001[Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] a [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] he w [Music] m [Music] o [Music] a well good evening welcome to the Board of Education meeting for gy Evans school district 6 tonight it is April 8th 2024 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 lemon we call the rooll force please director Zari present director Bentley present director Campo spitzy present director Mash present director Matthews present director Norwood present director Sullivan present all board members present thank you
002Miss lemon well again uh Welcome to our board meeting whether you are joining us in person and there are a lot of you joining us in person tonight and so we are very glad that you are here that means we have a lot of recognitions and people to honor uh but we thank you for being here we also thank you if you're joining us online either uh right now or at a later date we thank you for tuning in uh just a few announcements before we before we get started um one we just got an update sometimes um I don't know if everyone knows this but we we have a work session immediately uh prior to this board meeting and we just got an update from our transportation department and at the work session our
003and I just want to give a shout out to our transportation and to everybody involved in in transportation um because it wasn't that long ago that we uh our bus fleet was was so old that we could hardly keep buses running and uh we could hardly keep enough bus drivers driving uh so that we were not meeting all of our routes and that was probably about 2017 and 2018 and even prior to that um but since that time we have uh completely updated our bus fleet we now have most of our bus fleet is less than 5 years old and that is thanks to our M Levy override and so we want to thank again our the citizens and the voters of Grey Evans school district 6 that pass that mlo and 2017 and then
004renewed that uh just a year ago because that has been incredible for our transportation team and for those for bus drivers one of the things that MLL also did was up our ability to pay our classified employees and those are our bus bus drivers or what we call our they are part of our classified team and so that together has made a tremendous difference in our ability to to be reliable as a school district and getting students to and from school to get them to their athletic events and to get them to to field trips um it is it has been wonderful to see the progress that we have made in our transportation department and that's taken a lot of great leadership uh by our transportation team and also a lot of support by that
005by that team they recruit all the time uh you'll see our school buses at parades you you'll see them out at different community events and they're the reason they're there is they're recruiting drivers so just in case anybody wants to drive uh for district 6 I'll put that announcement out there as well uh they're a fantastic team and a great place to work and so uh just want to say thank you to our voters thank you to our community and to our transportation team um and that's all I have tonight and we'll move on very quickly to our superintendent's honor roll Dr pilch I'll hand it to you thank thank you sir um we have a lot of folks to honor tonight and and I could include a lot of these in my honor rooll
006I'm going to focus my honor role tonight on uh the beter scholars and the Daniels fund winners and so um I'm really excited to bring these students forward tonight and talk a little bit about Daniels and bers both so I first want to just uh talk a little bit about the Daniels scholarship this really is a multi-state honor when one of our students or some of our students um receive this honor and this scholarship here uh this honor is focused on strength of character leadership potential commitment to serving the community academic performance and promise the well-rounded personality of the scholar and emotional maturity and stability um Scholars are also selected on their values that were important to the founder the founder was Bill Daniels and those values include ethics and integrity honesty respect for people
007loyalty reliability an entrepreneurial Spirit patriotism dedication to the community commitment to Excellence and etiquette um Daniels Scholars who attend a partner School are within a four state region Colorado New Mexico Utah and Wyoming and they have the full cost of their uh attendance covered um at at their college of their choice in addition to a new laptop computer they they're uh participate in leadership development opportunities they're involved in community um opportunities and career advancement opportunities and this year district 6 is proud to honor one of our own students as a recipient of the Daniel scholarship and I would like to ask for our senior at Early College Academy Israel Vargas to please join me at the [Applause] podium okay I've asked Israel to say a few words about his experiences and his plans if he
008would so I'll let you take the microphone sir uh hi good evening hi Board of Education um yeah so the the uh the I guess the road to getting here was uh was kind of it was very tedious I would say especially um with the applicants opening in like SE September and then I didn't know that there's a set sat requirement and and um let's just say I had I had to retake it a few times to to get what I needed um I almost didn't until my school nurse uh talked me into it I was going to go visit a college but then she's like no go take the SAT we'll do better and I actually scored way higher this the the the other the next time I guess um let's see uh oh
009and like the the week before I know I was really nervous especially to go sit in front of the the interview committee and so I want to thank she's not not here tonight um but her name is Dr Rosa La she's our am Community College um director at Early College Academy and the entire week before we spent hours just prepping asking questions how I should talk um just stuff like that and and it it it helped a lot um just being prepared and then I would also thank uh the gy Dream Team for setting up the the mocker inter rviews as well that also helped um especially with the giant committees that they had helped lower the nervousness um After High School especially with this opportunity that I was given I planed to attend either
010University of Denver or Colorado State University uh focusing on exercise science with a Prem medicine concentration hopefully to go to medical school and be like our uh board member Dr Brenda Campos spitzy um she's a role model for me and so yeah hopefully that's where I go after high school um and thank you everybody who supported me especially my parents who they are sitting right here in the front couldn't have done it without them um yeah thank you thank you Israel we're so proud of you and we can't wait to to hear about you going to med school um so next I'd like to recognize our two beter Foundation scholarship winners and we're so honored to have two very fine students uh who were selected for the beter and you all know a lot about
011the V you know how rigorous it is similar to the Daniels in that uh some parents advise their students to not go for the beter they say to their children don't do that it's too hard it's it's too much work you'll never get it um but these these two students did go for the beter I want to just read to you a little bit about um the beter scholarship and and you you all know both of these students and had an opportunity to interact with them on different occasions but since 1952 the B scholarship program has existed in Colorado to keep Colorado's most talented students here in state for their post-secondary years Scholars are selected based on academics service leadership and character in addition to receiving an $80,000 scholarship award across the four years scholarships
012Al or Scholars also receive in institutional Merit and or need-based age from their respective college campuses as a comprehensive scholarship the B award also includes programming and support to ensure that Scholars reach their full academic and Leadership potential this year district 6 is proud to have two of our students as the recipients of the BET beter Foundation scholarship please join me in welcoming and congratulating gy Central High School senior lulia tle and gy West High School senior Aiden D and I have I have just a little bit more to say about both of you both lulia lulia and Aiden are active members of their high schools lulia is student body president at G Central as a softball player and in numerous other clubs and organizations Aiden has been active in FFA as an officer and
013in state and National competitions he has starred in Theatrical Productions and has been a member of other gy West organizations Aiden is currently applying for a state office position in the Colorado FFA Association if successful he will travel the state for a year serving as a leader in the organization he plans to study agricultureal business management Colorado State University and lulia plans to pursue her love of writing by majoring in journalism and Communications at the University she eventually selects she wants to focus on giving a voice to Black writers and eventually hopes to own a Publishing Company all right good evening everyone um I'm super honored to be here tonight um a little bit about the beter application specifically that sets it a little further apart from other scholarships is that it's got a huge
014Colorado Focus um the beter family themselves were a Colorado uh family and when they set up that Foundation they knew that that Foundation was to make investments back in Colorado and that's why I'm super fortunate to have received the scholarship personally and really the Colorado investment is what it means to me um I've always looked at Colorado State University growing up ever since kindergarten my parents will tell you I've I've wanted to study agriculture over there and I finally decided on a business for uh Colorado State and I've always kind of been a Ram at heart and so I knew that the B application and the B scholarship would be the one for me um going forward in high school and so really that emphasis on Colorado itself but also coinciding with leadership which has
015meant so much to me throughout my high school and middle school years I've really set a dedication towards becoming more involved in my school not only in clubs and activities but also in leading those clubs and activities so I'm very fortunate to be here tonight in recognition and also to have received the scholarship thank you all so much for this opportunity hello um uh I'm also super grateful and honored to be here tonight it feels very rewarding to have such an opportunity like this growing up as the eldest daughter of an immigrant family it's been very um like it's been very difficult to kind of find that path for myself and for my family and my community but the beter scholarship means so much in having that opportunity in exploring what college looks like and
016what like Life After College looks like because the beter isn't just like a tuition check it is so much more than that and it's about like building that leadership that you have within yourself and so to be honored and rewarded like this means so much more than I think um I could ever express it and to have this opportunity for me and my family is so wonderful and thank you I'm so honored to be here tonight [Applause] president Matthews I think we'll conclude with the superintendent's honor rooll there and just once again give a shout out to these fine young people and um who are going to do great things in their life and I want to say uh and lulia touched on this this isn't just about a scholarship award when you're a Daniel's
017fund winner or a beter fund winner it is about being recognized as one of the most outstanding leaders in your entire school district and in the state of Colorado that's what these awards are about and uh to have three students in district 6 who have achieved this this level of EXC Excellence at three different schools here in district 6 is is truly an honor and I'm so proud of all of you [Applause] congratulations thank you Dr pilch and congratulations again to Israel and Aiden and L uh we we've watched you guys and you've come to this board meeting several times and so we uh we know that you're outstanding students and we're glad that the Daniels and beter uh foundations recognize that as well so um moving right along we need to approve an agenda
018and we'll need a mo motion to do that 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 motion sing none Miss lemon will you give us a vote please director Zari hi director Bentley hi director Campo spitzy I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I director Sullivan I motion carries 70 thank you Miss lemon next on our agenda is our All State recognition and so Dr pelch I think you have a few more PE students to recognize we sure do president Matthews and this really is a a wonderful night of Celebration and recognition for our students here in district 6 it is that time of the year where we can recognize our winter uh
019All State winners in several areas and I'm I'm pleased to introduce to you Mr Chris Klein our District athletic and activity director who will will lead us in this Fanfare and bring up some folks from our high schools to recognize these other individuals thank you thank you Dr pilch and thank you to the board we appreciate this honor to recognize our athletes and our activity members who have had such great success throughout the winter we as you can see we have a large number of students who have worked and dedicated themselves to Excellence throughout the winter season in their activities and their Athletics and has been honored either by qualifying for state or being honored by the state as a all state representative at this time we'd like to recognize those students we will do
020that one school at a time bring them up that athletic director will recognize their students and then we will take a picture of that group and then we'll go move on to the next school tonight in order we did our fall we'll change the order up from the fall we're going to go first with gy West High School and I'd like to bring up JJ Barons the assistant principal athletic director at gy West High School you're right here you're good uh first off I want to thank you guys for this time it's always exciting to to come up here and just kind of celebrate all the great things that our students and our athletes are doing across the district um so the first group we have is uh our wrestling team uh we had uh
021five state qualifiers this year uh three in the boys uh two in the girls um and those uh athletes are Julian Chavez raise your hand uh tan veter Andre Ortiz esparon Zer Rios and Natalie Salazar we do have a few that aren't here tonight when I start talking about these uh these other athletes and students uh but the good news is they're multiport athletes are participating participating in other activities and stuff like that um so the next group we have is our swim team um tonight all we have is Haley weeks here right now but um they did have a phenomenal season they had uh 10 state qualifiers um they had a nine in swimming one in dive and I think it's been a number of years since they've had a diver qualify and stuff
022so um to name them off real quick we've got uh Mandy Douglas hope kale Macy zagler Gloria Wright Danny Douglas aam chahal uh Alexa Jackson Georgia Collins and London Daniel um uh lastly uh we have Deca um unfortunately um none were able to make it tonight um and our three uh Deca uh students that qualified for state was Aiden mcferson EXC oh okay we have two sorry they are here uh so those students are so we got Aiden uh mcferson who qualified uh top 10 top 10 in financial consulting uh Jazelle Rivera uh business finance and lastly Raymondo A compo Flores uh principles of business and administration again thank you I'm sorry thank you JJ congratulations sir gy West our next group we'd like to recognize are our state placers and all state members from
023Northridge High School I'd like to recognize Jeff Collins athletic director assistant principal at Northridge High School hi good evening thanks for having us um I want to just introduce a couple of students um you know it's a busy time of the year for us and for our kids so we had a track meet today and some of those things so our numbers are a little low um but I want to start and introduce uh Leland kamacho he qualified for the state wrestling tournament this year um also our girls basketball team they made it to the round of 16 um they beat Palisade which was great and then fortunately their season ended um I do want to call attention though to Sophia carbahal Sorry my phone's going away um she was named to the All State
024honorable mention team as a freshman and broke our school record U for rebounds in a season with 83 85 I always Shor her two rebounds um also Ariah magdalino she is a Northridge student but do for gy West so she qualified there and then I just wanted to give you an update we had um Roc here in the fall and they placed um after you met them in the fall 19th at National so congratulations to them so thank you nope I didn't [Applause] fify all right congratulations Northridge thank you all right for our last school we're recognizing tonight I'd like to call up Jim Butterfield assistant principal at Central he will step in in place of Sean scribbick who had a game tonight so Jim is here to recognize all the students from gy Central
025High School thank you Chris I am Jim Butterfield I'm an assistant principal at the Central High School super proud uh my first uh thing I want to let you know about is Makai uras he's a state champion in wrestling he could not be here tonight thank you and I'd like to have Amy Nance come up she's been jumping out of her seat all night she's pretty ready she wants to introduce some kids to you they do some pretty exciting things this year so come on up here and bring your [Applause] kids my um good evening I first want to say thank you very much for honoring um my FBA students I know that it means a lot for them to to be here tonight although not all of us could be here um we do
026appreciate the opportunity um this has been an amazing team team um I've been an FBA adviser for 5 years and I'm also the DECA adviser and I've never had an amazing team like this before with so many of our students qualifying um for the state competition um let's see we are missing Ramon and Tony okay good turnout um what I'd like to do is go ahead and recognize um the two that are here tonight um for placing not only being able to make it as state qualifiers but for also placing in the top 10 um our president of our uh Club y r Mar Mones um and his first time ever Nathan Kesler placed in the top 10 for coding and programming I would like to take this special opportunity um to recognize the the
027um president of our club she would have been in fbaa and deca her freshman year had it not been for Co her sophomore year in both DEC and FBLA primarily F she did place in the top 10 um for the state of Colorado her very first time her junior year she made it to the Colorado um leadership conference and placed fourth allowing her then to continue and compete at the national level for most people placing forth and standing on that stage and and going to Nationals would be enough um for our president it was not so over the course of the next year she took all of the feedback that the judges had given her literally studied it went over it and for the next year continued um to to try and make improvements make
028improvements and make improvements so in addition to being a national qualifier for the year 2023 this year just last week uh she was our state champion and will be representing us again um so I again thank you very much and thank you all of you uh this is my last year at um district 6 and I cannot think of a better way to have gone out than with this crew right behind me so thank you very much I appreciate it another amazing piece of our career and hey guys if you just sit we'll let let bill go um about our career in technical education is uh Bill Alexander and Chuck loose have a pretty exciting announcement that just occurred a couple weeks ago as well from our uh manufacturing pathway good evening uh oh the
029podium is taller than me as usual uh good evening thanks you so much for having us here tonight um I am uh fortunate to teach in the career pathway in a ptech program and one of my courses we have an Energy Technologies class and we study everything in traditional non-traditional Transportation storage everything about energy um in the process we came across a project that was being run uh it's called kid win challenge they do it all over the nation um and with just a few weeks to prepare uh I threw the challenge at my class and they got super excited about it so we um had the opportunity to go down to Denver to the CSU spur campus where's the kid that wants to go a have you been to the spur building cuz the
030spur building is really cool um so uh we went to the competition and really to get the most out of it you kind of had to be a fan pun uh um the boys did a fantastic job uh we competed against uh three other high school teams then there was a bunch of little elementary school kids that kind of destroyed our production of energy um we did not store or produce the most energy why don't you Hold Your blade up um some of the little kids were absolutely destroying us with what they did but they all showed up with kits and all they really made were kind of their um blades the rest of the thing was all pre-made uh the boys blew the judges way you would have been so proud of these students
031they presented in front of a panel of judges and it was their engineering and their presentation that got in first place um they completely designed the entire uh wind turbine here including the uh prop which is called a toid doll rotor they always say it wrong um it's called a toll rotor um and then we have uh designed and printed uh the entire gear housing so it was a really impressive peace of engineering and they did just a fantastic job the great thing is it uh qualified US to go to Nationals and with the gracious support of the success foundation in the district uh we found the funding to do that so in may we get to go to Minneapolis and spend uh four days there at the Whirlwind challenge so we're really excited we're
032going to CSU this week to meet with some Engineers over there to help us kind of redesign some of this and see if we can make it even better so we're super excited we're really honored to be here tonight thank you all so much [Applause] everybody ready everybody look over here at me Qui okay now look at everybody El [Applause] [Laughter] and again thank you very much for the opportunity to bring our kids up and showcase the work they've done this this winter thank you all right thank you to the members of the board Dr pilch for giving us this opportunity to recognize these wonderful students tonight it is an honor to work here in district 6 and to see such wonderful kids come out of our district thank you well thank you and we
033appreciate all of our students taking time out of their busy schedules to come and and see us and be part of uh our meeting tonight so next on our agenda is our superintendent's report and Dr pilch I'll give it back to you thank you president Matthews I want to report on two candidates um who you approved the hire of at our last board meeting when I was out ill but i' I'd like you to have a chance to meet the two of them and and put a name with the face I first want to introduce to you miss Emily DS who is our new assistant principal at Jackson Elementary School so Emily has a a rich history with district 6 uh she began her career here in second grade teaching at Bell Romero Academy and
034then she left us for a year and or two and went to a steamboat and spent a little time in New Orleans and then came back to Colorado and came back to the gly oven school district 6 where she again served as an elementary teacher and a CLD teacher most recently she has served as our culturally linguistic diversity coordinator for elementary and the academic achievement department and like most people who've never gotten to be a building administrator who come to the district office from the classroom they usually want to go back to the building at some point and so so miss DS wanted to go over to Jackson Elementary as the assistant principal and we're excited to have her do that she has a bachelor's degree in elementary Ed uh she has a master's in
035uh clld and diverse education from Adam State and most recently finished her Masters in Ed leadership from Western Governor's University so welcome Emily we're proud to have you going to Jackson Elementary School and uh you know I'm always excited to move people with within the system to new opportunities that they're seeking and uh like Emily Elizabeth has h Garcia pursued another position here in district 6 she has been our assistant principal at gy Central High School where she has done an excellent job and uh she would like to dip her toe into the little kid water and so she's going to be going to the James Madison steam Academy as the new assistant principal there uh she's been the last several years at gy Central as an assistant principal she started her career here at
036Northridge teaching in family and consumer Sciences she left us for a little while and went and did some CTE work in Loveland um and then had came back here and worked for us at GLE Central um we're excited to have her going to James Madison steam Academy with the K8 students she has a bachelor's degree in Psychology a bachelor's degree in family and consumer scientists scien is both from uh carado State University they're getting a lot of air time tonight aren't they boo um and and uh she also has a master's uh of Science degree and education leadership as well from CSU so welcome to your new position Elizabeth and congratulations thank you sir thank you Dr Pils next on our agenda is our i230 climate and culture goal One update and that's cultural proficiency
037I see a few people coming to the podium Dr PCH is there anything you would like to say in by way of introduction okay well then we'll welcome Dr D thank you uh president Matthews superintendent pilch and members of the board it is my pleasure uh to present I'm talking slowly letting them come join me it is my pleasure to be able to bring this uh strategic Plan update to you on the culture climate goal one um on cultural proficiency so uh joining me this evening is Mr Lewis Kamas he is our director of cultural proficiency and family Partnerships as well as uh you can come come on NE if you'd like yeah and just join us um Miss Ashley Aragon will be joining us as well and sharing she is our principal at Bella
038Romero K8 Academy and uh she will be sharing some information as well about how this work has impacted her at the building level and her staff and students so just as we always do starting out by sharing with you our mission and our vision as a district and that this work is firmly embedded in our uh the mission to engage every student in a personalized well-rounded and excellent education preparing students to be College and Career ready and we know that there are many values that we uphold in our district this particular update we feel like really embodies the these two values very well around that we believe diversity as a strength and that we promote access opportunity and choice and while all four of these are Focus areas uh in our strategic plan this is
039uh an update to you tonight on climate and culture goal one there are two goals within each of the focus areas and tonight we will uh share with you on goal one to develop cultural responsiveness throughout the organization there are three objectives within this goal area the first is to cultivate a strong sense of belonging and empowerment for all students and staff the second is to provide access and support for learning opportunities so all students will be career and college ready and finally the third objective is to demonstrate culturally responsive practices throughout the district so we will give to you an update on all three of these objectives a associated with these three objectives are four different outcomes that we will also share uh data with you on this evening so without any further Ado
040I'm going to turn it over to Mr kamasa he shares with you a little bit about our objectives sure thank you Dr jie members of the board pleasure to be here um I want to connect our actions to our outcomes and objectives at this level our Equity teams have promoted inclusivity by implementing rest started practices and fostering cultural competence among staff and students I've it's been great to actually see that myself since September many of our schools have engaged their students parents and families in planning and celebrating various academic and cultural events promoting a sense of community belonging and affirming the values of the various cultures in district 6 our food pantries focusing on establishing a school Community without hunger where everyone has access to enough food it's been amazing to see our nutrition and
041School staff come together to benefit our most vulnerable students and families I've asked principal ashy Aragon to share with her some insights regarding cafesito mother and father read programs when I talked to her last week she was so positive and excited and I couldn't wait to have her come and share some of her thoughts with you good evening thank you so much for the opportunity to share some of the great things last year we started caitos and it was our first year we started off a little slower trying to figure out what time of day is best morning or evening and we alternated and very quickly realized and families told us they need both times so this year we've hosted a capacito every month it's always the first Tuesday of the month we host one
042in the morning and one in the evening to provide access to multiple um who might work and we've had a great turnout we've got a core group who have really been there since the beginning and they are now our leadership team so they are helping us to plan and prepare for next year as we expand our offerings into more of what we're hearing families want and need and then our mother read father read program was amazing it's 6 weeks long but families wanted it much longer they enjoyed being able to learn reading strategies and practice them each week alongside their students thank you Dr Aragon we appreciate your work thank you thank you yes Dr Aragon thank you so much also um what we're doing is providing you with more background more context than just
043bullet points we obviously know you guys can read those we're just provide you some more information to help understand really capture our district and the work of our teachers staff and administrators so on this slide we focus on staff data results with a goal of being 75% or above on the school Community School climate survey and just to recap during our work session we talked about Dr D described and defined the Panorama survey that's been going on our district for quite some time about eight years or so teachers have taken this survey for the past eight years while our operational and site based staff has taken this for the second time this year 94% of our K12 teachers responded favorably with strongly agree or agree to their school Community questions this is up 1% from
044last year 73% of operation staff District level departments such as it academic achievement which is our our team HR Finance Transportation respond fairly strongly agree or agree which is up 2% from last year 70% sbas staff which includes our non-teaching staff such as Paris office staff Food Service custodia respond is strongly agree or agree which is up 3% from this past year [Applause] this slide demonstrates our progress towards our goal of our students data being at 75% or higher on the classroom Community section the percentages are reflected in the answers of almost always and most of the time as you can see 77% of our elementary third to fifth grade students responded favly which is down from four years ago but is held steady for the past 3 years 68% of our middle school students
045sixth to eth graders responded fa which is up 1% over the past two years and up 8% from four years ago 68% of our high school students 9th grade to 12th grade students answer febr which is the same as last year but up 16% from four years ago so our next objective as you can see is about supporting for learning opportunities for all students with a career in college readiness to provide some background to our board I would like to provide some more context we have provided parents and families with concurrent enrollment informational meetings to build their understanding on our graduation Pathways and academic programs offered to students at our Comprehensive High School we had over 70 families represented that evening providing more opportunities for our parents to understand and navigate our school system is
046something that we will continue next school year we have also conducted interviews including students of various races with two or more FS we have also interviewed some of their parents as well as for district 6 Korean technical education center application opens in November closes in December before winter break break mirroring the Open Enrollment window of our district this is similar to the open enrollment application D6 CT Center application is based on a lottery our de our demographics of the CTE Center matches that of our district and of our students that are doing well as many of our school leaders and teachers learned from Standard Institute last summer our students learn best when they are when we know who they are as individuals as well as their grade level as well as expect grade level rigorous
047instruction for them and so the the outcome data that we looking at we talked about this earlier this evening as well is in regards to our um uh graduation four-year graduation rates um the goal is that by 2025 graduation rates will outpace the state by 5% across disaggregated student groups and as you can see we are uh outperforming the state this year as we have in Prior years it's also important to note as we look at the demographic groups of each of these four different demographic groups first economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities on this slide that we have um we not only outpace the state by um 5% or more on both of these we have also increased from 2020 to 2023 considerably in each of these categories or each of these subgroups rather
048and the same holds true as we look at minority students as a a desegregated group as well as English Learners um and that we are exceeding in both of these uh well in with English Learners over 5% and nearly getting there with with students who are um minority students as well and again in both of these categories um subgroup populations we continue to increase year after year from 2020 to 2023 have uh continued to increase that uh percent of students graduating on time in 4 years so this data continues to um our students continue to do well this data continues to be strong and we will continue that pace and that brings us to our third objective on demonstrate culturally responsive practices throughout the district so as we can see this is our third objective
049and notice that this is the practices throughout our district meaning all of our departments connecting some of our actions to our culture and climate objective includes the following these are just some of the actions principal Amy zulaf and I provided training to our new teachers and staff administrators at the beginning of the school year to be able to create space for cultures um for our new our new staff members also from September to February director J Jensen principal Amy zulaf and I built up the capacity of our School principles by analyzing each element of our asset-based configuration rubric self assessing their success and needs as individual schools since January of this year our district Equity team has developed cultural proficiency modules the purpose of increasing the cultural responsive responsiveness of our staff members across all
050departments each month our parent family advocates along with David Rees our family center coordinator and I collaborate on a monthly basis with our family advocates to help them engage our partners and partner with families problem solve and learn from each other this slide captures six through 12 grade students response in the race and Equity section as we see 75% of of our students G through 12 responded favorably meaning almost always or frequently on the diverse and inclusion questions 47% of our students grad 6 12 responded favorably almost always frequently to culture awareness and action questions as we thought together as a team we decided to provide more context to our school board what if we looked at the sometimes as well this slide demonstrates the sometimes option we we wanted to dive deeper into our
051data some more and while we can always improve we wanted to make sure that we thoroughly understood what our students are telling us to make to take appropriate actions therefore we like that the sum times and as you can see the student responses that include almost always frequently and sometimes have been consistently with one or two percentages points for four years this is an opportunity to better serve all of our students this slide here is about training our staff as we can see 90% of our staff have been trained in the culture responsive practice we have now met this goal this training includes new professional acmis Beyond diversity building PD about climate and culture also race and Equity that I've seen equify meetings District Equity team collaboration learning about specific culturaly modules asset based configuration
052Prof development which we mentioned earlier and Avid trainings although we have much to be successful I'm so proud of our district we as gy Evans district 6 are about continuous Improvement for our students families and staff each school will continue to analyze their individual data to determine their next steps as a building next grw year we plan to provide our parents and families with more opportunities to learn how they can partner and engage in their child's education collaborate with individual schools in providing specific support for implementing certain elements of asset based configuration framework some schools have already begun this this work this school year in the next month our district deity team will will have completed new cultural proficiency modules they will be used by staff throughout all departments including operations instructional and non-instructional staff
053cultural proficiency board is a continuous process of learning it is much more than accepting diversity equity and inclusion it's an ongoing journey of growth Discovery respecting the values beliefs customs and expectations of individuals from all over the world I'm grateful that our D6 community and School Board demonstrates cultural humility humility by being open to learning how to best serve and partner with our students and families thank you um and we appreciate your time on this this evening and we'll take any questions or comments you may have I may have a few for you tonight Dr Camp spitzy is first yeah thank you for that presentation um can you go back to the slide on uh diversity equity and inclusion where um that one so is is it is I'm not that familiar with Panorama is
054it a Liker scale is it 0 to five one to five yes one to five okay so then so I I would like us to be almost always infrequently I think the inclusion of sometimes is uh falsely um inflating that percentage um so just a a personal thing if it is a Liker scale I think the top two tiers um should be looked at rather than the sometimes I don't think that absolutely and what we wanted to share with you what we knew we needed to do was to look at the data and do a deep dive and say how close are we because that does matter when we look at the data and Panorama Panorama reports it to us exactly how you're saying it is in the almost always or frequently that these things
055that's what we really need to hit that's the Target right and that's what our 75% is measured on is are those two knowing that we're not there and particularly with the cultural awareness in action we said o is it because they're ones and twos or do we have some opportunity in the threes and that's what we really noticed on the next slide so absolutely agree with you we are at we want to hit that 75% we know we these are our students and we need to we need to figure that out so we're doing a deeper dive into that but we wanted to say we we've got those threes that we really need to be thinking about what else can we do that'll really support them as well as ones and twos of course you
056know when they're answering that so thank you thank you and thank you for clarifying that that was meant to show these weren't all ones and twos that they're worth more threes right to skew that data we also just wanted to highlight our teachers as well that they are talking with students sometimes and we didn't want the board thinking that our teachers and students were never talking about race there any other questions from board members Miss Mes um thank you for the presentation I was just curious about the classroom Community School Community question you don't have to necessarily tell me the specific question but is that just kind of about like belonging com being feeling comfortable feeling seen what what exactly are we kind of trying to measure great question and yes and I do want
057to kind of get because we actually have some examples as to what those questions look like um on classroom Community OH Close oh it's in my here it is so a few questions would be so for our students and keep in mind do this at grades 3 through 5 and then again 68 and 912 so for elementary age students it's questions like my teacher cares about me how much does your teacher encourage you to do your best kid did they both of those were quite High 90% And 81% I might add and then in this class I feel like I fit in so again thinking about that class Community class belonging and I ask for help when needed when I need it those are for elementary students and then for um middle and and high
058school students it's I feel like an important part of this uh classroom Community those kinds of questions very similar to the the elementary just feeling that sense of belonging knowing that their teacher cares about them and that they fit in yeah good question also if I was looking at the dots correctly I think we saw a huge jump from 2020 to 2021 and I just found that interesting I was like yeah well 2020 fall 2020 was a very you know tenuous time and um so everyone felt better the next year yes very good noticing not sure if there are any other questions from board members Dr pilch I'd like to ask one of you and then you can kick that to somebody else if if you need to but um there seems to be a
059lot of misunderstanding about equity and what Equity is and and why we might need Equity teams uh in in our school district and so I was just wondering if you could if you could answer that what how do how do we Define equity and and what do our Equity teams do thank you for that question and and I may ask Lis and Stacy to jump in too so I want to say this first of all this is Dr dirra pill's definition of equity um it is not the district definition of equity and so for for me as a leader in in this system Equity means every single student every single student has what they need to succeed every single student so it starts there and then I think the best explanation for equity for me
060really is right here in our strategic plan that you all looked at tonight again when we look at that student learning and achievement that we engage all students in challenging personalized education preparing each student to be career in college ready that is equity so whatever that student needs to be College andc ready that's Equity work and so the equity work is the work that that occurs behind the scenes when you look at the the goals and all four goals in student learning achievement and climate and culture in my opinion our Equity work and uh when you look at the objectives that are expected to come out of that and then the outcomes that we look at to say hey are we doing this or not what are those outcomes that is the equity work that
061occurs behind that to ensure those outcomes and um you know so I I could continue to read to you but it's cultivating a safe healthy and inclusive learning environment for all embracing our diversity and engaging all stakeholders that is equity work and that's what we do every single day in this system and and we provide personalized learning experiences again so all students graduate on time and are CER in college ready we Implement consistent and coherent aligned curriculum assessment and instructional practices that are research base to ensure all students learn and then we develop cultural responsiveness throughout the organization that's the work behind there that's the equity work developing that cultural responsiveness the training that occurs with staff and students um and our community and then we support the social emotional and physical well-being of all
062students and staff so uh that is my opinion what Equity work is equity teams are teams at each site and building um that are the chief Warriors of this they they are the people who think about this worry about this remind us did you translate that did you include this group did did you did you look to the Strategic plan to make sure we meeting all the students needs that's what Equity teams do and and they help to advance the Prof profal development in our buildings with our with with our staff our support staff as well as with our teachers because as you saw tonight with our students who are here tonight who we honor they come to us from all walks of light that is equity making sure they're all ready and that we
063do whatever it takes to get them ready so with that what I miss guys I think that was amazing uh that was amazing I think what I would add and really appreciate Dr Stacy um you know with her trust in me sending me to learn more one of the things I've learned is there's a misunderstanding of President Matthews for sure because folks look at it without student achievement and we need if you if we want our students to achieve High then we need to be culture proficiency and have high culture High climate and be and have have access and have Equity at high levels in other words what I learned was cannot separate student achievement from equity in order to be high achieving school high achieving District your equity and culture has got to be
064high as well this is coming from man dedicated his live 40 years um all over the country talking to us and teaching us about how important this work is to get to the highest level possible which is 100% so the highest schools in the country have high Equity High access High culture High climate and along with the high achievement and high growth I know I already had a question but I did want to end on a comment um that just applauding you guys that 90% of staff are um trained in culturally responsive practices are getting towards that goal um which is so so important and then um Dr Aragon just wanted to congratulate you on the cafos and being so responsive that you're offering them in the morning and in the evening um and um
065the mother read father read program and how successful that's been that families are wanting more I would hope that our district could support efforts like that for Parental engagement I will just tack on to that that uh this used to read 100% as do did some of our other staff goals and as we got more and more analytical we realized we're never going to be 100% because we're always hiring so you can never be 100% well I mean you're always striving to get every single employee there but you're never going to all be there because every single day we're hiring more people there any other questions or comments from board members I'm not seeing any so uh thank you both for the presentation tonight thank you Dr pilch for bringing this presentation to us thank
066you than you next on our agenda tonight is public participation I simply want to read this before we begin uh as a board we welcome the comments of community members and we dedicate a portion of each business meeting to provide an opportunity for the community to present brief comments All speakers are limited to 2 minutes for comments our board members typically will not engage or respond uh in discussion but we will ask our District staff to respond as appropriate written testimony or speaker handouts must be submitted to our board secretary missam lemon not to individual board members this board is committed to providing a safe environment where all members of the school Community are treated with dignity and respect and we expect all speakers to exercise their speech rights responsibly speakers are responsible for their
067own speech and speakers remarks must be suitable for an audience that includes kindergarten through 12th grade students anyone who disturbs order maybe required to sit down or uh to leave the boardroom we ask all speakers and those on attendance to conduct themselves in a dignified and non-disruptive manner cheering snapping clapping and other distraction are not allowed during or upon completion of any public comment with that read I do believe we have a few speakers tonight and first tonight we have um see if I can thank you uh Nathan gross welcome Mr gross thank you for being here you'll have two minutes uh good evening uh president Matthews and board members my name is Nathan gross and for the last seven years I've been a teacher at Brentwood middle school tonight I'm here to discuss the
068Family and Medical Leave insurance program better known as family it was adopted by Colorado voters in 2020 and benefits became available this year it provides employees with 12 weeks of State paid leave uh when employees are dealing with a serious health condition or the birth of a child uh private employers are required to participate in this program but local governments were given the opportunity to opt out which we did uh now that those benefits are becoming available I would argue it's time to reconsider uh some in our district have argued that better options are available for our employees uh but uh that assertion is objectively false uh in contrast to the 12 weeks of paid leave offered by the family program our district provides 12 weeks weeks of unpaid job protection which they're legally required
069to do under FMLA in the case of spouses in the district having children those 12 weeks are split amongst the parents if an employee would like to be paid during their leave they can use a acrude sick leave or Draw on the sick leave bank if they are a member I'll remind you that this program is administered by the GAA and funded through the generosity of employees it is not an employer benefit nor is it one that's available to new fathers even though our district has opted out of this program employees have uh the option to independently opt in unfortunately our practices have made this uh benefit virtually impossible to use um because they're not uh Bound by the other requirements of the program as someone personally who has opted in I would need to
070take a 30% pay cut during my leave to utilize that program uh while on the topic of my own situation I want to be clear that uh while I intended to use that program that's not why I'm here today I've accured plenty of sick leave during my employment but I know lots of folks that are not in that situation starting this year employees in Colorado have been uh given Financial unemployment protection when working uh and dealing with a serious medical condition that is of course unless they work for one of the few employers that have opted out choosing to do so sends a strong message both to current and future employees about the value or lack thereof that our district places on their families thank you Mr gross time next tonight we have Miss Maria
071Foster thank you for being here miss Foster and you'll have two minutes thank you president Matthews members of the board superintendent pilch after watching the last school board meeting I felt I needed to come and express My Views about some of the book review process I noticed in the last meeting the phrase protects the children was used a lot and I wanted to challenge what I believe is the underlying Assumption of that that the way you protect people is to remove them from things and personally I do not believe in general that you protect people or children by restricting their access to the world I think rather you protect children by providing them with the tools Knowledge and Skills to critically assess the world as they encounter it you can protect a child from drowning
072by saying you can never go near a swimming pool you can never go near a body of water or you can provide them with swimming lessons and I would argue that the second is actually much more protective than the first you can protect a child from being injured in a car accident by saying you can never get your driver's license or you can do what my parents did and said we're going to enroll you in driver's education when that was offered through the schools and my dad would take me out when I had my learner permit and I remember specifically one time him taking me to an empty icy parking lot and saying today you're going to learn how to drive through a skid and we practice skitting and sliding around that parking lot and
073you know what many times through my life I have been very grateful that I had that opportunity because I have skitted on black ice I have skitted on ice and if I hadn't had that experience in a controlled situation I might not have reacted properly and I look at books that they can be that controlled situation for children of being exposed to things so I don't think that protecting them by removing them from the book are removing them from the world is truly protecting them I think it is doing them a disservice and preventing them from being full individuals and later in life thank thank you Miss Foster next tonight we have Miss Ellen Foster welcome Miss Foster thank you for being here you'll have two minutes thank you and good evening to everyone um
074I signed up to talk about books but first I would like to say yay for the buses yay for the bus drivers um my son was a special ed student who rode what some of the kids call the handicap bus and I used to always ask them was that the one with the square Wheels um and at the time if you have a pickup at your house you live by the bus schedule and you die by the bus schedule um but he had some excellent programming but without the buzzes he would not been able to access that and um become the stunning adult that he is also uh I volunteer with a group of kids that just went to the zoo and had a fabulous time last week and the older kids are going to
075the aquarium soon and those are such wonderful experiences for kids to have and I know at times we've been a little short on either buses or drivers and those things haven't always happened what I signed up to speak about was books and a librarian once told me something that I found really profound and she said books should be both a window and a mirror they should be a window for us to look out and understand what's going on around us and they should be a mirror that we can look in and see ourselves reflected um when my mother was pregnant with me my oldest brother died and they had a child with a toddler with health problems and another toddler and they were in no way equipped to really nurture us the way we needed
076to be nurtured they had just moved and did not have a support system and for a long time I felt like he was my match my first name is Francis his name was Franklin and in my child's mind it's like he was the one that was supposed to be mine and I read a book called The Empty room that helped address sibling loss even when you didn't know that sibling and you know 40 years into it I kind of got some insights into my life thank you Miss Foster that concludes our public participation next on our agenda is our consent agenda I move that the Board of Education of G EV school district 6 approves the items as presented on the consent agenda and authorizes the officers to sign any and all contracts second any
077discussion on the consent agenda seeing none Miss lemon we give us a vote please director aari I director Bentley I director campus spitzy I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I director Sullivan I motion carry 70 thank you Miss lemon next on our agenda are revisions to policy aea standards based education this is an action item that we'll need a motion I move that the Board of Education of w County School District 6 approved the revision revisions to policy aea stand standards based education as presented second thank you both is there any discussion on the motion not seeing any Dr pilch was there anything that you needed uh wanted to introduce or add on this one president Matthews I'll just share that this is a result of our a year ago legislative session
078and and here our legislators are added again um but it some shells to must and adding youth representation in here which is a good ad and so um nothing substantive here okay thank you very much Miss lemon will you give us a vote please director aari I director Bentley I director Campo spitzy I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood hi director Sullivan hi motion Carri 70 thank you Miss lemon next on our agenda revisions to policy DJ bidding procedures I moved at the Board of Education Well County School District 6 approves the revisions to policy DJ bidding procedures as presented second thank you both any discussion on this policy change seeing none Miss lemon would give us a vote please director aari I director Bentley I director Campos spitzy I director Mash I
079director Matthews I director Norwood I director Sullivan I motion carry 70 thank you Miss lemon next are revisions to G Personnel policies this is also an action item I move that the Board of Education of gy open school district 6 revises the G Personnel policies as presented second thank you both soing a discussion on this agenda item uh Dr campus spitzy um I move that the motion to approve policy GBE be amended to approve policy GBE with the following changes in the first paragraph uh technology which includes the internet social media and electronic communications um and there's a parenthe a parenthetical uh I move that we change from have a vast potential to support curriculum to just have potential to support curriculum and learning and in the second sentence where it currently reads the Board
080of Education believes they should be used in schools as a learning resource to educate and to inform I move that we change that to the board Board of Education believes that they may be used in schools as a learning resource to educate and to inform okay so we would remove the word vast and change uh change to May should to May should to May okay is there a section a second I second for this amendment okay there's been a motion to amend and a second is there any discussion on the amendment that Dr campus spitzy is proposing Miss Mes um I would just also lend my support to these minor changes um I think that the district does an excellent job of using technology judiciously with caution with um also with um the full trust
081in our teachers to use the tools that are available to them in in an excellent manner um I think we're just I think that maybe Dr uh Campos spitzy would like to just um use a little bit less of strong language I guess with that vast and may also the Board of Education believes they should be used in schools kind of feels like well if you're not using social media you better start right now um so just that that is a tool available um so I'll be I'll be voting yes on that Amendment any other comments questions discussion on the amendment I'm not seeing any so we will be voting on the amendment all right will you give us a vote Miss lemon I'm director aari I director Bentley I director Campo spitzy I director
082Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I director Sullivan I motion carries 70 president Matthews we'll take that back to the committee as a approved board uh policy and we'll we'll share the comments with the committee as well okay and we'll need to vote on the on the motion uh now is there any is there any discussion on the motion with the Amendments uh Dr uh spitzy has proposed and we have accepted I'm not seeing any so miss lemon we give us a vote on the on the new motion director Zari I director Bentley I director Campo spitzy I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood I director Sullivan I motion carries 70 all right thank you Miss lemon next on our agenda are revisions to policy JS student use of the internet and
083electronic communications this is is an action item I move that the Board of Education of w County School District 6 approves the revisions to Poli policy JS student use of the internet and electronic communications as presented second thank you both is there any discussion or questions on this policy change set of policy changes I'm not seeing any so miss lemon will you give us a vote please director Zari I director Bentley I director Campos spitzy I director Mash I director Matthews I director Norwood hi director Sullivan I motion carry 70 thank you Miss lemon well that is all the business that we have tonight thank you for joining us this meeting is [Music] adjourned [Music] he [Music] now [Music]