana Gallardo Dianna Castillo and Holly Mitchell Hol Steve and Holly is Steve's girlfriend and was there for all of that and I'm sure has nightmares but we're grateful that we were able to have that Ed close by and I learned tonight that um several of these people didn't meet each other until seconds before this sudden Cardiac Arrest happened so thank you to our D6 Community for the life-saving opportunity that you have given to Dave we're very grateful thank you well thank you Dr pilch um for this recognition and and thank you all um as I said at the beginning we don't have ordinary staff they do extraordinary
014things each and and every day and on this day something pretty extraordinary so uh thank you all for that and we will move move on to our next item which is an update on oh sorry the next item would be the approval of the agenda I move that the Board of Education of gy Evans school district 6 approves the agenda as presented second thank you both is there any discussion on the agenda seeing none Miss Richards will you give us a vote please director aari I director Bentley I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I motion carries five thank you Miss Richards next on our agenda is our Council of student Representatives report we will not actually have a report tonight but as always we are joined uh by Mr Timothy you're you're
015going to do it all right Mr Longacre take the report as always we are joined by Mr by Mr Timothy longer he's the president of our Council of student representatives and Miss s Vegas uh as well they sit with us each and every meeting and we're thankful for their input I'll give it to you Mr thank you very much president Matthews people of the board sahanas Dr pilch um I don't have my other members here Unfortunately today we had a few mishaps when it came to this certain meeting but that's okay I'm going to try and YOLO it we'll see how it goes hopefully it goes well now real quick thing to that whole thing that just happened that was incredible really tells you the character the personality the people we have in the city
016of gy and within district 6 and that's just empowering us all to tell us all that all of us can do something like that so that's great stuff now today I'm going to be reporting on Northridge High School the place where I come from I'm a senior at Northridge High School about to graduate on an nrtc scholarship to see you Boulder I'm participating in CSR National Honor Society JTC ban and many other programs within the school but I am going to be reporting outside of my group and does feel a little selfish to only talk about what I'm involved in so I will talk outside of that right now the big thing I want to talk about is how well Athletics are going within Northridge right now we have the girls basketball team competing for
017State huge I actually watched the game for it we had a pet band for it great game I've never actually been that much into basketball in my life I'll be super honest another thing the shooting team just went to Nationals scored 10th place in the nation out of 1100 teams in the entire country 10th Place the highest we've ever gotten as that team TSA is going to be going to National with one of my close friends Jeff and another one named David it's going to be great we actually had them here about a week ago so let them go let them score as much as possible see how they do other than that we've just been doing great on Sports at Northridge High School I can't think of a single team that has been excelling
018in the path of Northridge and has been breaking records honestly throughout the school another thing is group activities for instance our stuco right now is organizing what I personally think is the best senior prank that the school has seen in my four years the past few have just been San RP I want something crazier than that and our president's definitely revving something up additionally the ban has been going all throughout Colorado at this point participating in countless activities with its marching band and its main wind Symphony and concert band Orchestra other things like that and we have been scoring countless excellent Awards which is the second highest award you can earn in any competition as a band so we've taken that as an honor and additionally we earned our first Superior which is the highest
019honor you can earn in any competition as a band in my four years of the band so that was an incredible thing the band's also been growing exponentially we went from about 20 students my freshman year in the band super tiny to being about I'd say nearly 200 students overall in band and within this wind Symphony alone it's pushing 40 to 50 students so the band has been growing greatly all because of Mr Wilkinson's work additionally we have Capstone I actually went down to the Capstone projects a few weeks ago to just visit and check in on things we have Capstone projects such as a reptile informational little pamphlet which I thought was really interesting additional things such as an animation made by a student made uh named jeso looks really good we have some
020very talented students at our school and some little robot that Waters plants and could potentially make the person that's building it a millionaire someday because they're planning on actually making a patent so if you see a student from Northridge known for building water W plant watering robots that's millionaire that's cool I hope to see that happen honestly the JTC another one I'd like to talk about like I said our shooting team has been doing great we're growing in multiple different fields we've had a very successful run with our recruiting over the past two years this upcoming year we're hopefully going to have about 150 Cadets a massive jump back since Co hit us and brought us down to about my freshman year is about 70 students so we're seeing a massive growth in that program
021and we're hopefully going to see some new teams such as a Raider team a cyber security team and a drill team startup in the coming year and additionally on top of both the group activities and Athletics I'd like to talk about these scholarships that are flying all throughout Northridge we have countless students that are going to be going to prestigious universities and are on scholarships such as the questbridge nrtc scholarship additional ones like that it's just great to see that all the students I have worked closely with for years now see the recognition they deserve then the school because not all of the students of North idge are in athletics that allow them to get trophies and awards but these scholarships really dig into these smarter students of the school and the students that are
022less recognized financially things like that and allows them to grow and go to college for free so it's very interesting to see how things are going in that field now there are a few areas that I do want to talk about that will need Improvement at Northridge at least things that I have viewed one of those being the band program I already talked about it and I said that we've made a lot of growth but I think the one thing that's holding us back at this point is the instruments the instruments are heavily damaged and that goes for most schools in the district actually probably all of them they are all see seeing massive issues with their instruments being incred dented or even being in disrepair they can't even be used by students and what
023I have heard in past meetings and even talk to uh Nathan Wilkinson the band director himself we talked about today that when we have students right now that are getting brand new instruments versus the students that are still working with instruments that have like an inch long Dent into their Bell it it's kind of not demoralizing but it's more taking away their motivation to play that instrument when students sit down they see a nice shiny instrument next to theirs that's all scuffed up and almost 20 years old it just kind of goes in their head and says should I really even dedicate to play this instrument it's also I've even seen it within the bands caused an issue where students think maybe I'm not given a nice instrument because I'm just not a good enough
024player it has nothing to do with that I think it it's all because of finances so if there's any possibility to try and get more instruments even just a few more a little bit or see what we can do to get repairs done on a few of the instruments I think that'd go really far to take those about 60 students that are even in it wind Symphony even farther to get even more Superior recogniz in competition Additionally the shooting team is another one I'd like to talk about this one also has to do with finances our year unfortunately had to end on the Nationals we just went to we did Place 10th overall with Shooters all with all of our shooting Shooters placing ridiculously high even one of them beating out every shooter on the
025first place team and it's just incredible stuff what's going on the shooting team and we've even been recognized as the best team the school's ever had but the unfortunate thing is finances are in the way of that as well there's another thing called the CMP Nationals that's held in June so usually the shooting team's year is supposed to run from August all the way out to June but due to issues up in the federal government that have caused freezing in funds things like that it's just kind of halted that progress and we also haven't been able to get as much money as we were hoping this year to try fund us to go there so it would be nice to try and see if we can get more school funding or District funding towards this
026team that has been growing and blowing up honestly over the past four years I've seen it grow we are an incredible team and I'd love to see us try and get more done for the students that will carry it on for us such as maybe even a shooting range but that is for a future team to talk about and then the additional thing is I did hear from a representative that would wanted to try her best to get here but she unfortunately couldn't tonight she want to talk about sinks in the art department and also just other amenities in that department right now our art program for what I've seen does have a few older pieces of equipment especially the sinks and apparently the art teacher at Northridge has had issues with them over the
027past year might be the cheapest on option to try and look into so if anything can be done in the art Department that'd be really nice to see other than that I think Northridge is growing exponentially doing great I've even heard talks of it becoming a steam Academy the a in there meaning Arts So that obviously means something about how our arts department and bands and orchestras and choirs have been doing so I just think the big thing that's holding it back right now is the money I understand if that's very difficult and we've already seen that Northridge can carry itself on naturally without the money so whatever needs to happen Northridge will continue to grow and will continue to fight for District Six thank you Mr Longacre Mr Norwood has a question I think
028Mr Longacre kind of glazed over something uh 1100 teams 5200 competitors at the Marksmanship which in a text I got from major Kinley was called the Super Bowl of Marksmanship out of 5200 competitors sixth place right there Mr Longacre congratulations thank you very much sir [Applause] like I've said the shooters on that team are incredible honestly it's it's just that the the head the coach major Kinsley has been doing great work trying to take care of the team especially after we lost the instructor that was heading it three years ago that team is just doing fantastic work especially with the little things we have we go to Northridge every morning at 6 o' and just shooting its tiny gem whereas all the other teams that we blew out of the water have their own shooting
029ranges can shoot 3 hours a day they can have a lot more experience than we have yet we just have that natural passion to do as well as possible we're doing it thank you Mr Longacre next on our agenda is our classified employee of the year recognition I mentioned our fantastic staff not all of those are teachers a lot of those people um they drive our buses and they prepare meals for students and they serve meals to students and one of the things they do Mr long is they clean up after senior pranks uh that's some of what just so you know uh we'd like to invite uh um someone our classified council president uh to the podium and Dr pilch I'll give it to you to make any introductions you need to make well
030thank you president Matthews um our classified employees are often the folks that you don't see on the front line uh they're the ones who come in the earliest and stay the latest um on each of our school days and and uh they do all those things that keep our schools running um but they're not they're not the one front and center in the classroom and so they often don't get the recognition that the classroom teacher gets so we're really excited to recognize classified employees tonight and Wen who is the president of the the classified council is here I understand you're going to talk about the nominees and the soulle finalist as well so we're excited to have you Walken thank you for being tonight sorry about that um so yes we wanted to do something
031a little different uh normally we just recognize the winner um but I felt like we would make a small change this year and uh we'd like to recognize all three winners um it's kind of one of those things where we build up for this for the entire year and to have the two runner UPS like not be recognized to that point so with that being said um one thing that is a foundation for all D6 employees is there willingness to go above and beyond as we've seen tonight uh life- saving measures and students like this gentleman right here um but it's our ability to adapt and change for the support of our students um we should be accustomed to recognizing these efforts more often because of their value and that's something that I want to
032be able to do uh this afternoon so um do you want to announce I'm Rose I'm the vice president of classify Council and it's our great honor to announce our third runner up is Edgar chapado he is a lead painter from facilities I don't see Edgar um but I'd like to say a couple things about Edgar so he is the master painter for the entire gy School District um I noticed that when his nomination came through um he took on one of the biggest Renovations and D6 history renovating the central main gym and he spearheaded that um I thought that was really interesting um he also takes on his uh own ability to train other people with the selfless Act of also showing them how to do a great job um in regards to running
033that renovation he saved the district $755,000 and to me that was just a big chunk that's that's a great Improvement and that's um something to be celebrated um such an amazing act that his boss Matt holzmeister was going to be here tonight to also support him and that takes me to another spot of saying that I feel like we need to have that more in the district to have managers support their employees and to show them that on a daily basis and with that here comes the second and our second runner up is Anna Lopez from chapelo She's our per [Applause] congratulations thank you so miss Lopez um she frontlines the communication at chapelo uh she provides a tailored learning for each family that will help their student achieve in the greatest way so um
034having people like Anna that also is bilingual to break down those barriers of communication um that's a big step it's very hard for students and families to come to district 6 and to fill this kind of support is just above and beyond um she supports she supports families she also teaches native dances and encourages students to celebrate that with their family I thought that was really special so thank you h and it's our pleasure and honor to announce our winner of the classifi Council of this year is Liz Stockman from nutrition and the Wonder Woman of our school Pantry thank you I appreciate you all right most people people know Liz um she commits herself to every kid does not go hungry um she will build that um Pantry up she'll make sure that it
035has everything they need she'll also reach out to all 32 buildings not just certain ones but it's all 32 buildings that Liz commits herself to fulfill in those duties and not only that is I've heard that she takes leadership roles um she goes above and beyond and does things unexpectedly but that's what makes Liz Liz so with that being said um I want to thank everyone it's my honor and pleasure to not only um celebrate all three of these people but it's also like my honor to have them as my comrades and my co-workers and stuff so I appreciate that thank you very much well congratulations to to Liz congratulations to all of our all of our nominees and glad that we could be a part of that tonight um so next on our agenda
036is our superintendent's report and Dr pilch I'll give it back to you thank you president Matthews um I first want to just say thank you to Mr Norwood for the shout out to the Northridge Junior RC U Marksmanship team I heard that great news this morning when I was over at Northridge um it was great to get some good news but it really is a big deal to have placed 10th in the country out of over 5,000 students who have competed to get to that spot and Timothy to you a huge congratulations for placing sixth in the nation this is a big deal um and and we're so proud of you even though you don't have your own shooting range one day right one day there there will always be a future bond issue in
037our vision of district 6 um but congratulations Timothy we're so proud of you and it's just it's an honor to have both of you serve here with our board um each each board meeting each Monday night so thank you um I also want to give a shout out president Matthews you mentioned the success Foundation but I want to come back to that that breakfast again uh we had that breakfast here before spring break with with over 500 folks in attendance and it was just truly a wonderful event very well-run by students um student performers student presenters a couple of alumni who presented and spoke to their their teachers um but the focus of the event was on fundraising for musical instruments for music instruments for orchestra and band programs and so uh each of the
038students who presented are involved in the instrumental music program and the teachers who were honored and thanked there um are past teachers from from band and Orchestra or current teachers and Mr aari himself was one of those teachers who uh some of the alumni recognized so it was really a touching event I I would have to say one of the best that that I've seen in in my time here in district 6 um but just a reminder that the success Foundation is working hard this year to fund raise for musical instruments throughout the district it won't be enough probably but but it will be something so um a nice reminder about that and we're just so grateful not only to the the foundation but to all of the community members and staff and and Business
039Leaders who attended that breakfast and who contribute so much to our student stud here in district 6 we really do this together uh we meet the needs of our students because we come together to do that we don't get to do that alone as a school district so congratulations um I want to share that we had some conversation in our work session tonight and you can go and watch it if uh you you didn't have a chance to watch a work session about really about what's going on at the state level with legislation and and then a little bit about what's happening at the national level with the possible elimination of the US Department of Education and and um with all the executive orders that are being signed but we're tracking with that really closely
040we do have in-house legal council Nate fall who's tracking that for us um and and we're watching really closely to what those those things mean for us we do know um we've been told um it has it has been said by uh the United States Department of Education uh Commissioner of Education that special education dollars or the idea dollars will remain intact uh and we believe that to be so because it's also um in in the law um as well as our title dollars which is a big deal to district 6 we receive a lot of title dollars um from each of the title grants through the federal funding and so we're watching that closely um and and we're we're hopeful that those dollars will remain intact it does seem there may be some other
041Cuts in federal dollars that come as a result of these changes um at the federal level and and we'll manage and prepare for that as needed we're also watching the state budget very closely we're hopeful that we might actually have a proposed budget by the end of the month which would be really really soon compared to previous years but uh we do know that K12 will very likely take some cuts um if the new funding formula is implemented and it's promised it'll be implemented at least partially um if that does happen for and does pass through uh the legislation then uh we will um hopefully be able to not face significant Cuts here in district 6 um like some of our neighboring colleagues will but uh we're watching that closely we're budgeting very conservatively and
042and we are preparing for cuts we do know um that there is a need for some cuts and we are preparing for that um as we prepare for next year's budget I'll end on a positive note and just say that as folks are coming off of a spring break today we really are into the the last quarter of school and it's it's been a very fast Year and thank you for what you said president Matthews about testing and gearing up for the remainder of the year but um I I just want to thank our parents and our students and our staff for for showing up every single day and for the hard work you do to get students get get students to the best education possible um we couldn't do this without our staff and
043our parents um and the kiddos showing up to do do their work every day so thank you to all of you really it's going to go by very quickly and before we know what graduation ceremonies will be here thank you thank you Dr pilch next on our agenda is our i2030 update climate and culture goal 2.3 Safety and Security in annual safe schools update I see chief of security Wade corus coming to the podium Dr pilch is there anything you would like to say in introduction I'll just turn this over to the Safety and Security team and let Chief corus introduce um his colleagues and take the report from here thank you thank you it's uh Wade corus chief of Safety and Security here at grey Evans dist district 6 uh I just want to
044address Dr pilch uh president Matthews and members of the board as well as our Junior board as we go into our presentation here um I have my team behind me behind me here um with uh our director of Safety and Security Brad luki and assistant director of Safety and Security Brian Breeze who are going to assist me with this presentation today and assist me with all day every day with everything Safety and Security related through the district uh two other individuals I do want to uh bring it to your attention is Al is Jasmine overshiner our threat assessment coordinator um and Jeremy Hayden who is the restorative practices coordinator although he doesn't work directly for Safety and Security um he assists us with all things Safety and Security as well um everything that we do
045uh with I i230 Falls in line with the district 6 uh Mission and and vision which you're well familiar with um uh along with our with our core values for the i2030 um although Safety and Security we involved in in Touching every every single point on the on the values here um I would say the one line that's more specific to us is that we uh we ensure safe secure and and healthy schools um again this falls under the climate and culture piece in i2030 would say we also have some overlap within strengthening Partnerships because Partnerships are instrumental in everything that we do uh for Safety and Security um I know you you've seen this I'm not going to give you the full presentation on the areas that we're working on on a daily basis
046when it comes to Safety and Security um but the the five areas that we're working on is information technology environmental Security Control Systems uh threat management and daily practices Emergency Management and crisis management as well as our our Partnerships with local law enforcement and and first responders um with this I'm going to go ahead and uh turn it over to Brian Breeze our assistant director of Safety and Security good evening like uh Chief corus said my name is Brian Breeze the assistant director of Safety and Security I want to talk about our goals for D6 Safety and Security um we are supporting the social emotional and physical well-being of all students and staff at district 6 our objective is to update districtwide plans for crisis response and our outcome are to fully Implement district 6
047Safety and Security measures our actions and strategies we have ongoing implementation of I love you guys if you're not familiar with I love you guys that is our crisis response and post-crisis unification um and includes our standard response protocol for uh School emergencies as well as reunification uh ongoing implementation of the Raptor alert which is digital alert and drill management as well as our visitor and volunteer management uh complete all emergency operation plans for all schools that's something that as a team we met with all administrators and put together a specific Emergency Operations plan for that school uh training all School administrators and District leadership on incident command systems um IC incident command systems is just a standardized approach for Incident Management it's just something that we wanted to maintain consistency if we ever do
048have an emergency um building the command center which I think had a chance to go through and tour um it's pretty amazing uh the team did great work especially Brad on securing a grant to get that um and collaboration with our school resource officers our responsive Behavior teams were having ongoing effort to improve student Behavior through our best practices uh we're really focusing on collaboration communication and consistency um consistency with the data entry into infin and campus uh restorative practices we're fortunate enough to have Mr Jeremy Hayden here um is really helping us out with with that as well as threat assessments we have a new threat assessment coordinator uh Miss Jasmine overshiner who's been uh both of those guys have been amazing with the work that they've been doing in the in the short
049excuse me short time that they've been here with us um looking at some alternatives to suspensions mtss uh PBIS secl uh systems of support always looking to focus on improving that climate and culture of the schools and monitoring the behavior data uh through our edger climber our outcome data is that all district six schools fully implemented the standard response protocol from I love you guys Foundation all district six schools have transitioned to the Raptor alert for digital crisis alerts and drill management system in Fall of 2024 all district 6 School emergency operation plans with the help of everybody standing next to me were completed for each School in our district District Six administrators were provided with module training uh for the national Incident Management and incident command systems trainings and this is something that's ongoing
050because we just implemented that at the start of the school year uh December of 2024 gy Evans School District Command Center was completed here's some outcome data it's results from a panorama survey for Safety and Security um these are family surveys on perceptions of safety um obviously as a Safety and Security team we're always working towards Improvement and being better we're looking to improve this through enhanced security infrastructure continuing our collaboration with our SRO and our campus monitors and our armed security at our high schools fostering an inclusive School culture positive behavior interventions which is going to be supported by Jeremy Hayden our restorative practices coordinator and having our awesome operational command center it's not very often I wear our ties so you have to forgive me I'm sweating like crazy up here right now
051before I talk to you guys um so just to go over some grants that were awarded to the school district just this past year the first one was the school security dispersement Grant was a $59,000 grant that we used to outfit the command center I'm sure you've heard about that previously the safer Grant was uh primarily done by Mr Tony Czech director of it that went to support the command Center's radio infrastructure and then the bja stop Grant which is the grant that we just recently got was for two positions again for Mr Jeremy Hayden through restorative practices and Miss Jasmine overshiner who's the district's threat assessment coordinator the command center oh wow where do I begin it looks like you're walking on like the start of a spaceship um there's a lot of districts
052around the state that have something like this and it was time that District Six move forward which is why we wrote the Grant and we got that as well it's going to serve as our emergency Operation Center and so in times of Crisis this is where all the district leadership team can meet and can make those Command Decisions that are necessary we'll be able to monitor districtwide School cameras um currently we're assisting the police department with downloads that they may need for evidence or crimes are are committed around the school district by other folks uh the access control portion of it from that Command Center we're able to lock down secure any school within the district push of a button from one place uh we're able to man manage and monitor all potential threats again
053through that District Command Center there uh and the command center is also assisting us with saf to tell alerts go Guardian alerts uh Raptor alerts doors cameras so on and so forth and we're continuing to improve the efficiency of that kind of learning as as we go and getting it up and running and figuring out what additional programs will best benefit the district the stop grant that I mentioned earlier um again to present them again Jasmine overshiner who you've already seen uh is the district's threat assessment coordinator her sole purpose for that is again to assess any threats that we have in the district she's also doing all the data collection on it and showing consistency throughout the district so that everyone is being treated equitably uh Jeremy Hayden our restorative practices coordinator is our
054alternative to suspension um doing the circles having the tough talks with kids and with families and and getting everybody back on track safe schools audit every year the three team members back here we do an audit of every single School in the district to see where we stand safety wise uh for each School how each school is looking um are doors working do window locks work do intercoms work cameras so on and so forth um they're valued on 10 different categories we we hit it pretty hard this year we we really took a lot of time to do super in-depth to see how we're looking here's the outcome of our safe schools audit the the majority are within the 90th percentile the only one that slipped below is the gap next building although I will
055note that we just acquired the purchase of the Gap next building so it's now undergoing the necessary features to upgrade such as additional door locks uh we're looking at trying to get cameras within that building now the secure vestibule was just completed in there so there's some other projects to go uh so hopefully next year we'll see a huge jump on that building um so I just wanted to close out kind of give you you uh some updates of some other activities and things that we're working on um this is a project that I think that's super important is the infrastruct traffic infrastructure around our schools uh just want to give a huge thanks to the city of gy um as they're actively working on multiple uh different grants and opportunities uh to help support
056traffic in infrastructure not not only around our schools but throughout the city of gy um the one the one that I have in here the two that are specifically that they're able to use funds and assist in the around the school areas are Safe Streets for all which is a grant which the city of gy has already uh has already received and they're actively working on through those funds now the one that would be more specific to gy Evans district 6 schools would be the safe routes to to school um currently the city Agy is working with a traffic engineering consultant who's already been going out to all the k8s and elementaries and collecting data for pedestrian and veh vehicle movement in the area of our schools and the main goal is just trying to
057make our traffic infrastructure as safe as we can um around the schools and surrounding areas um I think that we've done a good job of that but there's still there's still some work to do in that area um our additional next steps for Safety and Security is to approve an updated Master Emergency Operations plan um which we would be a comprehensive districtwide uh EOP um then continuing to revise and update the the School site Emergency Operations plans and improve the accessibility for use uh during emergencies um and then again uh continue to focus on improving the student uh behavior management at the schools so that thank you and open to any questions I imagine we'll have a few and it looks like Mr aari is first yeah thank you for the report this evening just
058a question on the safe schools audit as I take a look at the chart four of our schools have 100% so what are the factors that would keep a school from being 100% And what are we doing to get them there um so as so as uh director lopi was speaking this is just a very short overview I'll get back to the Chart here in a minute this is a very short description of the actual inspection that we do there are subcategories of every single one um I would say the schools that are venturing up there into the % are the ones that were recently updated in in their most recent Bond and and have got the the latest of the of the Safety and secur Security features you know new new parking lots create
059a better better traffic parking and traffic infrastructure um so I'd say the ones that have gotten the the bulk of the bond work most recently are are some of the ones are up to that that highest of of standards and and some of the other ones it may be just some small things here or there that we need to go back through and and double check some door locks and that's really what we're trying to do with this is It's collaboration between us and our facilities Department Kent's not here tonight uh but Kent and I have regular meetings and talking about hey we need to get this done we need to get that done uh so it would be things of that nature thanks Mr Bentley uh more just a comment I just wanted to
060to let you guys know that in in my dealings at least with the the community and and people that that ask me questions about the the district the safety is always probably top three if not top of their their mind when they when they're asking me about how the school district's doing and and the things that we we have done with the bond and stuff and I just wanted to say thank you guys for always being forward looking and and going above and beyond it's nice for for us as a board to be able to tell them about the exciting things that Command Center and and all the stuff that we're doing to um to keep their kids safe so appreciate you guys thank you thank you Mr Bentley Mr Norwood just want to say
061when we got the chance to tour the control center wow it was amazing but I just had a couple questions I remember the days when we had the uh lockdown drills Outside Inside threat do you guys control the classroom doors now as well too so they still have the lockdown drills I would I would imagine so we still have the lock down drills yes uh Mr Norwood we do the control of the interior doors is coming it's Tech that we're working on the tech that we have right now secured is all the exterior door Tech so if we have an outside thread or something like that we can keep them out we have the capability to lock the inside doors it's just getting it to the command center will working on so the tech is
062coming it's coming really really quickly I promise you that um we're almost there I I remember the days we had the drills and we were all supposed to get in an area close our doors and windows and get out of sight so I I think what you guys have done is amazing I really do it's so so refreshing to see that you're protecting our kids and our teachers than our schools thank you Mr Norwood Miss mesh um I think you mentioned before the um at what point the command center will be U manned or um is that still just school hours is that what is your plan with moving that to 247 or during sporting events things like that um so my goal for this spring is to we have two gentlemen that are working
063in there right now doing an outstanding job we hired the right people for the job um really trying to build the infrastructure into it that they they they're they're learning learning how to do the job and and what we're asking them to do um I would say our goal is probably beginning in the fall of next year that we're going to extend their hours out we're going to try to keep them to regular school hours for now while we're getting them trained up and then we will probably start flexing their schedule out to cover those sporting event hours um and and see where it grows from there any other questions comments from board members Mr aari I just have one other question is there a difference in Safety and Security perceptions during the school day
064versus after the school day during like sporting events and things along those lines that you that you guys uh take into consideration that the public should know I mean is there any differences in the in those two feeling tones of the school so I I what I will tell you Mr isari is a that's a a that's a really good question and something I think about a lot is how do you change the per the public perception of Safety and Security and how do we move that needle from 77% all the way up into 100% um one thing that I have noticed is things that are going on Nationwide impact us locally and and that drives down the feelings of the anx and increases the anxieties and those things of parents um so I I
065I I can't say exactly directly from the school day versus to extracurricular events um as far as it goes to to to public perception but there are things that go on outside in the community that are not directly School related that do impact uh how someone may feel or their perception of feeling towards Safety and Security but my goal with everything that we're doing is that we leave no question and that we get that point that we're continuing to itch up that chart of the Public's trust in us as a Safety and Security team as and as a as a community as a whole thank you Mr aari I don't see any other questions from from board members so I will just add my thanks to you guys uh this is this is the most
066important thing we can't do anything else and and if our students are not safe and and secure and I think it was Mr Norwood's verbage uh above and beyond we certainly can see that we can see you guys going above and beyond and and on behalf of our students and and our parents uh and our and our staff thank you so much for the job that you do we appreciate it thank you next on our agenda is our public participation Miss Richards I don't believe we have anybody tonight all right nobody speaking to us in public participation so next on the agenda is our consent agenda and we'll need someone to make a motion I move that the Board of Education of gy EV School District Six approves the items as presented on the consent
067agenda and authorizes the officers to sign any and all contracts second thank you both any discussion on the consent agenda seeing none Miss Richards will you give us a vote director aari I director Bentley I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I motion carries 5 Z thank you Miss Richards next on our agenda is is our employee benefit renewal and this also is an action item I moved that the Board of Education of gy Evan school district 6 approves the insurance renewal as presented and authorizes the officers to sign any and all contracts second thank you both I see Miss sponsor at our Podium uh Dr pilch is there anything you need to say in introduction no well we'll hand it to you Miss sponsor thank you for being here thank you president
068Matthews good evening board um tonight it is the annual renewal of our employee benefits process um just as a reminder we have numerous options for our employees including medical insurance we have nice health care which we have added the past couple years and continue to get amazing feedback on um dental insurance Vision vision insurance life insurance have voluntary options so accident Hospital those kinds of things that employees can choose to purchase and we have a wellness program that is funded in part by our partnership with Etna so we had some conversation during our negotiations meeting before spring break but just to kind of summarize where we are and make our recommendation official um tonight we are recommending that we renew with Etna and that we will have two options for employees to choose from one
069would be a high deductible plan with the health savings account and the other is a co-pay plan this does remove the current third option that we offer but in doing some research around that we found that that plan was really being used by 70ish employees and that 99% of the claims on that plan would have been covered under these other plans so we feel comfortable removing that third option and going with these two choices by eliminating that third option it actually saves the district about a million dollars so we felt like that was a good tradeoff um we will continue as a district to pay a portion of dependent Premium cost so um spouse children or family plans that's something we instituted a couple years ago and seems to be helping with our overall claims
070cost nice healthc care um this is something that will increase $1 per month per employee um as I mentioned we have just incredible feedback about nice I have personally used it several times and it's just a very nice option to have when you wake up and you don't feel good you can schedule an appointment right on your phone and get in to see someone that day typically so that's a great option um knowing that our primary healthc care provider are typically booked out many weeks in advance so it's been great for employees and for their families to be able to have access right away um dental insurance we plan to continue with Etna there is no change in rates and no change to the plan benefits vision insurance will renew with iMed again um rates
071will go up a little bit but we will also be able to increase the allowance for glasses um currently our allowance is $130 and that will go up to $150 if you bought glasses recently you know that's necessary um life and accidental death Insurance um we will renew with the Hartford and we have a rate guarantee for the next several years so no change in rates and no change in plan benefits and then our voluntary benefit employees can choose to purchase these they don't have to um but if you want additional life insurance if you want accident insurance or Hospital Indemnity insurance um those are available and then our wellness program so we have partnered with Etna um Etna provides significant amount of funding to our Wellness programs and really allows us to offer a
072lot of different options and exciting things for our employees to participate um we just recently had a mindfulness week and so we had a lot of different things around the building that we could use to practice our mindfulness so that was kind of fun um I know that you hear from Rachel Hersman often about the different activities that she's planning and I just think this is a great partnership and it's also wonderful that they provide some funding to help us do this so with that do you have any questions that I can answer we may have a few but but also a sponsor we may not that's okay um this is one of those things that we heard a little bit about at negotiations and so I don't know if we have quite the number
073of questions tonight that that sometimes we might but but it does look like Miss Mash has a question I just wanted to give an opportunity to celebrate um just some of the ways that we are trying to save money in our district as we've heard you know our budget constraints um so I wondered if you could just share a little bit about how our um choice to self-fund the program has been working and how that's um allowing us to keep rates at competitive rate yeah so as you know last year we moved into a self-funded insurance plan that means basically that um the district pays the claims so they pay actual claims incurred before when we were with an insurance company they would estimate what they thought the claims would be and that's what we
074had to pay whether or not the claims were actually that much didn't really matter they got to keep the profits um associated with that but our claims have been really really good and so we're saving money by not having those High medical claims and we know in the future that might change but we'll at least have a savings account kind of built up to account for that that in the future any other questions or comments I don't see any Miss sponsor before we vote I will just say thank you though we do know that it's uh your dedication and expertise that allows us uh to to save a lot of money your yours and your team so thank you for your work and Miss Richards we're ready for a vote director aari I director Bentley
075Hi D director Mash I director Matthews hi director Norwood I motion carries 5 thank you Miss Richards next on our agenda tonight is the resignation of the board president and as I as I announced a couple weeks ago um I uh plan to resign tonight and I don't know that I was very clear in in that announcement I've had people uh ask me why I was right resigning from the board I want to be clear I'm not resigning from the board I'm just resigning a as president and and really doing that for a very specific reason that um and I've had the privilege of doing this for for almost six and a half years and I have served with uh some great board members and they have all been very supportive of me and um
076many of them I've gotten to be very good friends with and and that's part of of this position and and I would just like the chance in my last few month months uh to be supportive of someone else and and be a support and a resource for for whoever is going to be next and so it it has been a great honor and and it has been uh a great joy for me for the last 6 and a half years or whatever exactly it is and um but um I now resign and we will take well we will need a motion to accept that resignation I move that the board of educations at G Evan school district 6 approves the resignation of Michael Matthews as board president second thank you both any discussion on the
077motion Mr Benton um I I know he's not leaving but I don't know if I'll have the chance to say this on the you know on the record or on YouTube or on at a board meeting we'll have a reception for for outgoing members on uh after the election but um I just wanted to say that as I came on the board I was I was coerced and told that it was two meetings a month no big deal I quickly found out it's it's not quite just two meetings a month and uh and Michael Michael's been in the position that that epitomizes what board Duties are he's been he's been doing the extra meetings he he responds for the board typically uh to all the emails and then and deals with just a massive amount
078of of stuff that we don't as normal board members have to have to deal with and so for six and a half years to to to be able to go above and beyond and just put in the time and effort that he has you know the district and the community in general is in huge debt to Michael and I said this in the uh negotiation we kind of discuss this a little bit but I think it's worth saying again but you know Michael Michael's small in stature only you know he's a giant in our community and and we're lucky to have him and we will never fill his shoes but um you know it's it he leaves a good example for us to kind of work towards so thanks Mike thank you C any other
079comments questions I don't see any Miss Richards so you give us a vote please oh sorry pardon no just just because I'm always the first person director aari I director Bentley I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I motion carries 5 Z thank you m Richards vice president Mash I will hand this meeting to you okay um we will now have a board organizational meeting in order to elect a new board president uh nominations are now in order for the office of president Mr Bentley your button is broken appar um I move that Natalie mashby declared President of the Board of Education of gy Evans school district 6 okay Natalie Mash is nominated are there any further nominations for the office of President seeing none we will now take a vote Mr sorry
080sorry Mr Rari I move at this time that Natalie Mash be declared the president of the Board of Education by acclamation okay second in that case then is it a roll call Vote or it is a roll call vote okay um M Richards will you give us a vote please director aari I director Bentley I director Mash I director Matthews i d Norwood hi vote carries 5 okay so in this case we now need to elect a vice president as well nominations are now open for vice president Mr aari I nominate Kyle Bentley to be the vice president of the Board of Education Kyle Bentley is nominated are there any further nominations for the office of Vice President seeing none may I make a motion you may vice president MH I move that Kyle Bentley
081be declared vice president of the Board of Education by acclamation that does not require a second is that correct okay then Mr Rich would you please give us a vote as well director aari I director Bentley I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I vote carries okay so our last item on the agenda is that as we have a new board president a new signature plate will be created the board should extend the use of the current signature plate until the new signature plate is created this is an action item and roll require a motion I move that the Board of Education AG gely Evan school district 6 approves extension of the use of the current signature wait until a new one is available second thank you both is there any discussion on
082the motion seeing none Miss Richards will you give us a vote please director aari I director Bentley I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I motion carries 5 all right well I would also just like to say thank you very much now former president Matthews um for your service to the community and to the students and staff of district 6 I have been honored to get to observe what calm steady um gracious leadership looks like and I thank you to my board members for allowing me the opportunity to pick up this mantle congratulations to Mr Bentley and this meeting is now adjourned [Music] a oh [Music] la la [Music]