Transcript

0:16:43Good to see you all. Uh for those who I haven't had a chance to meet, uh I'm Rob Anderson, proud superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District. Uh, and this is one of my three favorite evenings of the year. And all three are times where I get to celebrate the outstanding achievements of our students, of our staff, our community at the superintendent honoral. How about a big round of applause for everybody who we are here to honor this evening. So, just want to thank everybody who's been able to join us. I know how uh busy the holiday season can get and so thank you all so much for being here. Um before I get going, there's a few folks that I would love to recognize and that is our BBSD board of education. So um yep, round of applause. Absolutely. Uh excited. We have a couple new board members here that we get to introduce to you tonight. So, our board president, Nicole Rajpal, is here in the back. Our our newly elected board vice president, Alex Meddler, is here.

0:17:49Alex, good to see you. Our newly elected treasurer, Jason. Jason, where you at? In the back. Thank you. Um, our two new board members, Deianne Booker. Deianne, where are you? And we have Anna Timuing, who's helping us out here in the front. Anna, thank you. So good to see you. Um, and Jorge Chavez, where you at? Jorge in the back. And Lenia Quinn Lenoa is in the back as well. So, thank you all so much for being here. Thank you board members for your service and uh appreciate all that you do. Who's ready? Everybody have enough to eat. Here's what you can count on um at a superintendent's honor role. Really good food and some lousy dad jokes. So, I apologize in advance. Um, try to keep it light. Uh, but certainly the the spotlight is on those that we'll be recognizing and honoring today. So, now I will tell you that a superintendent's honor role is not complete without this group. So, tonight we're proud to once again honor the student journalist from Monarch High School, Monarch the Mix. Come on in.

0:19:02Come on down. Come on over. Come on up. That's right. You can't cheer for them enough. You can tell they know what they're doing. They've been here before. So, for two out of the last three years, the mix, which is Monarch's News Magazine, has won the National Scholastic Press Association's Pacemaker Award. It's a huge honor. Pacemaker Award which has been given annually since about 1927 is considered the highest honor for student journalists. In fact, some have even called it the Pulitzer Prize of student journalism. To win it twice is outstanding and a true indication of the skill of these journalists and the support of their incredible advisor, Ben Reed. Ben, don't stand in the back here. Come on. Shout out to Ben. Um, so, so winning the the the the Pacemaker Award is is an incredible achievement, but that's not all. At NSPA's national convention, Monarch earned triple the number of individual awards compared to all other participating Colorado school districts combined.

0:20:21Yeah, whoop it up. Let's go. Um, a number of the individual winners are here tonight. So, when I call your name, please step up to be recognized by this amazing crowd that I know is going to cheer incredibly loud for each and every one of you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Just slightly. Just slightly. Well, that Well, sorry. Connor Lrim. Connor was a national finalist for the broadcast news story. Fox Therenand was a national finalist for comic strip. Rachel Lararscen and Lydia Greavves national finalists in news magazine Spread Design and Julia Abear, Ben Layman, Abby Evaluof, Khloe Blair, and Evan Schmidt were national finalists for multimedia story. Now, some of you thought I was done, but I am not done. There's a couple more things to recognize. For the eighth year in a row, the Mix Magazine and Yearbook each won an all Colorado award from the Colorado Student Media Association and Kyot Monarchs TV Newcast won all Colorado for the fifth year in a row.

0:21:40Congratulations. Let's give everyone a huge round of applause. Okay, Connor, I'm gonna ask you a question. Is that okay? You ready? Okay. So, putting out the news is a tough challenge. We know that. Can you give us an insight on what it takes to keep your stories and up and publications at this high standard? Um, well, I think it starts with like the community that Mr. Reed has built for us. Um, we play games every week to keep everyone in, everyone interested and having fun. We have snacks. Um, like all the people on the staff just want to make something that is good because it goes out to the entire school. They don't want something that's good that we actually want something that's great. I think that starts with everyone. Not something good, something that's great. I love that. And I love the culture, the winning culture you all have obviously built. Ben, come on up here. I know that you're so proud of these students. And our goal, of course, is not to win awards, but to prepare students to go out into the real world.

0:22:43Do you ever hear back from students from this program and what they've had to say about this experience, how it shaped them, and are any of them famous? Not yet. I got to say, you know, we've met with this many, many years now, but it can't be underestimated about how hard these students work, how smart they work, and that this doesn't happen by accident. State championships and national championships don't happen randomly. These are the smartest, best kids in the entire school. I'll tell you that much. Um, when it comes to the future, yeah, I have uh we have students right now at Northwestern. Have a couple that are writing for the Boulder uh Daily Camera. We have a couple of students, this guy who's going to be going to perhaps Arizona State, one of the best broadcast schools in the nation. a couple of girls down there going to Missou, one of the best journalism schools in the nation. But beyond journalism, it's also the skills that they get, whether it's going to be going into architecture or international development or psycho criminology, they know how to do it because of the work they do here.

0:23:49Another round of applause for the Mohigh mix. Thank you all so much. And we have certificates to hand out and we're going to take a picture. So if we want to hand out the certificates. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll see you again next year. How fun was that? Off to a strong start here at the superintendent's honor roll. Now, I'm really, really excited for this next group of individuals that we get to uh celebrate. So, we all know that the Broomfield Eagles fly high. But that most certainly is the case when it comes to the Broomfield High School gymnastics team. Come on up. Last month they won the 5A state championship. During the competition at Thornton High School, the Eagles earned a score of 182.275 to claim the team title, beating Chatfield, who came in second place, and the defending champions, Mountain Range, who came in third place.

0:26:59This is Broomfield's fifth title in gymnastics with the last one in 2022. And with this year's win, they are now tied as the sixth winningest team. Congratulations, ladies. Now, Coach Anderson, I need you to come over here to ask I gotta ask the um I'm not the Mohigh mix, right? But I I'll ask you a few questions. Um team overcame some challenges mid-season, but really pulled together in the postseason from what I understand. Um talk to me a little bit about this and and just some of the some of the highlights of the season and what makes you so proud of this team. Yes, so for those of you who don't know, we are a district team. Although we wear broomfield on our back every single meet, all of these ladies are from almost every single high school in Boulder Valley. And so coming together as a team was quite challenging, especially because we had 10 newbies of our 20 gymnasts. And so the super exciting thing was my juniors and seniors this year, you know who you are, they really stepped up and they took it upon themselves to show leadership and make sure that the newbies knew exactly how our team ran and they dedicated this season to not only being wonderful gymnasts and athletes, but to making

0:28:20sure that they created the culture and the team that they wanted to create and that was all them. I am not taking credit for that because they did that all on their own. And so I can't thank my juniors and seniors enough for that. And then my freshman and sophomore really stepped up because they came into known world. Gymnastics is very much individualized until you get into high school. And so they stepped up and they said that no, this is not about me this year. This is about Broomfield and this is about the team that we want to be and the team that we wanted to create. And that led us to a state championship. So I couldn't be prouder of them. So good. All right. So Lily, where's Lily at? Hey Lily, how you doing? So um you led the team. You came in third in the all-around competition.

0:29:08Congratulations. That's amazing. Woo. Um, but I know that um that you you've really had have had a chance to speak about the team element of this win. You all really were supporting each other. Talk to me about the the the teamwork that went into this state championship. Well, our whole season, our motto was to walk as one and that not do it for yourself, but your for your teammates around you and for Broomfield. And so that really gave us confidence that we had it in ourselves and that we we not only could like do it individually, but if you messed up, that's okay because someone's got your back around you. And that really helped us at the state individuals because we knew that as long as we were doing what we could do to help it, the outcome was no, it didn't matter because we would be proud of ourselves.

0:30:04said like a true champion. Great job. And I will tell you, I did have a chance to go to the Broomfield High pep rally where the entire school um was just so proud of this entire team and celebrated them. Let's give them all a round of hand. Let's round of applause. Let's take a picture. They also get the award for the biggest trophy. That is an enormous trophy. Now, I shared with you all um you know the opportunity that I had to go to the uh to the Broomfield High School pep rally where they recognized our our state championship uh gymnastics team. But that was not the only team that we were celebrating that day. We had another group of Eagles win their first ever state championship this fall. Let's have the Broomfield High School softball team come on up along with their coaches and another big trophy.

0:31:45They're tied at first for the biggest trophy because I think it's the same trophy. But so this team has some amazing stats. Um over the past three years this team went 53 and3. Can you believe that? When so they went into the state 5A champ state 5A championship tournament. Eagles were undefeated and the topseated team which is a pretty pretty impressive feat in in and of itself. Neither their competitors Eagle Crest in the semi-finals and Legend in the final were going to go down easy. They made it really challenging for our Eagles both games. Of course, Broomfield won. That's right. They were down by a couple runs in the middle of the championship game, but the by the bottom of the fifth, they exploded, scoring 11 runs, bringing the game to a quick end, which is that a 10 you 10 run ruled them. Is that you did that? Y'all know what that that's a thing? Yeah. If you're winning by 10 runs, they just call it. I I think that's the way you probably want to win a state championship. Um, so let's join me in congratulating this year's 5A state champions to softball.

0:33:11Okay, so I have some questions. Um, you know, this is just, you know, this the 53 and three. Look at the picture there. I mean, what a what a just a dream season. Um, and when the game ended in the fifth with the team coming together Somebody tell me what that was like. Coach, you tell me and then maybe have one of your captains tell. Yeah, sure. First of all, this was an incredible team. We had 12 seniors this year. Um they have simply dominated the competition over the last two years. Um didn't lose a game in state at all um this year and lost one last year. And so to find ourselves behind in the both the semifinal game and the championship game uh and have them explode the way they did to way to win those games. These seniors just were not going to let their team or their school down this year. So, Broomfield High School is full of championships and we were very, very proud to bring the first softball championship banner to High School.

0:34:14I'm looking down the line to see which leader is going to step up and talk. So, so we all decided that our motto was going to be all for one because it wasn't just because of one of us. it was for all of us and we were going to do it for each other because last year we fell short and I know that really hurt all of us and really had a strong impact on how that made us feel. So we decided that that was not going to happen this year and it was our most of our last years not all of us but most of ours and that would have just been devastating and like horrible way to go out. So we decided that that was the best way for us to celebrate each and every one of our successes and not just ourselves.

0:35:14Yeah. And and if I recall at the pep rally um I think it was one of your captains said we we decided we weren't playing for the name on the back, we were going to play for the name on the front, which is Broomfield High School. How awesome is that? Another round of applause for our state championship girls softball team. Appreciate you. Great job. Great job. Congrats. Anybody in the mood for another state champion? Miles Cool, come on up. And Coach Serwin, any Fairview administrators that are here, please come on up. And school administrators, please. I hope that you're coming up with your teams to to be able to get in these photos, so I apologize. Um I'm looking at yeah, a few principles, but uh please feel free to come on up. Uh so in in October, Miles won the individual state title in the 5A state tournament in Grand Junction, clinching the win with a birdie on his final hole.

0:37:16In this photo from the awards ceremony, you could see him alongside his teammate and good friend Ash Edwards, who came in second place, finishing one shot back. How great is that? So, Miles, I I've got all kind of questions here. Come on over here. First of all, did the birdie on the final hole, is that what won it for you? That's clutch. Did they call you that at school clutch? They should. Let's let's get let's make that a thing. Let's get that going. So, um I understand that uh that you you came in second as a sophomore, third as a junior, but how did it feel to finally take home the title on the last hole with a birdie? Uh it felt great. I feel like I just had to had to do it. It was like just runner up and then third and I was I had to get it done. Couldn't let my teammate beat me this time. So, otherwise they wouldn't call you clutch, right? There you go. So, while it's state championships a big deal, you've got your eye on something bigger. Might we see you in a green jacket someday?

0:38:15You've committed to San Diego State University where they've got great weather and coaches. Um, are you excited to head to San Diego State? And, uh, tell us about your future. Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm just trying trying to get out of the cold. It's hard to golf and snow. So, yeah, I'm excited for the future. We'll have four years there and then hopefully get a green jacket. You see you've seen him here. You can say you met him. Clutch. Clutch. Cool. All right, let's take a picture. Whether it's high school athletics or physical education class, we know that it's crucially important that our students have the opportunity to move during their day, not to mention all the skills like teamwork and communication that kids learn while they're participating in these activities. Our physical education teachers do such a great job with our students. And this year, not one, but two of our physical educators were honored for their work by their peers this year. So, if we could have Tim Chavez from Emerald Elementary and Emily Hill from Southern Hills and Melinda and Sam, any other administrators come on up.

0:40:04So last Friday, Tim was honored by Society of Health and Physical Educators of Colorado with his annual Colorado Teacher Recognition Award. And Emily was named Shapees Middle School Teacher of the Year. Let's give them a big round of applause. All right, Tim and Emily, come on over here. This wouldn't be a superintendent honor role complete unless we ask some questions here. So getting up and moving we know is so important more now than ever possibly. Why don't we have both of you share a little something about what drives you to be a physical educator in BBS. Um, okay. So, I've been in BBSD now, back in BBSD for 10 years, and I love being in this district, first of all. Uh, um, yeah, at Southern Hills, we are blessed to be able to teach things. Uh, may my teaching partner, we get to do archery and golf, skateboarding.

0:41:08Um, we do a lot of non-traditional units. We try to compete with the kids in bad mitten. Uh, so a lot of non-traditional things. Uh, we work out every Wednesday. Uh, which to some people would be crazy, but to our students, they hate it at first and then learn to love it and they actually look forward to working out every Wednesday. Um, so lifelong fitness and just getting kids moving. I think one thing is it doesn't you don't have to be an athlete to love PE. You could be the most smart, studious kid that goes to PE kind of just to move your body and you can still thrive. So, I love it. So, thank you. Yeah, I'll just I'll piggy back off that. Um, we do skateboarding and bikes and and non-typical stuff as well. Um, I all the credit, but one of my previous students was just up here with Broomfield softball. So, uh, no.

0:42:14Yeah, just just touch. No, we just like like to make it fun for all the kids to come in and enjoy. Um, I got a supportive staff, a great team, uh, awesome principal. We come up with ideas and and she's like, "Yeah, let's do it." So, it's all for the community and stuff. Big round of applause. Let's take a picture. That's so great. So, this next individual we want to recognize, I'm not sure if she made it, is Vanessa Marina Mesh here. She's not here. Do you want to know what you want? Got to have a little suspense here at the superintendent's honor roles. Uh we were we're excited to to celebrate Vanessa. Um in BBSD we like to say we're bilingual and proud and that's certainly the case for Vanessa. Uh she works at Manhattan Middle School of Arts and Academics and her students uh were going to be up here but uh she wasn't able to be here. Secondary bilingual teacher of the year by the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education. So Vanessa, if you watch this later, we're proud of you. We can't wait to get our certificate to you and thank you for all you do for our kids over at Manhattan.

0:44:07Takes a team to support our gifted students here in BBSD. And tonight we're excited to celebrate that work through one of our educators, Jana Crutzinger from University Hill Elementary Uni Hill. Jana, come on up. Jana recently received the 2025 special advocate of the year award from the Colorado Association for Gifted and Talented. Organization developed the award to recognize professionals in gifted education who are exemplary in their support of teachers, administrators, resource staff and others in their work with gifted learners. Honores advocate for the needs of all gifted learners beyond the class and provide contributions of time and effort in supporting gifted students. Let's give Janna a hand and then I got to ask her a question. Jana, come on over. Talk. So, it's so J is your work so important in making sure that we support our gifted students. What does that look like um on a day-to-day for you and supporting your students at UN Health?

0:45:12That's a great question. Um, it really runs the gamut from making sure that we're identifying students and that we are specifically my school making sure we are identifying students who are underrepresented which tends to be our Latino students. Um, and then just making sure that they are getting enrichment and extensions in the classroom as well as getting emotional support. Another round of applause. The first big error of the superintendent's honor roll. There's bound to be a few. This is Jana, not Jana. So Jana, let's give every Jana a round of applause. can't all be the Broomfield girls softball team. Sorry, that was definitely Okay. All right. I think I'm going to recover. I think I got this one. All right. Next. Uh, one of the biggest honors that a high school science teacher can receive is being chosen for a presidential award for excellence in mathematic mathematics and science. Centaurus High School teacher Kim Becker was honored as one of Colorado's finals for the award not once but twice in three years. Kim, come on up. Carlin, I saw that you're here. Come on down.

0:47:07Erin Greenwood, you think you're gonna take pictures, but you're coming on up, too. Uh, so Kim was named a Colorado finalist for the presidential award for excellence in 2023 and again this year in the science category. Historically, teachers that are chosen get to go to Washington DC, visit the White House, and receive $10,000 from the National Science Foundation. Unfortunately, everything is on hold indefinitely. Regardless, we couldn't be more proud of Kim for being selected to represent Colorado twice and helping to make Centurus and BBSD a leader in science. Let's give Kim another round of applause. Kim, talk to us about how what it means to you to be selected twice for this award. Um, well, it's uh it's really an honor, but I also think it's also about the students and what my students have been able to achieve. Um, I like to to make my classroom so that students are able to act as scientists and engineers and actually like are empowered to make their own difference in the world. Um, and so I think that's probably a big reason why I'm getting to do this. You can see some of those pictures are from um some of the things that we've done with my students in the past. And um we actually just got back from the Jet

0:48:23Propulsion Laboratory on Saturday. Um I was there with my students. We went and visited and JPL and participated in an invention challenge there and uh they went to Griffith Observatory too. Um it was really great and I just um love inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. Yeah. Big round of applause for Kim. So, a number of BBSD schools participate in National History Day, a chance for 6th through 12th grade students to dive deep into a history topic of their choice. It's truly remarkable to see the projects these students create after gathering extensive research at libraries, archives, and museums. In fact, usually at the June honor roll, we celebrate all of the BBSD students who've won awards at the state level of Natural History Day, National History Day, which you might imagine takes a lot of support from our educators that guides them to that level of competition. And today, we're excited to to celebrate one of them, Anna Royal.

0:50:19Anna, where you at? Come on down. Formerly of Summit Middle, now at Manhattan Middle. Come on up, Anna. And is anybody from Manhattan who wants to come up and celebrate or Summit wants to come up and celebrate? So recently, Anna was named the National History Day Colorado Teacher of the Year. That's a big deal. That's right. She she represented our state as a delegate at the National History Day Finals which were held at the University of Maryland last summer. And um Anna, I've got uh well, let's give her another round of applause because she's awesome. Um how did you get involved in National History Day? Um I did National History Day at Fairview and did very poorly and that's how I got involved. Um but Summit has been an incredible to hone and develop the advising tools. And I have to give a shout out to Ben and Susie and Meg from Summit who are here and have been partners on the journey at Summit with NHD and are really equally responsible for this award.

0:51:32Another round of applause for Anna. Are you having fun? This is good. Good time, right? There's cookies out there. You can, you know, get a bowl of shredded beef or something if you're hungry. Um, actually this is our last uh our last recognition, but this is a big deal. So, don't no shred of beef right away. Just just hang in there with me because I really need everybody here to celebrate this next honore. Um, tonight we honor a student who saw a classmate in trouble, took action, and saved their life. June Johnson from Metal Lark. Come on up. Along with Mr. Caldwell is is here. Anybody from Metal Lark? Wait till you wait till you hear this story. This is amazing. June was in the lunchroom at Metoark. She spotted another student choking. Staff member tried to give the student the Heimlick maneuver but couldn't dislodge the food.

0:52:45So what did June do? She stepped up. She had just the right touch. This time the student's area was cleared, saving their life. Give the biggest round of applause of the night to June Johnson. June, I got we got to talk to you here. Uh, so I understand it was your grandma that taught you the Heimlick. Is that right? So I bet you never thought you'd ever have to use it. What gave you the courage to step up and and do that in that moment? I mean, last summer, I guess it was the summer of 2024, she's a nurse and she had like dummies at her house and I was about I was about to start like babysitting and I asked her if I could like try and save a choking dummy and it worked. So, no, that was it. You and you nailed it.

0:53:40Congratulations. Another round of applause. Let's take a picture. Thank you all again so much. I know this is a busy time of year. Uh again, it's always so great to celebrate our our champions, our incredible students, our incredible staff, our community. Uh thank you for your support of our school district for all you do to support your students uh and your schools. Uh again, please help yourself on the way out. We've got plenty of food. Thanks for being here. Hope everybody has a great winter bait winter break. Take care everyone. I'd like to call the order meeting District Board of Education for Tuesday, December 9th, 2025. Board members may attend and participate in board meetings by electronic means in accordance with board policy BMEA and state law. Laura, can you please call the role? here. Chavez here.

1:04:28Medler here. Quinn Linua here. Raj Paul here. Tamu Auding here. Anger here. Thank you. This time I'd like everyone to turn their attention to the screens for our land acknowledgement this evening. The Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral homeland and unjustly and illegally taken territory of the Ude, Pueblin, Arapjo, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations historically tied to this land who have called this land home since time and memorial. We acknowledge the atrocities committed here, including the painful history of genocide, forced assimilation, and efforts to alienate the indigenous inhabitants from their homeland, supported by the policies of the United States government. BBSD is aware of the many indigenous peoples, past and present, and their dignified nations and cultures, who care for this land with strength and resilience.

1:05:55BBSD recognizes the histories of the land in Colorado and the survival of many nations that carried their oral traditions into the present. It is BBSD's responsibility to educate ourselves, our community, and our students so that we can embrace the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples and actively stand together to address injustices. In offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm and honor the history, wisdom, oral traditions, and resilience of indigenous people, and recognize the responsibility to care for and appreciate this land together. I'd like to remind everybody that the mission of the Bowler Valley School District is to create challenging, meaningful and engaging learning opportunities so that all children thrive and are prepared for successful civically engaged lives. Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us here in person tonight. And for those of you attending remotely, we're glad to have you observe and participate in our meetings. At this time, is there a motion to approve this evening's agenda?

1:07:05Moved by Lenia, seconded by Jorge. Laura, can you please call the vote on the motion? U Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Linua, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Tamuading, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. First item on tonight's agenda is the work study session. Board members, we have one work study session topic this evening, which is a presentation from our auditors of the annual comprehensive financial report, otherwise known as ACT Fur. I'll turn it over to Bill Sutter to do the introductions. All right. Thank you, President Raj Paul, members of the board, Dr. Anderson. Uh we're here to present uh the uh annual comprehensive financial report as uh was mentioned uh the ACTUER as it's uh called. Um just uh quickly want to call out a few uh folks that are here. Uh Bob Smart, a longtime member of the audit committee. um he didn't know that it was a long sentence that he was going to be committed to for being on the audit committee but uh he keeps uh staying around uh and his wisdom is greatly appreciated. Uh Tippa Carudy our director of finance and accounting uh Heather Groers the accounting manager uh and of course Allison Slife the principal not that kind of principal but principal with Clifton Larson Allen our auditors. Uh we did meet as the audit

1:08:43committee back on November 19th to review the draft audit uh in detail. Uh spent about an hour talking through it. Uh so uh it has been looked at uh but certainly uh we'll turn it over to Allison to uh dig into the presentation for uh the audit. Great. Yeah, thank you so much and good to see you all again and uh welcome to the new new members as well. So, um excited to present the audit results uh this evening. Um we do have just a brief PowerPoint presentation. This is just a summary of what we already met with the audit committee uh members about a couple weeks ago. So, um if there are any questions though, happy to to field those from any of the the board members here. Um so, ultimately what our scope was of the whole audit uh as was mentioned, Bill mentioned the act first, that's ultimately the financial statements for the district as a whole.

1:09:31Um, as a reminder, um, or those that are looking at it for the first time, that does also include the five charter schools that are, uh, considered discreetly presented component units of the district. So, those are shown within, uh, the district's financial statements as well as the district as a whole. So, um, just wanted to mention that um, us CLA, we are the external auditors of all the charter schools as well. So, we did perform those audits as well as the main district audit. Um, and that's what you see in front of you today. um with the the acturer that was attached to uh the meeting. Um also as part of that we do uh conduct our audit and and uh determine if there are any sort of findings or recommendations, best practices uh those sorts of things.

1:10:08So that's part of our ultimate deliverable as well. Um I'll cover uh that in a second. Uh then we also have required government governance communications letter. So we're directly engaged uh with you all from a board of education standpoint to perform the audit. And so there is certain required communications we have directly with you all. So that's one of the letters that we did issue as part of our deliverables that really just summarizes um any sort of major changes during the year, findings, um any sort of concerns, things like that. So that's also one of the letters that we issue. Um and then two other parts to this. Uh one is a report of internal control over financial reporting. So that's really um a deeper dive uh in accordance with governmental auditing standards um over any sort of uh controls that you have uh from a district standpoint. So if we were to have any sort of concerns from from a um finding perspective, those would be reported in that letter. And then the last uh piece is our report over um the the uh results of your or of your federal program. So um because the district is a recipient of federal funds, you have to go through what's called a single audit. Um so the threshold used to be 750,000, it's

1:11:12actually bumped to a million now going forward. Um but any entities that do receive that federal funding go through a deep dive audit. Um this is a bit of a unique year um for a lot of reasons but one of the reasons is uh the the main kind of document um that us as auditors follow that uh the office of management and budget or OM puts out um it was delayed this past year. Um typically it's put out in uh May every year. Um we just got a Thanksgiving present where the final issuance was just the uh two days before Thanksgiving. So um that's a lengthy delay. Um and we are not able to issue our single audit until that came out. So obviously that was just a couple weeks ago. Um we were able to perform a lot of our testing over the draft supplement that was put out by the feds, but we did have to hold everything just like everyone else in the audit community had to hold that report. So um that will be separately issued this year. Um that has been done in the past kind of uh with the change of administration. Uh that was the last time we did have to separately issue that. Um so that will be forthcoming and certainly if we have any um results of

1:12:11uh of a concern, we'll report that to you all. But nothing at this point. we've already performed our test work and just kind of finishing things up now that that final document is uh released. So just wanted to mention that because that was a a big delay across the whole community that do receive federal funds. All right. So ultimately um good news here uh though over the financial statement audit opinion. So that's in the first kind of uh third of the financial statement document of the acter. So we did issue an unmodified or clean opinion um which is the easier way to say that but the the technical term is unmodified. So that is the best opinion that an organization can receive. Um so did want to congratulate the district again on achieving that uh for this fiscal this past fiscal year of fiscal year 25. Um we did not have any sort of material weaknesses or significant deficiencies as a result of the audit over the financial statements.

1:12:59So again that's a positive result. Um and no nothing that that rose to the level of needing to be a written finding um that would be reported as part of the um the ultimate result. So again congratulations on achieving that. Um just some summary items uh from a government governance communications. The the details of this are are as part of the board packet, but um there was just one item I wanted to call out. There was a new accounting policy this past year that the district among all governmental organizations had to implement related to compensated absences. So that's related to vacation, sick leave sorts of acrruels. Um a lot of nuances there with governments, but basically having to increase the liability that governments show on their financial statements. So that is something that um is uh new to the district as as well as all all districts um and other governmental organizations.

1:13:46That was a big lift though for for Bill and the team to uh make sure that they complied properly with that standard and and we did not have any sort of findings related to that or anything like that. That is a large amount though that is on um the the full acral statements that are uh within the ACTUER. Um there was also just a a change in accounting policy related to subitta subscriptionbased IT arrangements um just kind of uh increasing a capitalization threshold there. So, just wanted to call out those major changes. Um, otherwise, we did have a few what's called uncorrected misstatements. And so, um, just to spend a minute there, that means those were items that that came about through the audit process, but they're not considered material in nature. So, they don't distort the financial statement results, but they are big enough where we just have to call uh to your attention. Um, typically that tends to be timing differences.

1:14:31Maybe things were recorded in the incorrect fiscal year or an incorrect amount. So um not a um not a material error but it is something that just rose to the level through the um through the audit process. So one of them related to uh this this new accounting standard with uh compensated absences. Um that is uh a standard that has to be retroactively applied to kind of beginning um equity or or uh net position. Um it wasn't big enough that that the district had to go back kind of two years and recalculate that. So that is a past adjustment. Um that was corrected though. kind of flowed through and the ending balances are correct um as of 6:3025. Um another one was a timing issue related to an acrrual adjustment for construction. Again, more just timing uh recorded in a uh the different fiscal year. Um and then one was related to a past adjustment related to a lease uh item. Um which is basically just an impact um kind of a gross up of your balance sheet if you will within the general fund. So again, no material items, but just wanted to mention those were found during the audit process. Um no corrected misstatements though. So nothing in terms of material audit adjustments as I mentioned. Um and then

1:15:34uh more is just an FYI. We do have the management representation letter that we do get signed by management saying that they provided us all the supporting documentation. They let us know about litigation. Kind of a laundry list of items. And so that is something that we have to get before we can release our audit results. Um otherwise this is just a real highle overview of the large um annual comprehensive financial report. This is just a printed version um actually double-sided. So it's very large. Uh but just some of the highlights I just wanted to to briefly mention there. Um our audit report. So that's the independent um auditor's report kind of towards the front of the financial statements. Uh management discussion and analysis or MDNA is a good kind of highle summary if you're trying not to review the 200 some pages of the financial statements. Um but it does kind of describe changes year-over-year and has a good narrative there. Um then kind of the middle of the financial statements are really the focus of the audit with um the statement of net position which is the balance sheet for the um district statement of activities and kind of all the fund level statements with all the the nuances there. So um a lot of information though

1:16:34within the acter that is uh required to be part of that ultimate uh deliverable. Um with that that really concludes kind of our overall results though. Um we did also have a management letter comment. Um I'll mention that that's really more best practice recommendations around um IT recommendations. So we do go through IT um audit uh requirements and standards. So um that's more uh as just an FYI for you all. Um that that was one of our best practice recommendations as well. Um but happy to address any questions or feedback. We're always here um to help uh address any any questions or concerns from the board. Um and my contact information is also in there. I'm certainly happy to to connect with anyone as well. That's all I have. Thank you for that presentation, Allison. Board members, any questions Questions or comments? Bill, I have a couple of things. Uh, one on that single audit. um the state auditor issued a blanket waiver for everybody in the state uh because of that um uh delayed information and delayed uh single audits. Uh so while we do have a timeline that we have to meet uh in state statute, they have the ability to wave that and they did. Uh and then also attached in the agenda item is form AFA

1:17:582025 which is the asurances for financial accreditation. Uh so um there's uh required by CDE by state statute uh just affirming uh that we are in compliance with all the required uh financial components. Uh and so uh this has a uh signature line for the board president. I certify that the board reviewed the asurances and approved the related responses. So uh it's included in there. I saw that. Thank you. I do have a quick question on the IT controls that came up. Do we have a plan? I some of them seem very simple like subscriptions expiring or do we have a plan to address any of those? I know they're not critical for the audit itself, but just out of curiosity. Trying to remember there was one about Windows 10 uh that's in process. Um and I can maybe add a little uh color commentary to that too. We did meet with um the IT team here at the district about the details of those. So um there was good conversation between kind of our CLA IT team and then the the district's IT um team to address those.

1:19:13So um from our perspective, yes, there's uh you know action being taken. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Seeing as there are no further questions, we will take a brief break to reset the boardroom. Thank you so much. Welcome back everybody. The next item on our agenda this evening is a superintendence report. Dr. Anderson, good evening. Good evening, board president Raj Paul, board members. Good to see everyone. Hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and uh just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of our board members and everybody who came out today for superintendent's honor roll. great opportunity to celebrate our kids, our staff. So, it's just really, really fun thing to do. So, appreciate everybody who was able to attend that. Uh board members, holiday season's definitely underway and BBSD helped uh kick it off last weekend in Lewisville.

1:24:17Marching bands from Centurus seen here. Monarch High on the next slide. as well as centaur dance and cheer teams and our outstanding BBSD transportation team. See that, but that bus is uh all decked out for the holidays. Um participate in the Louisville Chamber of Commerce parade of lights on Friday night. Not only was our uh did we have a bus in the parade, CW, our adorable mascot that helps get out the word about crosswalk safety and other safety tips, made an appearance. Want to thank all of our students and staff who participated lighting up the night and spreading holiday cheer. Today's Colorado today, December 9th, is Colorado Gives Day where many important organizations receive donations to make an impact to our community. Today, our BBSD Foundation impact on it impact on education unlocked a $35,000 match from Google and an anonymous donor for more than $70,000 gift. These funds will expand academic well-being, college, and career opportunities for thousands of students across our district. It's not too late to give. You can make a donation impact on education or any of the many participating local nonprofits on the Colorado Gives Day website www.colgives.org back.

1:25:39Finally, we see uh we love seeing the units from Bouldermod continuing to literally f off the assembly line. Latest modular reports. The latest modular units built by Apex Construction Trade students landed safely in their forever home in the Ponderosa mobile home community and CBS4 was there. Homes fresh from the factory are being installed in Boulder. These so-called Boulder mods are duplexes that are made in a factory and have now been transported and placed in the Ponderosa mobile home community. The project is a collaboration between the Boulder Valley School District and Habitat for Humanity. It's an effort to bring more affordable housing to the city and give students workforce training as well. Board members, I know that that you join me in being so proud of this effort which is made possible through our outstanding partnership Flat Irons Habitat for Humanity and the city of Boulder. Uh just I think an incredible thing that's happening in our school district and in our community. And just one last reminder for our families that universal preschool program UPK application for four-year-olds open today for the 2627 school year. In 2627, BBSC will continue to offer half-day preschool sessions 5 days a week, morning and afternoon, at all of our preschool sites. The majority of our sites also offer preschool enrichment to extend the day. Applications can be

1:27:00submitted at upk.col.gov. As a reminder, you do not apply with the district. you apply at upk.col.gov. That's all I have for superintendent intendant remarks this evening. Thank you for those remarks. Dr. Anderson, board members. Any questions or comments? So, I was driving in here this evening and CPR was doing a piece on the Mod Factory and it was fun. They were interviewing Sam Fukqua past board president on that piece. So, that was just fun to hear that tonight, see your presentation as well. The next item on tonight's agenda is public participation. The board respects the rights of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of our schools. The board does not endorse the comments of any speaker and reminds all those who speak that you're responsible for your own speech. Speakers will each have two minutes to speak. You will see a yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining and an orange card when you have 10 seconds remaining. If you run out of time or would like to share additional feedback, you can always email the board. Board members, we have two speakers this evening. The first of which is Alexandra Prospero or Zanna Prosparero.

1:28:15Zanna does not appear to be here this evening. So we will move on to our second speaker, Steven Schwarz. If you want to come up to the podium. that is just fine. You can always email the board if you want to share your feedback with us at a later date in time. Okay, we will now move on to board communication. Board members, is there anything you would like to share? Alex, uh, just a couple things. I just wanted to, um, let people know I got an invitation to go visit Prospect Academy, which is a charter school in Jeffco that focuses on kids on the autism spectrum. Uh, and I was going to go visit it Wednesday morning, and Deian is going to join me. So, we're just going to go see what it was like, uh, and get a sense of the school. So, I'll report back after our visit and look forward to seeing what they have.

1:29:27Thanks, Alex. Jorge, thank you. Um, always my favorite time of year to see the super the superintendent's honor role. Um, just such great things to see what our students are doing and and our teachers and our staff. Um, just the sense of community is always kind of overwhelming. It's it's wonderful to see. I mean, such a great um thing to celebrate right now. Um, and it reminds me, you know, how how we serve all of our students and how the community we build matters so much. And as a part of that, I know that right now there's there's a lot of fear in the community. There's a it's a time of year where while it's a great celebration, it's also time for isolation and people feel vulnerable and alone. And the important role that we play um in our staff, our faculty, um the board, administrators, and then the student body and parents here um to recognize that, you know, if you see somebody um if someone looks alone, looks fearful, to put the word out there and say, "Hey, you're not alone. you're surrounded by a community here of people who have um who are here to support each other and to be part of the larger community. And I think that message is really important during this

1:30:25time of year. Um and to recognize that, you know, we we've built it into our we have resolutions about how we support each other. We've got our policy about how we support each other. Um and but it's something that we all do as a part of that. So, I just want to kind of um highlight that this evening because it's um I got warm fuzzy feelings today. So, just kind of share the thought. Thank you. Thanks, Jorge. Deian, I wanted to share with you that the the celebration tonight was especially sweet for me because uh Tim Chavez, who received a PE the PE award, was one of my students and so it comes full circle. Um gosh, it's been 25 years since I've had Tim in a classroom, but to see him become a teacher, and he and I work together on the um the project, it's called the Latino History Project, and that's associated with the University of Colorado. And he and I work together to do some really great work. Uh and he's a great contributor to the community in a lot of ways. I also wanted to recognize that I was really proud to um be um sworn in to I think the most diverse board we've ever had in in Boulder Valley Schools from my

1:31:42memory. I got 30 years. You got any more in there? But I just wanted to celebrate that um that we have a lot of diverse viewpoints on the board now. I don't have much, but board members, I had the opportunity to meet with two awesome students, Tyler and Owen from High Peaks and Boulder High, who are working on a project for the gifted and talented student advisory program. They're trying to find a way to ha to create almost like an N8 National History Day or a science fair for our gifted and talented students to share their capstone projects or to share their passion projects and have those viewable by other students. They can discuss their their strengths as gifted learners, whatever they may be. Um, so that was very interesting and just to give you all a heads up that there our students in the gifted and talented advisory council are all working on individual projects on how to advocate on behalf of our gifted learners to improve their experiences within our schools. So that was pretty exciting.

1:32:53Two awesome humans who have a lot of really great ideas. So that was a fun fun meeting that I was able to have. And then just for the community, the board is taking off to the Colorado Association of School Boards annual conference tomorrow. We will learn and connect with schoolboard members from all across the state from folks from the Colorado Department of Education really improve our effectiveness as board members and um I just want to thank taxpayers for supporting us in making that trip down and we will take back any of our learning to really improve the work of this board and the work of the district. So I just wanted to share that as well. We will now move on to the information items of this evening's agenda. We have two information items tonight. The first of which is the annual enrollment update. Dr. Anderson, would you like to do introductions?

1:33:44Yes. Thank you, board president Raj Paul. Uh we have Glenn Sigru here, district planner to give uh the board and our community our annual enrollment update. So Glenn, I'm going to turn it over to you. I think your mic is off. It used to be red is on. Now red is off. There it is. Got it. Did look different. Uh this is the annual enrollment report for 2025. Uh it's a snapshot of 2025 uh enrollment using October count data which is the data thank you data used uh or I should say audited by the state and by um BBSD to be the most accurate that we have and we also use that past year October count data for an even comparison from year to year. uh we look at that we can look at trends see how this year fits into past years look at and look at how we got to where we're at today uh based on overall enrollment this uh enrollment information also contributes to uh enrollment projections which will be coming in early uh January uh it also contributes towards the 2627 budget coming up and resource allocations for FTE facilities educational materials and things like that we also use a lot of this data in uh committees and processes such as LLR and bond.

1:35:23So overall trends for 2526. Um this chart shows the the trends that we've seen in enrollment since 2015. Uh the gray line across the top represents uh the overall enrollment of the district for those years and the trends that we see build up to 202025. Uh the light blue area represents charter enrollment and the darker blue area represents the um general fund enrollment which is the non-charter enrollment and you can see that the baseline is 15,000. So that chartered segment is not proportional for the overall thing. Mostly what we want to see in this chart is a difference from year to year. With that we see continue excuse me continued decline in 2025 but steeper this year. we had a loss of closer to 1.9% or 525 students. Uh we had projected closer to 0.9 students around 250 student loss. Uh the 5-year trend that we've been seeing averages to about a 1.3% loss uh uh year-over-year.

1:36:26Uh one thing we did want to look at the past two years, immigration has been important in surrounding districts and us as well. We use data for um non-English proficient to help gauge that because we don't have really good immigration data. Uh last year we did see a spike in non-English proficient students. Uh this year we saw uh quite a bit of a decline in the number of new new NEP students entering the system. This chart shows annual year-over-year uh change. Uh so if you look along the side of the bar with the numbers, that's the absolute number that we lost year-over-year um um of students, uh the line that you see in gray represents the overall district. Uh and we see elementary, middle, and high bars um um uh projecting along each year as well. Uh when we look at this uh we see a declining trend starting with elementary in 2015 uh and spreading to other levels as we move uh to later years in the chart. Um we see unexpected uh gains at middle school in 2023 and 2024 uh where you know having smaller and smaller elementary classes we would have expected to see declines. uh we thought that probably were kids from COVID um who were going to private schools or homeschools uh re-entering the system at

1:37:58middle school. Um this year we do see declines at middle um so that trend may be wearing out. Uh overall losses at all levels in 2025 with the greatest loss at elementary uh in the high school and middle losses were the greatest than we've seen uh in the previous two years. and overall greater than what we've seen in recent years. This chart shows um grade levels along the bottom K through 12. Uh and each bar represents uh the number of students at that grade level. Uh the very top of the bar in the dark blue box represents the most that grade level was in the last 10 years. The bottom level of that darker blue box represents the smallest that grade level has been in the last 10 years. Uh when we look at kindergarten on this chart, we had a little bit larger kindergarten that we've seen recently. It's 1626 I believe. Uh that was greater than projected. Uh the white square represents that kindergarten class that we see now. uh and the um triangle represents what what that class was projected. Um so that is good news on that part of it. But then we see a decline at first grade which is fairly unusual. Usually we see a bump from first grade as uh kids come out of

1:39:25private uh kindergarten classes and homeschool. We do see about a 50 student bump pretty regularly. Uh so a decline at first is unusual. Going up the chart, we see most of the classes, excuse me, this year are on the bottom end of the 10-year trend uh really all the way up until 12th grade. And we still see that 12th grade class is a little bit larger than we've seen in in history, but we do expect to see that to change as uh these smaller cohorts move up. Um one unusual thing at 12th grade is we do see growth at 12th grade. Um last year it was to the tune of 160 students mostly resident students and we saw something akin to that this year as well. Um we've tried to look at a few explanations and we haven't really come up with anything firm. Uh however uh it is an unusual trend.

1:40:28This chart shows residential growth. So this is looking at the students that live in our district uh within our borders and excludes open enrollment factors. Uh we break it out in the east uh in Boulder subtotals which is the dark blue line and the eastern part of the district which is the lighter blue line or blue bar and the line itself is uh the BVSSD total. And when we look at this uh in most years Boulder has lost students since 2018 where the eastern part of the district has been a little more inconsistent. There's loss years and there's even years and a little bit of growth even in 201819 and a little bit last year. Uh K12 resident students in 2025 were down however by about 655 students. So down quite a bit further more than 100 students than the overall enrollment. Uh that puts us at 23,900 students for 2025.

1:41:27Uh this is the second highest loss since the pandemic and rep and and uh but it does appear that OE has helped offset some of that loss. Uh and I can talk a little bit more about that later. This is a refinement of that last uh chart. Again, it talks about resident students. Now we're just looking at the elementary level and a little bit finer uh uh finer look at each of the individual communities in Boulder, Breamfield, uh Lafayette, Erie, Lewisville, Superior, and the mountain areas. So each of the bars represents those different areas with the darker bar being blue, uh darker bar being boulder along the bottom. And like some of the other ones that we see, the bolder uh bars uh are mostly negative throughout the chart, especially at elementary because this this declining trend did start earlier at elementary than overall. Uh and this year also unusual was the Lafayette Eerie, which also saw pretty one of their largest declines in 10 years. uh Lafayette area is where we have most of our new housing and that does help offset some of the the losses that we see in the area. Uh for for some reason that didn't occur this year. We are looking to see if immigration has something to do with that if there's a

1:42:52disproportionate uh effect to that community, but right now that's a little hard to pin down. other factors in um affecting our enrollment migration uh out of district students and births. This chart is taken mostly from CDE data uh and for that reason it includes preschool where typically we don't include preschool in a lot of our numbers. Um uh and when we look at it um we see pretty good growth since 2022 in out of district students open enrolling into our district. Um in fact last year was the high water mark up to that point and we beat that by a pretty good margin. Uh what's more is we're also seeing the number of students leaving the district had been leveling out in recent years and last year it even declined. Um, we don't have 2025 data from CD yet. Uh, that'll be coming in mid January, but we'll we'll definitely want to see if that uh net gain continues.

1:44:11One of one of the most important factors in in enrollment is is net migration to a region. So, uh, we know we've had declining enrollment over the years or I'm I'm sorry, but declining births over the years. Uh, but in past in the in the 2000s, for example, we had enough net migration to offset declining births during that time. Uh, so how you look at this chart, it's taken from our own student data. Uh, the top green line are the new students that we get to the district. Uh, not counting K students, but first through 12th graders. Um and the bottom red line represents the students that have left the district since last year. Uh and that one discounts the effect from 12th graders. Uh and what we can see with this is it's not really one or the other that influences uh uh whether we grow or or decline in net migration, but it's that middle arrow. How big that middle arrow is your net gain. So what we've seen in recent years while we've been declining in excuse me uh new students to the district uh the students leaving the district uh has also been declining. So our net gains at least the last two years have been relatively healthy uh 385 in 2023 and 580 last year which is

1:45:27pretty good. Uh this year we saw a sharp decline uh and mostly from new students to the district. Births are the last major factor uh in in enrollment that we're discussing tonight. Um this chart shows the trends since 2007 broken out for the eastern part of the district in gray and the blue part of the district or the uh Boulder uh um part of the district in blue. Um, of course, we've we've seen continued declines since 1999, but we have seen some leveling uh in the eastern part of the district in more recent years, uh, particularly since uh, 2000. Uh, where during the teens especially, we saw a sharp decline in Boulder overall. Uh, however, Boulder does appear to have leveled off somewhat since 2019. Um, but we'll kind of have to see uh if that's still slightly a decline trend or a true leveling. Uh, but it certainly isn't as steep as it was previously.

1:46:40And um, of course, the important thing of of births is how it affects our kindergarten classes and those sizes. Uh, this chart tracks our resident kindergarten classes, just the ones the students that are live in our district. And that's the darker line along the bottom. And then it overlays uh births that uh from five years prior to that. So when you take a year 2022 23 for kindergarten, the um the birth mark is is the birth class that should theoretically effect uh become that kindergarten class uh five six years later. Uh when we lay this out, we see a pretty consistent trend over the years uh of of connection between births declining and our classes. Uh you see the ratio along the bottom usually historically has been around uh low 90s to the mid 90s uh 90% centile. Uh although we did see a dip in 2022 uh and 23 into the 80s that was worrisome at that time but it has since leveled off to about 93% uh of of of that kindergarten class related to the corresponding births. And when we take that out into the future a little bit that does give us some insight of what um uh our future kindergarten classes may look like. we may see some leveling uh or some slight decline.

1:48:15So in summary, uh enrollment declines of about 500 uh students this year or close to 2% uh which is the second greatest loss we've seen since the pandemic. Uh all levels saw decline in 2025. However, kindergarten uh at 1626 was the largest that we've seen since 2022. uh previous student gains at middle school didn't occur in 2025 which may indicate uh that getting back some of the co students that had left uh that that pool is kind of drying up. Uh and out of district contributions to enrollments were higher than last year's historic high. Uh Boulder largely driving enrollment declines in 2025. Uh but we also saw saw unusual declines in Lafayette and Erie this year. uh birth showing signs of maybe some leveling or at least slight declines uh going forward uh after steep period of of steep declines particularly in Boulder and resident student uh net migration that we've been seeing also faltered a little bit in 2025 with that I'm happy to take questions thank you Glenn board members questions or comments I'm curious about the kindergarten first grade data and if we have any anecdotal information that might explain that trend of having more kindergarteners and fewer first graders.

1:49:49Uh none really. There was a little bit uh of concern that maybe we're seeing higher levels of um um uh parents hold back their kindergarteners or their first graders into kindergarten, which would explain also a little bit of a bump at kindergarten. But when we looked at it closely, there is a small difference. There is a little bit up, but maybe a difference of 15 kids or so in the past. Not quite the 75 kids or so that we would have would have needed to match. uh what we would have expected. uh thank you for all this. Um you know, you presented the data on uh non-English speakers. Um and so is it that we uh had fewer new non-English-sp speaking students than we expected or is it that we lost non-English speakers or a combination of the two? combination of the two. Uh so we actually retained the the non-English uh proficient speakers from last year pretty well. Our population is is only a little bit below what it was last year as a whole, but when we look at the number of new ones that we add every year, that's the part that was down uh over down over what we've been seeing in more recent years.

1:51:09Thank you, Alex and Elenia. Yeah, I'm Thank you very much for all this. It's really helpful and really important. Um, as I think about sort of long-term or medium-term, uh, I think about the things that we can kind of control as a district that that lead to some of these numbers. And so I'm encouraged to see like the increase and the out of district enrollment, you know, coming in as something that we can use to backfill our numbers. Um, but I'm I'm also look at like a significant decrease this year. If we're down like 600 and we're up like 220 or something and out of district enrollment, like if we hadn't gotten the increase in district enrollment, we would have had one of the biggest decreases ever. So, I it just sort of makes me think about the importance of things that we do programmatically or that we have within our control that make us attractive both to families that are outside the district, but also to, you know, retaining everybody we can and attracting people to live here, too. Do you have any thoughts on like the things that are due to to like what we do at school versus what's going on in the community? Like do we have any way of parsing out those contributions to the

1:52:17decline? You know, really the the one I have to fall back on with that is I don't have a lot of answers on the why, but at least this year we can see that, you know, we we seem to be retaining our students uh at historic levels for the last three years, pretty close. Uh and we seem to have been overall even gaining on on that retention. Uh and the piece has been more new students enrolling in the district. um which probably has more to do with migration, net migration levels overall going down would be my guess and the housing market than really kind of a programmatic thing within schools. That would be my guess. Elia Glenn, can you tell me or do you know how we're comparing to other Front Range districts? Uh we actually yeah do talk about that with with other planners. Uh most of the almost all of the districts are down this year. Uh last year people were kind of feeling boyed a little bit I think but uh that didn't happen again this year and most districts are down and most kindergarten classes are down too.

1:53:33So that's the one standout where we have is our kindergarten is a little bit little bit higher at least. Thanks for this Glenn. I Alex um do we have uh any good data on like our surrounding districts um homeschooled enrollments or any changes that's going on with those populations that are registered in the surrounding districts? we can look um look with the CDE and what they produce uh when they when they produce that data in in January. Um so right now we know we don't have a strong feel for that. I I just bring it up because I'm again I'm interested in the things that we could do that would uh forstall further decreases in enrollment, get students back or or retain more. And um it's one of those things where I like how many students are going to online schools, how many students are homeschooling, how many students are leaving versus coming the district. Um those are all the things I'm I'm curious about to figure out how we can do the most to protect our enrollment in the long term. So I'd like more information on that as we can get it.

1:54:55Glenn, will you will you share that in in the enrollment projection presentation? Is that part of that? I do know that that's something that's part of our declining enrollment dashboard that we have online. So will we update it there or will we also present present it when you do enrollment projections? Both. Yeah. One further comment on that. I was looking at some old state data um from last year and there's a significant like if overall the state's going down pretty significantly um of the decrease about half of it's due to sort of looking like they're just lower enrollment. But if you look at the brickandmortar public school enrollments decrease, it's about equal to the increase in virtual uh enrollment and and in homeschooling numbers statewide. So I know we don't have good district level data because of homeschooling stuff and we can't necessarily track who's in which virtual schools, you know, once they register outside of ours. But I do think we've got to figure out the contribution of things that are programmatic versus the things that are not programmatic.

1:56:01Elenia, uh, this is a comment I not necessarily for Glenn, but for my fellow board members and our public that this is very sobering data for me. Um, and I had seen it. I had seen some of it um earlier, but not everything that we're seeing today. And I think it's important um and I've said this before that the the problem is here now. And this data um puts that in pretty stark relief for me. Uh, and I think I did have that happy feeling last year, like maybe we were going to escape some way. Um, but it doesn't look that way. Thank you for your work on it. Jorge, thank you. I think I think that's important to keep that perspective, right? that these data take into account the increasingly smaller cohorts that are following as we get rid of these larger cohorts as they graduate and move and move forward. Um, and so if I'm understanding this right, you're accounting for those decreasing cohorts and the decreases were even larger than would expected despite accounting for those changes. Correct.

1:57:30Um, well, you know, I think going forward to kind of adjust that a little bit. I mean, a lot of this is kind of like a stock market, you know, it kind of goes up and down. It's not always, you know, because it went 2% down, now we're we're destined to 2% from now on. Um, that's why I brought up the 1.3% which has been our past average. Um, so that is one of the fundamental things and that is does account in the projection is the size of the cohorts and how often uh and it does account somewhat for in migration and out migration uh in that in that as well. Um, so yeah, that to answer your question, that is built into the model for the most part. Thank you for that presentation, Glenn.

1:58:19Um, as my board member said, continues to paint the picture that, you know, students are declining. A lot of that is without our without outside of our control. We need to focus our energies on the things that we can control. um a lot of which is coming up. Our next item this evening for information is the 2026 27 budget development process and the 2627 budget outlook for which Bill Sutter is very eager to present. Bill, I will turn it over to you. Thank you, President Raj Paul, members of the board, and Dr. Anderson. Uh, we just finished last year with the audit. We're still in this year, about halfway through, but we're going to stop talking about next year already. So, we'll start out with uh a little video that uh Randy and his great communications team put together. Um it just helps explain a little bit uh that cycle, the fiscal cycle with the last year, this year, next year. Uh so we will jump into that. It's about 2 and 1/2 or 3 minutes long.

1:59:53Here in the Boulder Valley School District, we take our responsibility as stewards of taxpayer dollars very seriously. We pride ourselves not only on our careful management of the funds that you've trusted us with for our students, but also being transparent throughout the process. Beyond being honored by national and international experts in the area, BDSD is committed to ensuring that our community understands our fiscal process so that you can follow it and participate. It's important to know that from start to finish, the fiscal cycle is about 28 months and includes first defining our budget process and plan milestones, then regularly checking in on the fiscal lay of the land. Opportunities are given for staff members, families, and community members to contribute ideas. District leadership then considers the alignment of these suggestions to the district's strategic plan and prioritizes things accordingly. As the budget is created, it is then presented to the board of education for discussion and potential editing. Once board members approve the budget, BBSD staff works to implement it. Along the way, as we will discuss in more depth in a moment, there are factors which might alter our course, which is why we regularly come back and update the board and ultimately revise the budget midway so that it reflects the conditions on the ground.

2:01:05As the fiscal year ends, our team ensures that everything that happened is properly recorded. That report is then audited by an independent outside organization and they report back to the board of education about how we did covering whether we followed best practices, complied with state and federal law and accurately reported the information ensuring that we stay on the straight and narrow. As we go through this process, it can get a bit complicated because as we mentioned, the entire process stretches over 28 months. It is common that our business services team is working to establish next year's budget while implementing this year's plan and reviewing what happened during the last fiscal year. Ultimately, each cycle has the same events. What does change from year to year are the factors that may impact our budget. Every year, we base our flight plan on the best information we can gather and try to forecast what might be ahead. Challenges certainly can emerge along the way. With a billion dollar budget, we can adjust and still get to our intended destination. But in the rare event of a situation in which we need to significantly change course, we are in constant communication with our board of education and community so that everyone is aware and can provide feedback and be part of the

2:02:12solution. Here in the Boulder Valley School District, we are proud of our tradition of strong financial stewardship. That is a great uh brief synopsis of how to think about the budget cycle uh and the fiscal cycle overall. So again uh we have a little color coding here with uh our last year, this year, next year concepts. Uh so we've got those built into the uh slides to help uh really paint the picture of kind of which piece of the process that we're talking about. Uh this is largely focused on next fiscal year with the 2627 budget but also includes information uh relative to the current fiscal year. Next uh we have our timeline and milestones. So this is a slide that we've been using for several years now. Um just a reminder that this changes very little from year to year. Um about a week uh on some of the dates uh just from the normal cycle of when they happen. Um there are statutory uh requirements uh for uh when data becomes available or is presented. employee contracts uh when the board meetings occur and we receive data uh to build the budget over 10 months uh over the course of 10 months uh and often after decisions uh have to be made.

2:03:53So, uh, the real takeaway here is that the budget process does span several months, uh, and there are lots of options for, uh, staff, the community, uh, stakeholders to, uh, give input, uh, with that relevant information coming in, uh, over the course of those uh, months. Next, uh, we have our September state revenue forecast. Uh this is the uh most recent one that we have although uh about a week and a half away on next Friday uh is the December revenue forecast. So uh just to think about how the state is forecasting revenues in the current year and what their the state is building its budget on for the next year. uh in the September revenue forecast there's only 14% of the data that they have uh to to make that forecast. So uh with that limited information uh the the variability of what can happen uh towards the end of the year uh gets greater as we move through the process. Uh the December revenue forecast has over twice as much information uh as the September revenue forecast. So it paints a better picture uh for uh the state and us uh as we build next year's budget.

2:05:28Just to note, uh the March forecast uh has about 50% more data or over 50% more data than the December forecast, which is what the state is building uh its following fiscal year uh budget on. So again, as this more information comes in, uh the picture gets uh clearer and clearer. I will say that uh there are a few pieces of the data that uh were delayed uh with the government shutdown. So it might be a little squishy uh for the December forecast uh but will certainly uh correct itself as we get into that uh March forecast. So uh again the uh budget whether it's the state budget or the district budget uh is built on imperfect and incomplete data. Uh but as the timeline progresses things get a little clearer. So included in the September revenue forecast uh they're projecting the current year revenue uh which is an indicator of the following year as well.

2:06:38uh inflation, what the inflation rate is looking like uh current and projected. They do a two-year projection on uh inflation uh and then how the economy is going. So, uh, HR1, uh, the federal, uh, HR1, uh, really impacted the state, uh, revenues both from a, uh, income tax standpoint, how the state calculates income tax based on your federal returns, uh, and then all of the the, uh, things that were included in that, uh, federal bill. So uh it really uh impacted the state and thus they had to have a special session and u take some uh action in the current year for inflation uh right now or as of September uh 2025 was projected at 2.8% uh which is up from the June forecast of 2.3%. Uh the governor did build his uh next year's budget on a 2.6% 6% inflation rate. Uh so kind of uh tamped it down a little bit. Uh again, inflation is one of those things that was in impacted by the federal shutdown. So we'll see how that uh next one comes out uh just next week. And then as far as the state economy, uh the economic outlook has weakened uh with a recession possible.

2:08:11Um it is um so I attended the uh CU uh leads business research division's uh 2026 uh forecast for uh the state economy next year and they're not projecting or um proposing that there's going to be a recession. Uh but as any good economist uh they never are definitive on things and say it's possible. So in the uh forecast that was developed um there are four things uh at the federal level that were built into it. Uh tax policy, the fiscal policy and executive actions, immigration policy and trade policy are all included uh in that forecast uh for the state. So the state has cooked in uh some of the impacts uh that have uh been come down from the uh federal level. For the state revenue forecast, uh we have uh flat uh revenues from last year uh into this year uh projected. So that's a a decrease from what they built the budget on, which is why they had to make some adjustments.

2:09:28Um and then an increase in FY27 uh but it's not enough to offset the uh increasing costs uh both from uh inflationary increases as well as case loads. So, uh, again, the increases, the statutory increases in state budget areas, including K12, uh, are making it very difficult for, uh, adding programs, new programs, or moving towards fully funding K12, uh, to meet educational expectations and mandates. Next, uh we'll dive into the strategic plan and uh how that impacts the budget development. So, uh we're just going to review a few of the investments uh that we're making related to the strategic initiatives. Uh I won't narrate them word for word uh but just hit some of the highlights in each area. So under no limits all students experience grade level standardsbased instruction. Uh a few of the things that have been put in place uh seven new standardsbased curricula uh which is a huge investment uh uh across all levels uh in the district elementary, middle and high differentiated funding, datadriven instruction. And the the last one there, short cycle improvement planning, uh which is a mouthful, but uh the 90-day plans that are talked about frequently uh is included in that.

2:11:05Next best step uh educators and administrators implement and track tiered supports and instructional strategies to engage and grow all students uh and monitor success in doing so. So, uh, monitoring those supports, MTSS, uh, some staff to, uh, assist with that, the assessment framework and expanded availability of standardsbased assessments. So, again, all those, uh, inputs that are needed to, uh, track students along the way, define the destination. I need to put on my glasses here. uh throughout their PK-12 career. All students access career exploration opportunities and earn at least one of the following: college credit, industry certification, workbased learning, experience or seal of biiteracy. So that uh is directly tied to the grad plus framework uh where we have uh teachers on special assignment tosses uh and CTE FTE at high schools dual language uh programming uh expanded cur uh co uh concurrent enrollment offerings. So again all those uh additional offerings so that students can uh access those uh additional programs and then included and valued. Uh all students feel included and valued in their learning environment. Schools engage in restorative practices with students when appropriate and schools consistently apply recommended resolutions for specific disciplinary events uh i.e. the discipline framework.

2:12:39So we established uh and implemented the discipline framework uh and implemented the application of restorative practices. So again uh across all levels in the district uh things that are touching uh those areas of the the investments that we're making uh in those areas of the strategic initiatives. So on to the budget development outlook and challenges. So the governor's budget request uh 2.6 uh% inflation which is uh his projected CPI. He gets to pick uh that's consumer price index. He gets to pick the number uh that his budget office uh develops the budget on. Uh whatever it is, it's the calendar year uh 2025 will be the 2026 27 inflation rate. that uh is when you talk about inflation plus growth uh within the school finance act uh that's the number statewide enrollment decline of.7% uh 6,000 students across the state uh 316 almost million increase in the state share uh support for K12 schools increases the state average per pupil funding by $413 and a 14 half million increase for categorical programs.

2:14:14Continues to uh implement the new school finance act uh 1448. Uh implements three-year averaging for declining enrollment and implements the act at the required uh 30%. Uh maintains the budget stabilization factor uh at zero. Uh so after the state paid down uh the uh negative factor um they're maintaining it uh at that level. Uh it's important to note that budget stabilization piece. Uh so uh keep that in the back of your mind uh as we wander into these next couple of items. So, there was a joint budget committee briefing on K12 finance uh last week. Um the governor's budget request suggests a likely implementation pause, not next year, but the following year in 2728 uh of that school finance act. So that cuts $90 million out of the plan uh to increase funding for K12.

2:15:22And this next bullet is in quotes. Uh LCF uh that's the legislative council staff is confident the general assembly should prepare to implement costs savings measures in 202728 to reduce the cost of the school finance formula. It's pretty stark uh what they're saying. uh LCS economists uh will provide a detailed school finance analysis uh at their December uh 26 quarterly revenue forecast next week and the governor will submit a revised budget uh in January. So the next phase of the 1448 implementation uh would be to go to 45%. So it's being uh implemented at 30% uh in the governor's proposal. Uh so another 15% so uh pausing that and uh we want to let this sink in for a minute. Uh, one of the LCS staff economists explained that the 2025 session changes by saying, quote, "The General Assembly realized maybe we couldn't afford it."

2:16:40So, let that sink in for a minute. Uh, don't want to say I told you so, but you know, maybe. Uh they also said and I quote, "You have a big problem in 2028." So the economists are telling the uh joint budget committee that they have a big problem and they need to reduce funding in the K12 formula. They're not suggesting to reimplement the budget stabilization factor because that would be too easy and too transparent. So instead, they're offering up suggestions on how to cut the school finance formula. So, one of the suggestions is to require districts contribute all of their specific ownership tax, which is car registrations, to their local share of total program, thereby cutting the state share by $219 million. It' be about $6 to7 million for BBSD. Uh and then also suggesting that the rate used uh to fund part-time enrichment students, back to the homeschool conversation earlier, uh from halftime, you're either full-time or halftime uh now to halftime or quarter time. Now, they don't suggest threearter time. Maybe that would be part of the condition as well. Uh just to get a little bit more granular. So this year uh we have 102 uh halftime students uh a little under half at 12th grade uh and then uh spread down through um K

2:18:32through uh 11th. Um but it would be about uh $300,000 if all of those half-time students went to quarter time for us. It's unlikely it would happen uh in the event that that uh three quarter time uh piece was also built in there. Uh so it would mitigate it uh to some extent. But again, they're offering up suggestions on how to cut the school finance formula uh by changing the definition of what we get to keep locally that has been in place for uh decades. Uh, and then also changing how we count students. I don't want to say I told you so, but Rob told you so. So, uh, after adjusting for 2.6% inflation, uh, reducing the averaging for declining enrollment, uh, implementing the school finance act, maintaining the budget stabilization factor at zero. So there all these moving parts. The state is increasing per pupil funding at a greater percentage 3 and a.5% than total funding 2.7%.

2:19:51Right? So that's why the talking points uh out of the legislature uh and governor's office usually include how much per pupil funding is going up uh because that declining enrollment is impacting uh most of the state uh and future years are indicating uh reduced funding. So for the legislative council staff, um they they build the school finance act uh and put all the governor's uh proposals into it. Uh so for us, for Boulder, they of that 6,000 uh statewide, they have Boulder at a 337 student decline, which is about uh 1.2% total. Um but that is all concentrated in our non-charter schools. charter schools uh have weight lists uh and are filling up to their uh contracted capacities. Uh but this next piece really sort of indicates that stark difference between uh total funding and per pupil funding.

2:21:03So charter schools are getting that full increase in funding at 3.1% because they're funded on a per pupil basis and they're maintaining their enrollment. uh but the district is seeing a uh less of an increase uh in funding than both what the per pupil amount is and what the overall uh funding is. So, oh yes, because the uh enrollment decline is concentrated in non-charter schools and charter schools are maintaining their enrollments because uh the they have weight lists. their funding is going up in total uh by 3.1%. Recognizing all of the uh new components of the school finance act and inflation. Uh while the uh remainder of the district, the non-charter schools are seeing uh total funding going up by 1.7% uh because of that enrollment decline. Uh where the overall district is seeing 1.8%. an 8% uh increase in funding from the school finance act.

2:22:33So the that that statewide drop that I mentioned, the 6,000 students and Boulders uh 337 that they've projected um does not include what we experienced this fall. So, the the governor's budget and what was put into this uh was uh too early in the process to include all of the most recent uh enrollment declines. So, it's unclear whether this will uh accelerate the decline both in the state uh and our own projections as those numbers get built into the projection models. Um, so, uh, we'll see as we get into January when, uh, Glenn does his enrollment projections for us and the state, uh, in, uh, revises their budget, uh, and, um, has new enrollment numbers. So, uh, budget pressers for Boulder Valley. Uh, so right sizing staffing. Um so we have staff on one-time resources uh which we do on an annual basis uh to maintain um continuity and classrooms uh not impacting uh students as they're with teachers for the first month or two of school.

2:23:52So we'll make adjustments uh for that projected declining enrollment. Uh we'll have very limited options for new ongoing expenditures. Uh and then we have uh long-term funding concerns relative to the declining enrollment uh pausing of the uh roll out of the new school finance act and these uh ideas uh coming out of this legislature uh for cutting funding for K12. So the budget will be focused on continuation of current strategic plan priorities. Uh this kind of repeats again staffing, enrollment, and inflation. Um will continue uh to use one-time funds for staffing. Uh employee recruitment uh in a tight labor market. Uh while um unemployment is increasing a little bit, it's still a very tight labor market uh for school district employees. Uh and as we've noted in many board meetings, inefficiencies with small schools and small classes. So we have those shifting and declining enrollment patterns. uh smaller elementary classes, graduating larger classes, which does mirror state and national trends. Uh so we'll get new inflation numbers next week uh and an updated uh governor's budget in January.

2:25:34So, I've included this uh graphic that uh again uh Randy and Jade uh put together for us to help illustrate uh the flow of funds uh how that works relative to uh local funding and state funding in the state budget. So, uh if you think about the total program funding for uh K12, uh think about oil and water. So in the total program funding uh the local sources are the water and the state sources are the oil. And so as more local sources uh property tax revenues flow into total program funding that flows some of the state resources back into the state budget uh to be able to do other things. So uh this is just important to note and I'll illustrate it better in a next slide uh with the dollars but uh if you think about the budget stabilization factor also being a component of this um if anybody remembers the uh water saving technique of putting a brick in the tank the toilet uh it's the same concept here you put the budget stabilization factor in the total program and it pushes those state sources back out into the state budget uh for other uses. So while they could do that, uh the budget stabilization factor, the legislators uh really um don't want to uh engage with that uh process uh because

2:27:16it's a reminder, an annual reminder of dollars owed to school districts. Uh although I will say amongst my colleagues uh across a broad range of district uh demographics um the from the CFO perspective uh using the budget stabilization factor is a much more uh fair way of um if you have to cut the state budget uh then do it on a percentage basis through that budget stabilization factor uh so it's tracked So it's very clear what's happening uh and uh it's evenly distributed as a percentage uh across districts. Can I follow up on that one? Are you who's who is suggesting that the budget stabilization factor being reimplemented would be a good idea? Did I miss that? not a good idea, but a fair and an equal approach. Who who was saying that? uh CFOs that if the state is going to cut $218 million out of the state budget for K12 instead of taking SOT and forcing districts to to put in the non-equalized share that's currently built into our budgets that taking that and distributing it as the budget stabilization factor. So it because once that SOT goes into total program, it's gone forever. It'll never be uh put back say because they had such an easy time putting back the money from the budget stabilization factor over the last 15

2:29:06years. It took them a while but they got there. Yeah. So uh in the September forecast uh this really illustrates uh the state budget over three years and how that local share and state share changes as the local share uh increases. So total program grew by in the current uh year grew by less than the local share flowing $124 million back to the state. So total program went up 253 million but local share went up 377 million. So the state share was able to decrease by 124. So projected for next year we have a decline in local share which is a combination of uh some tax changes and also could be related to oil and gas and just some of the property values uh declining a little uh that the state share is growing more than total program. So from year to year uh this is how that that uh impact between local share and state share uh can work. However, at the local district uh when we see an increase in our local collections for property taxes, we don't get to keep and put somewhere else in our budget like the state does uh those state share dollars. they are kept by the state uh to use elsewhere.

2:31:00So just a quick rundown of uh the next things in the budget process. Uh so next week we have the uh second quarter revenue forecast. Uh in January and February the state supplemental budget will come out. In January we have the revised budget for the current year. Uh we'll have the draft strategic financial plan for the next fiscal year 2627. Uh we'll have the budget adoption for the revised budget in the current year. Uh mid-year analysis in February and the preliminary budget in April. Thank you for painting such a rosy picture for us tonight. Bill board members, any questions or comments? Alex. Yeah. I'm I'm curious uh knowing that we have financial rough times ahead and that we are getting great benefit out of our investments on our strategic plan. Can you give a sense of what the investments do add up to for like if you look through slide 16 through like 20 like what what are the things in our budget that align with those investments and how much are we investing in our strategic plan? Can you estimate that?

2:32:21Some of them are very uh easy to calculate. So the standardsbased curricula across all instructional levels as a purchase of the items easy to do uh implementing that or it's part of the teaching and learning that it's happening every day. So how much of you know regular instruction would be included in that? So there's some uh nuance on how you could look at that. Um certainly the differentiated funding uh is a a pretty solid number. um some of the things that have been developed uh is it is it the work that is happening or the development of the work or just the whole system in general as it's moving along. So as expectations change um so some of them are a little more solid than others. Bill, we'll get you some more solid numbers as we get start going through the budget process. the hard numbers we can get you right. Um and and uh we can we can start working on that right away.

2:33:28Um in terms of you know like like Bill said some of them are easier the ones that aren't we can explain it. Uh I appreciate the whole presentation and yes I appreciate the rosy picture as well. Um I also say I'm the commission of higher ed and we are going through very similar things um within the department. Um and one of the things that I've been really encouraged by is seeing a lot of the uh institutions of higher education and nonprofits really get together on innovation. Um, and so for me, this is just me publicly saying, um, when we're looking at the strategic investments, especially the define the destination, um, I would be happy to really collaborate with, um, openly with Rob and really anyone at the district to work with the department to make sure that we are streamlining what we can for the concurrent enrollment um, for at least that section to make sure that we're as innovative as possible um, getting our our students into those um, into those careers. career pathways.

2:34:43As our enrollment declines, as our budgets continue to shrink, it's going to be incumbent upon us to continue to look for operational efficiencies where we can find them. Bill, we're really early on in this process and there's still a lot of questions. I'm wondering with the specific ownership taxes, are they considering just that um any other tinkering with the op to increase any of those or is it just like taking all of our making them putting them all in the in our current pie? Are they doing any other tinkering around the periphery? Do you have a sense of whether the legislature might want to not wait until the impending doom of 2728 and fall us off a cliff? If they are willing if there's they might slow roll or you know make changes in the next year even though the governor won't transition. Um do we have any sense of like what other options might be available to us? And I say this also, board members, as we think we're coming into the legislative session, we have to have some legislative priorities.

2:35:44Thinking about where we want to start advocating for um is going to be really important in the weeks, months, year ahead. So for the uh specific to the SOT uh specific ownership tax um the the suggestion wasn't a proposal but it was a suggestion of here's 218 million you could go get um and relatively easily in the sense of you just re redefine what is included in equalized and there's no more non-equalized um sort of do that and move on down the road. Um could you make it half? Could you make it a quarter, three? Like yes, all those pieces could be built into it. Um there are uh the way the equalized and non-equalized is determined has to do with uh your number of mill levies. Uh so both bond and uh override levies. And so it affects uh every district that has overrides and bonds and uh affects them differently because it depends on how many total mills you have. So higher mill areas uh that take more mills to generate uh dollar amounts. Uh so I think Adams 12 is somewhere just north of $8 million. uh even though their overrides are not as much as ours, their SOT is uh more they get to keep more of their non-equalized because the mills are higher there to

2:37:31generate that. So very nuanced and and it's a mathematical problem on how it's uh done. So either they tinker with the math problem or just make it all go away. any anticipation of opening a conversation around mill levies and mill levy overrides and how that comes into the calculus. The uh conversation around the new school finance act being implemented to more equitably distribute state dollars uh for highly impacted students. uh was partially driven by the uh um uh nonlinear distribution of mil levy overrides. So there there might be an opportunity uh if things are really bad uh for the legislature to uh allow districts to increase funding. Um but it's kind of uh opposite of a lot of the conversations that they've had. Alex Yeah, if I could, I'd go back to that. Well, first off, I want to say congratulations on a clean audit and a great report and all the wonderful work uh your team's doing for being on the finance uh or the audit committee. It's a it's great to see the quality of the work that your team does.

2:39:16Um I also am uh grateful for the takeaways and the presentation tonight. It's really great to see sort of the big picture stuff that makes it easier for us to make sense of all this. So, thank you for for doing that. Um it to Nicole's point of mentioning like our legislative agenda, I was gonna say when we as a state I don't think people who aren't in public policy or finance don't realize how messed up like Colorado public finances and how long we've been trying to overturn Taber and stuff and the decadesl long fights that we have as a state to like be more rational. And I put among them a great victory in the last few years, the budget stabilization factor. So if the CFOs or somebody else is casually suggesting that's a short-term fix, I suggest that's crawling back into a deep pit that took a long time to get out of. So I think there's a much bigger political long-term medium-term risk towards advocating that than the CFOs are thinking about. So as we consider our agenda, I'm strongly in the no going back to budget stabilization factors and we'll argue for that till the crow crows come home.

2:40:28Board members, the next item on tonight's agenda is action items, consent grouping. 9.1, Personnel items. 9.2 approval of minutes, November 18th, 2025. 9.3, Approval of minutes, December 2nd, 2025. 9.4, Acceptance of Donation Operational Services Department. 9.5 comprehensive financial report annual comprehensive financial report 9.6 6 resolution 25-32 certification of mill levies 9.7 grant food services farm-toschool programming CDE. Are there any items board members would like to pull from consent grouping? Hearing none, we need a motion to approve. Moved by Lenia, seconded by Alex. Board members, any discussion on the items within the consent grouping? Um, I'm interested. Can you can you turn on your mic? Um, I'm interested in exploring the um resolution. I don't know if it's a resolution, but it's about the um community schools and the use of use of property. Well, that'll be in the next Oh, it's in the next one. I apologize.

2:41:50Seeing as there are none, Laura, can you please call the role on consent grouping? Booker, yes. Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Linua, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Teamuading, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. The next item on this evening's agenda is policy action consent grouping items 11.1 retirement of board policy ADA educational objectives. 11.2 retirement of board policy IIA instructional goals. Are there any items board members would like to pull from consent grouping? Hearing none, we need a motion to approve. Moved by Lenia, seconded by Jason. Four members. Is there any discussion on the policy consent grouping items? Very excited and grateful for us to be able to eliminate two policies that really are not relevant to our current practice. That will make our work um reviewing these policies moving forward and our future board members much easier.

2:43:04Laura, can you please call the role on policy consent grouping? Booker, yes. Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Linua, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Tamuading, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. Before we head into our next meeting section of tonight's agenda, which is policy study, I'd like to request a fiveminut comfort break. Welcome back everybody. The next item on tonight's agenda is policy study. We have several policies to study this evening and we will begin with our D chapter policies which I will turn over to Kathleen Sullivan. So green means it on it's on now, right? Okay. All right. Thank you, Board President Rajpal. We have a couple of sets of policies that we will look at tonight. As a reminder, the board has set a goal to review all policies within a five-year cycle. In order to do that, we need to hit around 20 a quarter. So Chris Bret, our policy project manager, um, and I are working hard to hit that number. We really take policies in two sets. There's the policies that the board prioritizes through your twice annual sessions. Those are items that the board particularly wants to look at, study, or address. And then we just do our ordinary maintenance. So the items we're bringing forward to you today are maintenance. They haven't been identified as a priority, but we need to

2:51:34catch them in that five-year review cycle. So, the D policies are all about fiscal management. We have a total of 22 policies in this section. The board already took on board policy DJ DJ around signature authorities. So that one is not coming back at this time, but it's referenced a lot in other D policies. So that would be a good one just to review as we update this whole chapter. So we're going to be looking at nine of the D policies tonight. You will notice or catch on if you're a new board member quickly that we seem to have a lot of both policy and then supporting regulations and supporting exhibits. it can feel a little fractured sometimes to a staff member or a family trying to follow. So part of our work has been consolidating those into one comprehensive policy where it makes sense to do so. So kicking off the first policy 13.1 is the big policy on grants management.

2:52:45After tonight's very sobering budget and enrollment, we may really be focusing on grants. So, we want to make sure that we have a policy that is current, matches your current board policy style book, reflects our more modernized practices. How does our uh director of grants review and support entities as they submit those applications? The red lines in board policy DD have been reviewed by our business services team and our grant manager. And we are proposing to incorporate the essential elements from item 13.2 and 13.3. Those two items are proposed for retirement. Um harvesting the good and important language into red line DD. So is there this is not a policy that I got a lot of feedback on. We did not get any public feedback on it. Um, but I welcome the board's discussion. Alex, this isn't a substantive question, but for the benefit especially of our new board members, could you explain the board's role and how it varies depending on a policy versus a regulation or procedure as we consolidate back and forth just so they know what the difference is for that because I think it's helpful.

2:54:08Sure, happy to. So, our I am a little bit of a policy nerd and a wonk. I'm not going to lie, so forgive me. I'll try and keep it the right level of detail here. So, the board has a policy on how the board sets policy. It is in the B chapter. It's board policy BP. And that's where you will find a description of the three types of artifacts you'll find in our board policy book. The board policy itself just has a letter code that's either two or three letters um like DD our first example that policy is really the umbrella. It's the biggest broadest statement that the board makes about whatever topic is being addressed in policy. In order to adopt a board policy, we have to read it at least once and then you can adopt it at the next meeting or if it needs a lot of work, we can continue to work on it until the board's happy with that policy.

2:55:13A regulation, which is designated by the letters and then a dash R, is a place where we put more direction and detail. Regulations are theoretically easier to change. They're shorter. We need to put them on your agenda as an information item, but they don't specifically require a vote unless we're retiring them. And then the exhibit historically has been a lot of forms for how to implement the policy and the regulation where we can because forms do change really, really frequently. We're trying to embed in the policy what we would need that exhibit to be. and then leave to your staff to create items that are going to change more frequently like an exhibit. When we really need one, we do include those. They're designated with the letter code and then a dash E. Those again, they don't require a board vote if we're going to update them. But if it's something important to the board that you leave in your policy book, anytime staff need to update that form or that exhibit item, it would come back to the board as an information item so that you could see it. And then those are approved for immediate implementation unless there's a board directive to do something else.

2:56:43warms my little policy heart. Okay. So, anything on DD? I really appreciate you folding in the language from the regulations into this policy. Does it make sense to have one paragraph standalone documents? So, I think that for ease of use that is great. And I think particularly the subawward grants, third-party grants has come up a lot recently and having it embedded in the main policy on grants will provide a lot of clarity for our community as well as those within our district. So thank you for the work on this policy. Okay. So, our next policies and the reason my good friend Bill Sutter is sitting in the front row in case you have real questions are um DEB. We have currently on our policy book we have DEB which is about loan programs and talks about state and federal sources of revenue. And then we had another policy that had three letter codes attached to it that we hadn't looked at since 1978.

2:57:55And when Bill and I talked about it today, some of that language has been moved over into DEB. I think it's likely that at some point this was an important policy around cooperative projects. But the supporting regula, the supporting law in this case, the statute that's cited at the bottom that identifies for board members and for all of us that use the policies. The reason that we have this policy and the laws that we're implementing through this policy are the ones listed. For this second policy, DEBDE CDFC, I looked at the legislative history and the underlying law has been updated six times since the board last visited it. So for that reason, we are recommending the full retirement of DEB, DEEC, DFC. That's one policy and collapsing the essential requirements into DEB. I'll note the other change made to this policy is incorporating language that both reflects the board's commitment made to our students as part of the board's resolution around energy efficiency and greening of our schools and economy. We also had some changes to state law. So, we did bring forward um just language to reference the importance of renewable and energy efficient projects.

2:59:30Board members, any questions on DEB and the retirement of that other string of letters? Lenia. Hey, Bill. Do we ever use tax anticipation notes once? Do tell. Uh it was over a decade ago, maybe 15 years ago. Um the interest free loan program uh the requirements to participate in it got really complicated and we had a uh refunding I believe that we could we did at the time. So, we were able to do all the required um uh legal debt work around tax anticipation notes and so we did it once. Um but then we got back into the interest free loan program. So, and Bill, since we have two new board members and you're already up there, the interest free loan program is something we regularly participate in and I was wondering if we could take the opportunity to explain the why around that.

3:00:45Yeah, absolutely. Um so as we are a um uh heavily locally funded uh school district um our tax revenues come in February to uh August um the majority of them and uh we um for the current year right so we're collecting money in February through August for operating 8 months ago. So, uh we need to borrow money. The state interest free loan program got put in place uh when the state changed its uh fiscal year in 1992 uh from a calendar year to a fiscal year uh and saved a bunch of money for the state by pushing the fiscal year into the following year. So, um we participate in it. We're actually one of the larger uh users of the state industry loan program. Uh us and Denver uh I think are the two largest. Um and uh the benefit of it is that you don't have to have piles of cash sitting around only to operate uh cash flow. Um, I don't think that's an efficient use of resources to just have money uh only for cash flow when the state has that uh option available. Uh, it's somewhat labor intensive. It's every two weeks you have to do a new cash flow uh and tell the folks that run it at the state treasur's office uh how much you need.

3:02:26Um, actually this week we're borrowing $20 million for payroll. Um, so we're in that time of year. Uh, in, uh, June is when we bring forward the cash management resolution to participate. We have to tell how much we're going to borrow. It's around $100 million. Uh, and uh, then we start borrowing Novemberish uh, is typically when we start doing it. Thank you, Bill. Bo members, any questions or comments on policy deb? Guess not. We're going to meet this target. I can feel it. I Yes, I we are committed to doing so. Um, so we have I guess I said these would be in three chunks, but realistically it's a few more than that. Um, the next policy on your agenda, board members, is DH. This is about bonded employees. You'll remember at your organization meeting last week, you elected officers. We need to make sure that we have bonds for all of the officers and those who have um responsibilities and signature authority consistent with board policy. So, this is a standalone fiscal policy that we're recommending the board keep. We've made some red lines to allow that level to float.

3:04:01When we updated DJDJ, we increased signature authorities based on different categories and using language that says we would bond that officer and is some consistent with their authority means that as we revise those, we wouldn't have to come back in and change every single policy that would reference those authorities. Board members, any questions or comments on this policy? I think it is an excellent change. I out of curiosity, when we increased our signing authority, did that sign make a significant impact on how much that insuranceances for for bonding premiums? No. Perfect. Okay, moving right along then. Um, our next item 13.7 is board policy DI. This was previously limited to just addressing fiscal accounting and then we had a separate policy DID that talked about capital asset accounting. We've incorporated those then so that we're proposing to keep a more robust DI and to retire DID capital asset accounting board members. Any questions or comments on DI?

3:05:29Kathleen, one question. It's uncommon for us to state site state statute in the body of a policy. I'm just curious why we decided to leave that in accordance with CRS. The board of view financial statements on a quarterly basis. I think it should be a citation at the bottom of the policy. So, I I I just overlooked it trying to make the other changes. Okay. Then our last D policy for tonight is 13.9. This is board policy DN district property disposal procedures. I know it is a very short and efficient little policy. After speaking with my cabinet members, um it's still important that we do have something very clear in policy that says you can't sell district materials and you can't liquidate our assets. It's an important protection that we're recommending the board keep in policy.

3:06:43Any questions or comments on this policy? Seeing as there are none, we can move on to the next chapter. Okay, great. So, tonight we are going to be looking at three E policies. Um, I mentioned I think I started with that we've got 22 in the D chapter. E is a meteor chapter. We have between now and March to try and get all of this work done. There are 46 E policies. We're bringing you three and we will be retiring a lot more out of the remaining 43. I'm not sure we need a policy on asbestous, but tonight we just have three for you. Um so policy ed around material resources management is now proposed to be the umbrella policy that would incorporate the important elements of EDA about the warehouse and receiving and then would also incorporate board policy EDC authorized use of schoolowned materials.

3:07:54So, we're proposing those last two for retirement with incorporation of important language into what would be the new EDA board members. Any questions or comments on EDA? I do have a comment. Thank you for waiting for me. Um I am uh concerned that that 13.12 that references materials that are used um by community schools um does not go far enough to protect the schools from uh theft or breakage of those uh materials which happens quite frequently. Nobody wants to turn away community schools. The other thing that sometimes happens is uh teachers materials that are just open for uh grabs in those classrooms are sometimes stolen and so teachers need to have some recourse in order to get their materials back from community schools. So, I have a question about that and I have another comment or suggested edit.

3:09:16The way I read the sections on community schools, it's really specific to leases or loans or rent of equipment. Is there a different policy that might cover like damage? I'm I'm just I want to be clear that we're being clear on what this policy covers. And that was why I was also going to suggest a couple subheadings to break out. It's a little confusing the way this policy reads, having three different things smooshed together. So having a breaking point that talks about loans and leases or um because I think that language was originally titled yeah school use of school district resources and then there's like a resource management. So having subheadings might help clarify the limitations of that language. But then I do have a question on does the scope extend beyond loans and leases to damage or would that be covered elsewhere?

3:10:10So we do have board policy KF which is our commu community use of school facilities. We have both a policy and a regulation in that area that we updated or that the board updated in 2021. I know um Mr. Sutter also has some updates to our practices. The board will recall that over the last really six years, we've done a lot of work in this area, both in terms of the policies and the implementation to require more supervision on site to protect against users who abuse that access and um compromise teachers materials. We also absolutely have cancelled a number of permits based on our practices and policies when users engage in misconduct if they're using a facility. You can find that language. It's in KF-R the regulation that supports it. Um I did speak with board member Buer just for a moment about this. So, I'd like to spend a little more time in that policy before I'd suggest any language in this one, but I think it's an important observation and consideration.

3:11:36And then one other point of feedback, I find the language in the second paragraph, the one that has been unedited that starts with conscientious efforts to be a little circular and redundant. And so I did share with Kathleen a suggest like if we could tighten that language up to make it really clear what we're talking about. I just feel like those two sentences say the same thing slightly differently. Um so cleaning that up so it's it's clear what good management means with regard to both the efficiencies and economies of scale storage but like the two sentences are very similar. So, if there's any way to tidy that up, I would appreciate that. And just for clarity, you're referencing the paragraph that starts with conscious conscientious efforts, the one that's in black font, right? Correct. Okay.

3:12:34It's also weird. And then the sentence above it, actually in the green, it's not entirely clear. It starts with element shall include, but the opening sentence doesn't clarify what you're referring to as elements. And so making that a little clearer would be helpful as well. Just this nature of the beast when you're working through a lot of red lines. Any other questions or comments on this policy? Seeing there are none. Is that it for policies? Nope. Uh, that completes our policy study work for tonight. Thank you so much. Well, congratulations. New board members on getting through your first big chunks of policy. This is the time in the board meeting where we are um on to future agenda requests. Board members, it is your at your pleasure to bring up items you would like to include for consideration at our next board prioritization meeting. There any items board members would like to have considered? Alex? Um, I know we're going through the next prioritization in just a little bit, so this could be redundant to what we do like in a few weeks, but I I am interested as we consider the declining enrollment to talk about the programmatic issues that are going on and and get a handle on how many students that are living here attend virtual schools here or elsewhere, how

3:14:13many homeschool, register elsewhere, and how many um uh could be in programs if we offered them or like Honestly, it comes up in the policy discussion today around having halfime or quartertime funding for partial enrichment. If we don't have much partial enrichment, but we've got 50 kids in it, but we're losing 200 to somebody else's, cutting it from 50 to 25 is a net win if we get the kids back. So, I just want us to be aware of what our actual numbers are for things like partial enrichment, homeschooling here, elsewhere, virtual enrollment here, elsewhere. I think the numbers are all relatively small. Like, none of this solves any of our declining enrollment problem. It's all totally on the margins, but I think it it could be significant over time. So, I I want to get a handle on the kids who are going somewhere else, how they're enrolling in things like homechool and virtual school in our schools, in our systems or others, and how partial enrollment and things play into the enrollment issues we're facing.

3:15:16Any other items, Anna? I have two items that I am going to bring up um once we do our um board setting in a couple weeks. Um board prioritization setting, right? That bring them up. If you you have to bring them up in advance, I'd bring them up now. Okay. So, the things that I do want to work on, um, last, um, or well, maybe I guess this is, uh, two board meetings ago, um, former, uh, uh, board member Richard Garcia came up and spoke about, um, putting together a workforce or really putting together, um, policy of how we, um, handle, uh, immigration, training on immigration, um, ways that we support our undocumented students And I really do want to take that on um for the district. Uh I did work in um immigration policy for the past 16 years and know a lot of the levers, a lot of the community supports that we can bring in to really make sure that BVSD is the model of how we're supporting our undocumented communities, our immigrant families. Um so for me that is one of the big um things that I do want to prioritize. The second thing um when we are looking at declining enrollment, I want to make sure that we are exploring as many different innovative ways to

3:16:36really make um our district a much um less burdensome district to live in. And I think that um I've been speaking to a lot of people at the uh statewide level of um our our 10-year plan of what we want to make sure that we have here in the state. Um, and I really want to make sure that we start talking about uh what does early childhood education primarily um universal child care look like for the district. And I have heard from um Gary Community Foundations that they are very interested in supporting us and really helping us um in making sure that that happens for our district. And as I'm new, I'm not sure entirely how um that correlates and that blends in with our district and where we are. And I know that there have been several conversations with the uh early childhood development council on what's going to work and what's not going to work. Um but I do want um just to make it um explicitly clear that those are the two things that I want to work on is making sure that we are the model for how we're supporting our undocumented immigrant families. But we're also looking at innovative ways of of lessening the burden for our families to hopefully increase um to at least not

3:17:51decrease our enrollment. Deian. Uh, thank you. I have a couple of issues that I'd really like to um hear about. One is I know there's a fairly new policy on um neurodeiversity in our schools and how it is um uh how those students who have neurodeiversity are educated. And I'd really like an update on how uh teachers are being trained to participate in those students education and how just having the policy around it is improving things for those kids. In my um in my experience at a private school, those are the kids that are leaving the district. So, I'd like to hear about what what people think about that um so that we can get them back into public education. Um, the other item that I'd like to bring up is uh six years ago there was a a superintendence advisory board called the Safe Schools Coalition um that has uh is now kind of defunct and it is a group of people who um devote themselves to helping our LGBTQ plus IIA folks and we're living in a time when those students and the parents and and the families they come from are terrorized by what's going on in the news and we need to make sure that they have support in getting through our schools.

3:19:31Did you raise your hand, Alex? Uh, and again, I think this might be on the list from before, so apologize if it is. I did have interesting conversations with a couple of folks from Keystone in the last few weeks about um districts involved in creating housing for teachers and staff and I think there's been some developments over the last year. So, this may be of the category of like let's get an update on what the latest is, but I'd add uh district involvement in housing for teachers and staff. I think there's a CASBY session on that one again this year. Uh Anna And I'm just repeating this just so that it's reflective in the minutes, but from the um conversation we just had on the um concurrent enrollment and the collaboration that we can have with the Commission on Higher Education, I do want to make sure that that's also named in one of my commitments to really make sure that we're figuring out how we streamline um all of that synchronicity between the district and uh institutions of higher education.

3:20:46I'll say two things actually. One I don't actually think is a prioritization item but we have a new bell schedule. Some schools have implemented advisory for their first time. I wonder not necessarily at second semester but maybe after first year of implementation just an update and see how that's been going. I think advisory has some opportunities. Our schools that have been using advisory for a long time have found it successful, but anything new can have challenges and bright spots. So, I'd be curious to see how that is going. And then board members, we continue to get emails around ebikes, ebike safety. We had a conversation with our city council members when we convened last April. I tend to punt everybody that comes to me back to the city because they are they're the enforcers of all of those things. But I did have a conversation with city council member around some innovative work out of California where school districts are partnering with cities and other entities in getting little bike permits and you can only park your bike at school if you have a bike permit. And so I think that's an interesting opportunity to explore. Along with that comes some training and a signing from parents to say yes I understand I my liability here we should not have

3:21:58governors remove like we should have the governors on our bikes and then um the other thing I was thinking about is potential opportunity of partner with community cycles to help not only with ebike safety and education but maybe some grant potential to get this off and running if we can um if the city is willing to participate and our partners are willing to participate. think we do need to have some creative problem solving around ebikes and the biggest riders of ebikes that are ch of challenge tend to be fifth grade through about 9th grade. So it really is BBSC's population. So if there's some creative solutions that we could come up with, I just wanted to throw that one out because California is doing there are some localities in California doing some interesting work there.

3:22:44That's all I have. Well, that's a lot of new items and we still have to focus on the strategic plan and declining enrollment and this cash tight situation we are coming in. So, we will go over all of those during our prior prioritization session in January. But with that, tonight's meeting is adjourned. Thanks everyone.