Transcript

0:00:02serve as guideposts for decision-making during the process of academic calendar development. I'll share more about the additional factors in a moment. When draft calendars are created, the foundational documents that serve as our guides are board policy, now referred to as ICA and a-R, our employee agreements, principally our negotiated agreement with BVEA, and requirements identified by the Colorado Department of Education. Yes. Uh, thanks, Robin. Just as a reminder to the board and for those um who may just be tuning in, uh AR is what used to be referred to as the guiding principles that had not been um formally documented as part of a board policy board policy regulation. And so uh as we think about this process, that's one big change. The other big change is the last time we went through this board members, if you'll recall, for those that were on the board, we went through the entire process and the board did not get a chance to see the calendar until we had already vetted it entirely with our community. And at that point in time, there was some feedback at that the board gave us that created some changes. And so as a as a change to the process uh coming to you first based on our draft calendars based on board policy and board regulation to get

0:01:26feedback and understand what questions you might have uh then go back and engage and then bring it back to you. So it's just a bit of a change uh in practice and uh as aligned to um board policy and board regulation. But just wanted to clarify that for the public on why if you've been watching board meetings for a long time that this is a little bit different than has been done in the past. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Um, and so as you look at this slide, and as I said a moment ago, um, in addition to policy and a-rulation, we create the calendars in alignment with our BBEA negotiated agreement. That includes the school year being 172 contact days for students, four additional conference exchange days that make for a total of 176 instructional days for our licensed staff as seen here and 10 additional days um during which staff are engaging in professional learning and work days. Um, as always, items stipulated in our BVA negotiated agreement can change over time through the pro the contract negotiation process.

0:02:39In addition, the holidays that you see on the right hand side are vacation days to be considered. And I say that as they are identified in one or more of our negotiated agreements. Almost all of these are included on the draft calendars as observed holidays and based on previous feedback from our board. Other days including indigenous people's day are honored on an honorific calendar that is printed on the other side of the academic calendar so that we can communicate this and other days important to our community um as well. So to dive a bit further into the regulation, as Dr. Anderson shared a couple of moments ago, these for the most part used to be referred to as the guiding principles. And so they were previously created by a a collaborative stakeholder group and served as a means of including our community's priorities.

0:03:47They are referred to now as the additional factors and they're essential in order to guide our decision making as the the calendars are developed. As we know, the academic calendar is a very complex Rubik's cube of competing priorities that exist within BBSD and across stakeholder groups. Um, in addition, just to make the puzzle a little bit more complicated, we as a district don't exist in isolation, but interact on a number of levels with a broader ecosystem of communities, school districts, and governing organizations in the state of Colorado, uh, which are spoken to primarily in the two final bullet points. So as a result, these nine items are now what appear in the regulation and are a cornerstone to the calendar development process. During the time between calendar development processes, we continue to receive feedback on current calendars and sometimes that feedback can be incorporated into future draft calendars for consideration by our board and our stakeholder groups. So on this slide you see the reflection of what has been a significant amount of feedback um during this interim period and has been added to these draft calendars. This includes a more even distribution of professional learning days throughout the school year with three added to second semester in order to facilitate learning of uh among our our staff members as they work

0:05:28through the year as well as returning the second semester conference exchange days back to April. These requests have been heard loudly and clearly from many members of our licensed staff. Um, as you see here, this is the proposed timeline for the development and approval of these calendars for school years 2728 and 2829. It begins tonight with the first step at this work session and with the board's agreement, I'll move forward with through the input process by presenting the draft calendars and giving the opportunity to share input with the representative groups that you see listed in the upper corner of this slide. And that's inclusive of our unit B, our BBEA association representatives, TAC, our teacher advisory committee, our Latino parent council, our district accountability committee, district parent council, principal advisory council, also known as PAC, uh the superintendent's cabinet, the executive team, schools team, and our early childhood team.

0:06:45So the next step of this process is after receiving all of the input which traditionally is voluminous in nature, a task force comes together and reviews all the information and has very thoughtful conversations resulting in determining what input that we have received is in alignment with board policy, what is in compliance with our negotiated agreement and CDE guidelines. The group then discusses any ripple effects of changes that could have either a positive or a negative impact on stat on families, staff and students. So the task group is composed of BBEA leadership, a parent representative of representatives, principles, and district office leaders including representatives from human resources and professional learning. And so on this proposed timeline, at the end of the revision process, a finalized draft will be created and then brought back to the board prior to the final meeting in June for the board's approval. And believe it or not, uh, families and staff are already uh, inquiring about the calendars for 2728 and 2829. And so they will be looking forward to seeing the finalized calendars after that time.

0:08:11These next two slides include in English and the following two in Spanish the proposed or in other words draft calendars for 2728 and 2829. You also have them in front of you and for the sake of comparison and for your reference uh you can see that you have the calendars for 2526 and 2627 which are the currently approved calendars. So in other words, the calendar that we are currently uh working our way through and next year followed by the draft calendars that are stated in draft in big bold letters at the top for 2728 and 2829. And so with that, I'm happy to jump in and answer any questions that you may have. So board members, I think to frame this conversation and because it is a new slightly new process for all of us, I would like us and knowing that from here this draft calendar will go to the task force, think about questions or trade-offs we might want those stakeholder groups to consider.

0:09:20Uh as we move throughout this process, as an example, I'll model this on one of the academic calendars. I noted that in the 2728 academic calendar, the school year ends on a Monday. Might there be a trade-off that is acceptable to end the school year, not on a Monday, that the task force might be willing to identify? trade-offs will have to happen have to occur for that to happen. But I don't know what the most acceptable trade-off is. I might have some opinions, but I'd be curious to the community what what might be acceptable to stakeholder groups. Similarly, we've heard feedback that Mondays and Tuesdays are hard for days off. I noted that the fall break existed solely of a Monday and Tuesday. Is that ideal? Might there be alternative solutions in the same academic calendar 2728 we start earlier than we've ever started August 11th for example would they prefer starting two days later and not have a fall break or have a fall break and start that early. So those are some of the things that like if if there are questions that board members would like increased those task force to sp focus specifically on I think that that might be a helpful way to frame this conversation moving forward. give them some insight into what the board is thinking, come back

0:10:57with thoughts on those trade-offs. Does that make sense? Who would Lenia would like to begin? Uh, could you tell me first a little bit more about what it means that Veterans Day must be celebrated on November 11th? Does that mean that it has to be a day off? That's what I I Okay, please tell us. Um so my understanding is that if we are going to recognize Veterans Day that it must be on the 11th unless the 11th falls on a weekend in which case it is observed the day before which is true of the uh currently in the draft calendar of 2829 where Veterans Day falls on Saturday November 11th and so it's nationally recognized as the holiday on Friday November 10th. And does state law mandate that that is a day we have to give off?

0:12:03No, it does not. Okay. So, and not all not all surrounding districts do uh recognize that as a day off. And so, that would be one of the things I might suggest to our stakeholders to um I think that our slides make that kind of confusing when we put it on the must be on our calendar. I understand it must be, but it doesn't have to be a day that we observe by taking a day off of school. And so if that one is inconveniently placed to our community or they'd rather have it placed somewhere else, that would be my first suggestion that um stakeholders look at. Second, um can you enlighten me a little bit more on the family calendar preference? I see 36% looking at a September start and 64 like the current start. Um I would assume once it gets pushed back right to the beginning of August some people might feel different but first what is the end size on this and when was this survey done?

0:13:09Sure. So that so our uh community was queried three times um from 20 in 2020, 2022 and 2024 I believe and they were queried through the vehicle of the family survey that goes out to families in February which as I understand has approximately a 15% uh response response rate on average in that survey. So that's I still need an N size. I can't figure out what 15% would mean in that case. Happy happy to get that for you. Yeah. Um I think that as we that would be something I would also want stakeholders to look at in the formation of these two new calendars. Um that uh August 8th August 4th. Um, it's going to be darn hot and I know Jason has talked about this before, but I think it's something for our stakeholders to start thinking about. Um, I'd also be interested in having stakeholders understand our interaction with CHASSA at that point.

0:14:29Um, and I don't know what the moves are in Chassa, but certainly an August 4th start date is going to be a lot for two days for their football players and things like that. So, I I to me the weather is a concern. So, I'm hoping our stakeholders might take a look at that. Um, and then I think my last thing for right now is I see a little bit of creep here on the number of school weeks that are shortened from five. So this year we only have six weeks where we see that occur. And as I look at uh both 2728 and 28 29, it's either 8 or 9 weeks depending on how you count that. If you count the first week of school, if you count that single last day of school on a Monday, um which I agree with Nicole needs to be addressed. I think we need to um ask our stakeholders about those short weeks and I would not be in favor of continuing creep from 6 to 8 or nine isn't good.

0:15:48Anna and then Jason. Uh based on the cadence of the uh family survey, will there be an uh the same survey for the school calendar that goes out this year? And will there be enough time for us to receive that feedback? So that was not a question that that went out in the in uh or will be going out in the survey this year? No, not yet. But um we can I can certainly check to see if that's if that's a change that we are able to make at this time. If it is the in the interest of the board to survey our families again, um I can certainly check with staff to see what surveys are still going out. And if they haven't gone out yet and it's as simple as adding a question, I think that that's easy to do if but I'm not sure when that is going out. I'll have to check on that.

0:16:50Jason, and then Alex. Um thanks for this. Uh, I appreciate the April the return of the April date. I know I heard from a lot of teachers about that and I'm sure there's gratitude. Um, a lot of the points I was going to make have been raised, but curious to know, you know, obviously want the stakeholders to look at this, but when you end school on a Monday or like this this calendar, um, what are the projections on kind of number of students that will be present? I think that should be something we should think about. So the Yeah. Okay. So projections of of student attendance. I just think if we I mean in addition to the kind of trade-off conversation, you know, that's a if 60% of students don't show up because the last day ends on a Monday, I'm sure that's a revenue hit for the district. And so wanting to kind of think about it in those terms as well in addition to the kind of other trade-offs. I think similarly looking at the this 2728 um you know they're already we already come back on a Tuesday after winter break which um as someone with three kids at home for 18 days I think uh I can speak to kind of how challenging that is and I have a lot of job

0:18:05flexibility and a lot of folks may maybe don't and so understanding the challenges of winter break and then here we add another day to that and so in addition to just being a really long time out of school challenges with care and um parents wanting their kids to go back to school. Uh I would imagine that's another hit to potential revenue from the state when you add another day to a long um break that then becomes a vacation for a lot of families. So I think that I would like to consider those the extra Tuesday after winter break and then the ending school on Monday um just the impact of budgetary impact of those choices if that's possible. Um, and I, you know, I don't know, it's a trade-off that maybe, um, could be considered, but if we're looking at ending, it's only, it only applies to this first year, not the second year. But the, you know, we have, a few of us have raised this ending on a Monday, the 22nd. Um, which I think we very good chance we could have snow. And so that like I've raised this weather issue before, but it's kind of insane to me that we end so early. But knowing that we start so early and end so early, one

0:19:14consideration I would love our stakeholders to think about is what if we just push the start date back a week and then the end date back a week. And so that could solve potentially two problems here of not starting on August 11th and not finishing on a random Monday the 22nd of May. So addressing some of the issues I raised, Lenia's raised over over time of just um kind of extending summer a bit into August, you know, considering the weather um and then potentially addressing I don't know if that works, but potentially addressing that issue of um the very early start and the very early end time. Um and I think that's it for now. Alex. Yeah. I just I wanted to add one other concern to think about which is data on um teacher absences on some of those days that hang out and whether that becomes a staffing challenge that turns into a quality of instruction day. I doubt that would be happen on the last day, but just always be aware of uh the likelihood that we may be low on teachers depending on what we do.

0:20:18Deian and then Elenia. Uh on both of these calendars, I'm a little bit concerned um about the two breaks in November um which includes Veterans Day and then it looks like one other um PD or work day. I I think that the teachers have articulated to me that that was incredibly difficult this year because you instructionally you just get the kids going and then they go away and have a break and then you get them going and then they have a break. So instructionally that may not be a really good flow. I would also personally say that uh November 11th is a really good day to teach about what November 11th is. So, I'd like to see that put back in as a as a school day and pick a different holiday. Uh maybe President's Day or Lincoln's birthday.

0:21:18Thanks, Dion. I've also heard the disjointed Oh, I did say Lenia next. Disjointed schedules. It's hard to start and stop and start and stop and keep momentum going, particularly when the momentum is high at the start of the school year. momentum does Wayne at the end of the school year and I'll reserve my other comment for after Lenia. Uh I would also be interested uh in stakeholders in particular BVEA uh giving some input on what days are the best days they think they will have good participation on professional development from their teachers. what works best for their teachers. Um I I acknowledge what um Robin just said that we moved some professional development days into the second semester. Is that right, Robin? Two. Yes, three. That's correct. Three. And is that at is that something that the teachers are wanting? And if so, we want to try to help them to use those professional development days as readily as possible. Um, so I'm interested in finding a way to not put all of those right next to a vacation day where they just become a vacation day.

0:22:41So yes, to answer your question, that feedback did come to us from both our teaching staff and our academics team. The last consideration I just wanted to throw out there as a counterpoint potentially to some of the other considerations is we received a great deal of feedback when we had to have finals disrupted for our high schoolers. Not a lot of people really got very excited about coming back after winter break to participate in finals. That was exceedingly hard. And so if if there's entertainment around moving the days back, I would still I would be curious around stakeholder feedback the the relative importance of having finals continue to wrap up before winter break or not for those people because we did hear from from from folks around that this particular weather related disruption And I actually heard the opposite from folks including one of my own kids who did wonderfully on finals after break.

0:23:55And I had a couple of other parents tell me that as well. So I think it is um a I wonder if there are teachers who have of course been doing their finals before break for a long time and they know what the numbers look like and then they know what they look like when they gave those finals after break because I found that my kid probably did better because he was well rested. Who knows? Um but I heard positive feedback about it. So that's why I am in favor of at least doing some exploration of pushing us to later in the year. Um with the caveat that I do think CHASSA stuff continues to be challenging and that our stakeholders need to take into account the CHASSA calendars. Alex, uh I appreciate the the back and forth on the ending before the Christmas break for the first semester. Um I do believe and I'd love to hear from Dr. Anderson on this one too, like how much are we dependent on grades that are based on finals in high school and how much should the um uh performance of the students prior to a final exam be contributing to the grades so finals are less stressful? I I understand that in a competitive college environment, putting a bunch of weight on a final makes a lot

0:25:13of sense for 9th and 10th graders. I don't get why we would do it that way. So that if we delayed until after spring break, the finals would be less stressful. um if we actually addressed the instructional part of overly depending on final exams for kids um assessment. Thank you for that question. Um I do think we have work to do in terms of the grading policy. I think that as we those last two days before winter break where we were contemplating what we would do, what we found is that there's just um a great deal of variance on how much those final exams are weighted and that it's not something that is spoken to in the board's grading policy. So, I think that there's an opportunity there. Um while I have the microphone, I have a couple of questions.

0:26:03Where is it? Is it is it in one of our negotiated agreements that that says we have to observe veteran day veterans day or is that in the board policy? That's a question for Rob. And then I have a question for the board. Uh I don't believe that it's mandated in any negotiated agreement or state law, which is why we updated that calendar list to say these are what must be considered. That's the language used in the negotiated agreements. The the second thing is that um multiple board members have asked for pretty specific feedback from stakeholders and I'm I'm wondering how you want us to collect that. Uh you know, typically what happens is we go and we kind of talk about the calendar in generalities. Do you like it? Do you not like it?

0:26:56Anything you can't live with? Um, but I'm I'm hearing almost specific requests on whether groups like or dislike certain things. Now, if I'm misharing that, please correct me. Um, but if that is the case, when we bring back the feedback, what level of specificity are you looking for so you can make your decision? I want to make sure that we deliver on what it is you're asking us to deliver on. I'm just trying to think, you know, do you want to have the list of the groups? Here's the things like do you want me to have them vote on them? Do you want me to send everybody in these groups a survey so you could have the quantitative data or but because typically Robin what we've done is just had presented and had a conversation.

0:27:38So, I'd love some clarity on the board to house how how specific do we want to get because when we get when we bring this back to you and after we've engaged folks and we've made the adjustments. I don't want to I don't want our team um or you know for any of us to not have the information you need to make the decisions that that you're going to have to make. I think getting us for me I I wouldn't want such level of detail that we're pitting one group against the other and like saying well we like this group's recommendation more than that group's recommendation. So like that granularity might actually get in the way but like over majority opinions across those groups are on these couple things. We the group those stakeholder groups prefer and part of this I think is helping like the the board has never agreed on what is the most pri the highest priority and what the best trade-off should be. Our new policy lays out that those are the considerations that things that need to be considered.

0:28:38And so from those groups, I think some degree of specific feedback to to kind of close the loop on these two calendars around things like Veterans Day, when to start and end semesters, trade-offs of those partial weeks and what day they fall, but not necessarily. I I wouldn't want it to be like 23% of DAC says this and 75% of BVA says that. like I don't know that that's helpful but to ask the questions to get enough of a sense of feeling and then my hope was I mean just so the board knows we're already a little bit behind the timeline on this calendar adoption process because the policy took us so long so my hope then would be like there are some you get the feedback on those things for those groups and board members if you disagree with me that's totally fine and we can talk about it and then any changes that you recommend making to the calendar have been made based on that feedback and it comes back to us then for adoption like this was overwhelmingly like yes there's high support of removing or m making this trade-off we're making this adjustment.

0:29:42So, we did that and this is what the new set of calendars we recommend for board approval look like based on that like that to keep us on track and not um get even further behind on this and to honor the all the work that the board did on policy that our stakeholders board is giving our first round of input here today. First round of questions then that feedback I think that would be an effective way forward. board members thoughts on that. The one thing I think I can assure you is that everybody won't agree. Like if they if there is something I can assure you of. So I will say that um there will be certain groups that have stronger opinions than probably others. I would imagine the BVEA is going to have an opinion that needs to be considered um probably of the groups, a formal opinion on this is what we think.

0:30:45Uh and uh with the other groups, I think that you may get varying degrees of um of feedback. I do think that there's a couple points that you've made. Ending on the 22nd seems a little clunky. Can we fix that? the Veterans Day piece. Dan, I really appreciate your perspective on that. And many surrounding districts on Veterans Day actually use that as a day as an instructional teaching moment. Um I think there may be some some opportunity there. Uh and so um I think that there's enough uh that we can talk to folks about. I just wouldn't want to get I wouldn't want to get back here. There be maybe a a difference of opinion amongst board members and then we look to the data. What does the data say? Uh because I think that at that point it'll be a board decision and the data won't be conclusive to tell you what to do or what not to do and we're going to consider it. But I would imagine uh why these processes are difficult is because people have different perspectives all across the board. Subgroups of people have different perspectives. Um, and so we'll consider all of those. We'll listen if there's anything that we feel like is overwhelmingly supportive. Um, we'll try to do that and also take the

0:31:57concerns that were shared here from the board and try to mush those into a calendar that makes the best sense given all the information that we have. Uh, responding uh, thank you very much. That's I think that's helpful. And responding to Nicole's uh, statement about the granularity. I think this the kind of issue where um I trust our leadership within the district to sort of adjudicate that and um if and to summarize it for us how you got to where you get. So I expect I expect your expert judgment to be really quite helpful for us to interpret that noise and how you reach the decisions for your final recommendation to us. So I don't I don't know that I like Nicole, I don't think I need a cross tabs of all the votes of all the groups on all the issues, but I I would like to have a sense of your rationale for the final thing that we get to accommodate that.

0:32:58I'm seeing a lot of head nodding. Does that make sense, Robin? Yeah, absolutely. That that's extremely helpful. Uh it might be helpful for you all to hear that traditionally the way we gather the input from the re from the representative groups is to share this same information and then pose the questions to the groups that each person has the opportunity to share uh in English or as as we present to Kapple in in Spanish. Um, what are the strengths of the proposed calendars? What changes, if any, would you like to be considered for incorporation into the academic calendar? And what other thoughts or uh or suggestions do you have to share with us? And that goes to them in the form of a Google form. And then we do compile the feedback by group and then we look for themes by group. Uh so we provide the opportunity to answer questions and to provide additional clarity in addition to the way in which each piece of the calendar is connected and interwoven with every other piece.

0:34:22Uh just as as one example uh in order to incorporate again the conference exchange days into into April without extending the number of school days of the the school year. Uh those need to be accommodated for in in some manner. And so that is how then the the two little pieces of wiggle room that we have are the beginning of the year and the end of the year. Basically the entire calendar um as we are grounded currently in the regulation that uh the first semester will end prior to to winter break. uh that determines how the year is planned back from there and and forward from there because one of the other uh additional factors is that we balance the length of each semester as much as possible. And so for example, if we start the school year later, that makes first semester one week shorter. And if we end second semester one week later, that makes second semester one week longer. Always by default, they are never balanced by the exact number of days. These two calendars are within just a couple of days, but we would then extend that imbalance by 10 school days. And so those are the types of things that we do look at because it almost literally is a puzzle u where every change or tweak then has a ripple

0:36:04effect that causes another tweak. And so then it comes down to the question of what are our stakeholder groups priorities and as Dr. Anderson said, "I inevitably uh the input comes to us varied by stakeholder group as we would imagine that uh the priorities of families or of some families may be different than the priorities of other families and families may be different than the priorities of staff etc. And so that's why uh having decision-m that is based primarily in board policy and by policy our negotiated agreement and then uh Colorado Department of Education serve as what are really the guideposts and then everything else fills in from there. And so just a little bit more information about how that process generally works. But yes, um, board president Rashbal, that's very helpful understanding that we're looking for, uh, broad themes of input across stakeholder groups and then rationale for how certain feedback may be prioritized over other.

0:37:20Thank you. It's very exciting to kick off this calendar process once again so closely on the heels of a previous discussion. With that, the board will take a quick break to reset the boardroom to carry on with our board meeting. Thanks so much. Superintendent Report. Dr. Anderson, good evening. Thank you, Board President Raj Paul. Board members, welcome back. Good evening, everyone. Hope everyone had a wonderful winter break and happy new year. Excited to welcome our students back last week and excited for what is going to be an incredible semester ahead of us. So board members, earlier today the Colorado Department of Education released graduation rates for districts across the state. Good news for BBSD. Our four-year graduation rate for the class of 2025 increased 1 percentage point um up to 93.3%. Uh outpacing the state average, which was 85.6%.

0:43:38Uh, and I don't know this for certain, but from what I was hearing from folks today, the highest our graduation rate has been in around 20 years in BBSC. So, a huge huge celebration. Uh, and I think that you're going to be really pleased with some of the notal notable increases among some of our subgroups. Hispanic Latino students, uh, our graduation rate is up 8 and a.5% from last year. multilingual learners up 7.9% and our students identified as unhoused up by 7.4%. And our data in terms of dropout, our dropout rate has decreased from 0.7% to 0.4%. And just as a comparison, state dropout average is 1.6. Um, I want to thank all of our amazing educators and leaders in our schools for all of their hard work with our students. So, I want to congratulate our students who are being more successful than ever before here in the Boulder Valley School District. Um, want to thank everybody um at the district level who's been working hard to make sure that that we're doing the right work for students. Um, and just very very excited that another piece of student achievement data is trending absolutely the right direction. So, congratulations to everyone involved.

0:44:56Last week, uh, Governor Polus stopped by the BVSD culinary center. BVSD Food Services welcomed the governor for a tour and conversation about Colorado's Healthy School Food Pathways, which is a workforce development initiative led by the Chef Anne Foundation. For those of you who don't know, Chef Anne um was uh ran our our school food project for a number of years and uh has been really just a um a powerhouse across the country in um in in trying to bring best practices to school districts. Um as everyone will know, especially those of us who have kids who who eat our food, we're a leader in scratch cush scratch cooking with locally sourced ingredients from Colorado farms. And the visit spotlighted BBSD as a real world example of what sustained investment in school food people and facilities can achieve, you know, is interesting. As I said on the tour, the ideas and the impacts even on our local economy when we buy our food locally, it's better for our kids.

0:45:56It's better for our farmers locally. It's it's healthier. Just wins all around the board. Um, we had representatives from Chef An's Foundation, uh, Colorado Department of Agriculture and Labor Labor and Alex and I were there on behalf of the district along with uh, with with staff members. I'm very proud of our team and the pathways we're building for the future of school food. It's just really a point of pride, something that I think a lot of us maybe take for granted, but I promise you when other folks from other places from across the country come look at what we're doing for school food, they can't believe it. So really great a point pr of pride. And then finally before break board members you'll remember this while we were at CASBY which is college association of school boards convention we had the opportunity to meet with student leaders from BBSD student cabinet and BBSD youth equity council. Uh during a special breakfast which I found very um insightful and moving. Students play a vital role in shaping our district, serving as a bridge between students and district leadership, sharing their perspectives and helping guide decisions aligned with our all together for all student strategic plan. I want to thank everybody involved, board members, student leaders, Dr. Gagos and Flo King

0:47:08for supporting and elevating this work and especially our students. And I will say that it is is a moment every year where um I'm moved by the courage of many of our students uh some of who haven't had great experiences in our school district and having the courage to share that with us. Um and pushing us to be better be better for them, be better for our community. And so I really appreciate those moments. Uh and uh they're very moving for me. Hopefully they were for you. Um, and so based on some of those recommendations, we're we're already hard at work trying to think about what are some of the new things that we could be doing. That is all I have for my remarks this evening. Board members, happy to answer any questions you may have.

0:47:49Thank you for that update. Dr. Anderson, board members, any questions or comments. Seeing as there are none, we'll move on to the next item of tonight's agenda, which is public participation. The board respects the right of the public to speak on matters concerning the operations of our schools. The board does not endorse the comments and of anyone speaker and reminds all those who speak that you are responsible for your own speech. 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 like to share additional thoughts, you are always welcome to the email the board. We do read all of our emails. With that, we are going to be starting this evening with our students. The first of which is Zanna Prospero.

0:48:40And for those of you that have not provided public comment, you can come up to the podium, push the little button. You should see a green light on the microphone to know that it's on now. Can you hear me? Okay, great. Can I start whenever? Okay, I'll start now. Good evening. My name is Zana Prospero and this year I'm a senior at Fairview High School. I'm here today working with the Resilient Futures Bond campaign because our planet is dying. In 2023, as a sophomore, I petitioned for support to pass the Green New Deal in BBSD. I was excited to finally be part of a school district that prioritized fighting climate change. However, since the Green New Deal passed, BBSD has not implemented these required changes in many schools. I would like to take a collective moment to think about the weather today. The sky was blue, the sun out, and the high was 60°. Temperatures should not be this high in January. But if this doesn't ring an alarm bell in your head, then think about the rest of the world. Sea levels are rising. Homes are being ruined. Deforestation is compromising ecosystems and murdering millions of animals. Plastic is consuming our oceans and killing everything in its path. I could go on and on, but I hope you get

0:50:01my point. Global warming is a monster consuming our world, and BBSD is one of the few leaders that can actually do something about it. Make an investment in renewables. If you won't do it for our planet, then do it for the financial opportunity. Okay? Right now, energy is the second highest cost for BBSD schools because not all schools are using green energy. To mitigate this, switch to renewable energy. This will not only reduce carbon emissions, but it can neutralize them. We absolutely need to start prioritizing on-site renewables and decarbonization right now for both the direct environmental impacts and the financial benefits. You inspired other school districts and governments around the country to implement the Green New Deal in 2023. I'm here to ask you to keep following this resolution as it not only will our impact on the environment be significant, but it will spark the flame to burn a momentum around this country. Solving climate change starts right here with prioritizing renewable energy in the bond. Thank you.

0:51:05Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Danny Bernard. Yeah, I'm on. Okay. Uh, my name is Danny Bernard. I'm a senior at Fairview High School and I'm joined today by members of my climate club, Fairview Institute. I want to start off by saying thank you to the board for allowing me the opportunity along with students like me to give public comment about the pressing and important issues within our district. A few weeks ago, our entire district shut down because of a planned outage by XL Energy. Students missed class. Finals had to be rescheduled, requiring mid-year reports for college admissions to be delayed. And some families even had to scramble for child care. This PSPS event was important for our safety, but it also reminded us of how vulnerable our schools are to outside forces.

0:52:06It doesn't have to be this way. Energy independence through renewable energy like solar panels and battery storage mean our schools could keep the lights on in these conditions and worse when they need to be used as emergency shelters. I believe our schools can be more than just places of learn places to learn. They can be places that actively make the communities they serve better. Leading by example, BBSD has the opportunity to adopt renewable energy in a format that's more sustainable, more cost-effective, and more resilient than it ever has been. Over the past few months, I've worked with community members on what we're calling the renewable or sorry, what we're calling the resilient futures bond campaign. It's our goal to work with BBSD to fund infrastructure that is renewable through a bond initiative. We're not asking you to vote on anything tonight, but we're just asking you to keep this conversation open and to see students like us as partners in building a greener, stronger district. Thank you.

0:53:02Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Kelsey Glass. All right. Do I need Oh, this is the one. Got it. All right. Uh, my name is Kelsey Glass and I'm a parent of a second and fourth grader at Lafayette Elementary School. I've had the opportunity to meet some of you in person and deeply respect your service as school board members. Tonight, I'll share my family's experience having my fourth grader's teacher, Mrs. Ker, removed from the classroom in late October. My child's neurodeiverse and requires a strong relationship with his teacher to have a positive learning experience. And luckily, he's had that with Mrs. Harshner. While I can speak to the positive experience my child has had with his teacher, I want to share about the experience we've had in the district's communication about the situation. I in no way expect details as to the investigation taking place, but I do expect that there's a standard operating procedure in place regarding notification of such a situation and ongoing communication with families. I had no idea that my child's teacher had been out of the classroom for be um for two weeks before I received an email from the school leadership notifying me.

0:54:17In that time frame, my child struggled immensely after school, often having meltdowns that impacted my whole family. Had we known that his teacher was absent, we could have done a better job addressing things at home. Two weeks after the initial email and following a particularly rough week with a multiple subs, we received another email saying that the teacher was still out and a long-term sub was being secured. You can imagine that the week with multiple subs was a repeat of challenges at home. Um, was our family aware of this so we could make sure that there were added supports? No. our family didn't have the information needed to make the choices to best support our child, and that's really unacceptable. During a time where a teacher is removed from the classroom, there should be a weekly communication regarding what students and families can expect. I can appreciate the district's intentions in their investigative process, but it's not meeting the needs of students and families. Too many children in this classroom have been negatively impacted by the lack of communication and expect um expectation setting to allow their families to help support their success. That must be changed and I hope that this situation sparks the review of how this is handled in the future. Thank you for your time.

0:55:28Thank you. The next speaker this evening is Craig Dreer. We'll Craig is not here. We'll move on to Kristen Campbell. The next speaker this evening is attending remotely. Katie, I'm really sorry Katie if you're listening. Janau, you're on mute. Very close. It's gau but it's a hard one. Um, well, my name is Katie Canauer and I'm here today to address the district policies and procedures related to employee investigations. My daughter is a student at Lafael Elementary as well. And as um Kelsey just said, in late October, her fourth grade teacher, Miss Melinda Kshner, was removed from the classroom due to a district investigation. I want to clearly state that I support the district's responsibility to investigate potential concerns involving staff. Students safety must be the highest priority. Though I'll add we had a very positive experience with Miss Carner as our classroom teacher. The concern today though is the absence of a clear student centered plan once a classroom is disrupted for an extended period of time. Academically these students have experienced significant disruptions over the past nine weeks. During the first month the class cycle through multiple subs. While there has been a consistent subs more recently, she's not an elementary school certified teacher and not trained in our fourth grade curriculum. Emotionally, many students have struggled. Being in a state of

0:57:05uncertainty for several weeks has caused confusion and anxiety. The lack of consistency led to frequent classroom disruptions and interfering with learning. My daughter even asked Santa to bring her teacher back. Compounding these challenges has been a lack of communication with families. Parents were not informed that Miss Harsher would be absent for an unknown duration. Nor were we provided clear updates regarding instructional plans, timelines, points of contact, or student support. While we respect confidentiality requirements, families deserve proactive communication about their child's education. I respectfully urge the board to strengthen policies and ensure that there are clear procedures to protect instructional continuity. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Mark Milan who is given two minutes from Emily Zner. They should both be virtual. Yes. Good evening. My name is Mark Milan and as with some other parents you've heard from, my children attend Lafayette Elementary. My daughter also has seen her educational experience this school year significantly diminished by BVSD's current practices around administrative investigation leaves. The way BVSD currently implements administrative investigation leaves for staff and especially primary elementary school teachers appears wildly out of line with the district's primary overriding goal of educating students. BBSD's current practice appears to prioritize the district's own bureaucratic administrative convenience and minim minimizing litigation risk to an

0:58:47unjustifiably conservative extent over students actual education. The educational impact on students needs needs to be the primary consideration for any teacher or staff leave that the district itself initiates, not an afterthought as it appears to be today. I'm here to make two concrete requests to the board to address the very clear problems that we affected families have experienced. First, BBSD should undertake a study and publish data about the impact districtwide of their administrative leave and staff investigation process. This should show with data how BVSD's existing process affects students educational experience with formal published findings on whether changes to the process are warranted. Second, BBSD should create a publish written policy for when administrative investigation leaves are triggered that explicitly takes into account the negative educational impact that these leaves have on students and justifies to a high standard why any such leave is strictly necessary against that backdrop. It appears the BBSD has no written policy today that lays out specific criteria for when an administrative investigation leave will be instituted or what obligations are triggered for the district when it creates a teacher or staff absence by operations of its own HR policies.

1:00:09This should include providing support for affected students in advance and as a matter of course, not just sporadically at best, after the fact, or on an ad hoc basis. In the current absence of a written policy, decisions about the district initiated leaves today appear to be made behind closed doors without any clear criteria that appropriately values impact on students and with no accountability for the district in the extremely disruptive leaves it appears to institute overly conservatively. BBSD's current practice needs to change urgently. a rigorous datadriven and published study of current practices and their impact as well as making any changes that such a study suggests are necessary and formalizing guard rails in public written policy would go a long way to ensuring that actually educating students as effectively as possible is BBSD's paramount priority. That's what every member of our community should expect and it's what every BBSD student deserves. Thank you.

1:01:11Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Fallon Dudy. Hi, good evening members of the board. My name is Fallon Dudok. I'm a parent to two children at Lafayette Elementary. As well, I'm here today to speak to you about the impact of the extended absence of my child's teacher due to the investigation process as it stands. I will ask you to consider additional policy measures be added to the BBSD investigation process to ensure that our child's right to an education is protected. I understand this is a confidential and very sensitive process and the importance of privacy and the time to fully investigate is essential, but I ask that the communication with parents be essential as well. Our children's newly formed safe environment was removed on October 28th without direct acknowledgement to our children and their parents. This has created anxiety, loss of trust, loss of enjoyment at school, academic regression, social regression, and a loss of structure. What seemed to be at the start small cracks this at the beginning of this investigation have turned into gaps for some of these students in this class.

1:02:24I think this could be avoided in the future. I suggest required notification to the parents on day one of an investigation. While parents should be aware that their child's teacher will be absent for an undetermined amount of time and with notification will be able to feel their child's unique needs due to the situation at hand. I urge you to consider a required written plan of support to be sent to parents within the first week of removal. This will ensure that all concerns or needs that have not been addressed can be met in a timely manner. I also ask the board to consider placement of a licensed teacher in the general education classroom if the investigation extends beyond 3 weeks. The loss of structure would not be eliminated, but it would be restored more quickly. I hope that you will consider what our families have endured during this process and that we would all like to work together to do the best for all students at BBSD. Thank you so much for your time.

1:03:21Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Katie Tahoon who has received two minutes from Emily Book McGree. I'm actually going to give kind of like two separate remarks. Some from me and then some as a parent group that Emily did. So I guess I'll just break myself halfway through. Is that fine? I won't go over four minutes. Never mind. They're all part of my comments. Thank you so much. Okay. Rescended. Good evening. My name is Katie Tillahan and I'm a parent of a fourth grader and a second grader at Lafayette Elementary. Go Cougars. I have joined this meeting to express my frustration with the BBSD policy around teacher investigations and my deep dissatisfaction with the way BBSD has communicated overall and how BVSD has responded to outreach from parents throughout the process. This fall, a complaint, as you've heard, was filed against Melinda Kshner, an experienced fourth grade teacher who was new to Lafayette, but had already made a positive impact on her students and the school community. She was pulled out of the classroom beginning October 28th.

1:04:31And let's think about that. We're talking about October, and it's January now. The students have been taught by substitute teachers since that time. BBSD provided no support to the school in engaging qualified coverage for this extended absence. Just because this is the way the policy is written does not mean that it is right. While I fully understand the need to conduct investigations when reports are filed, we are in week 12 of this investigation. This is simply too long. The fourth grade students have not had a licensed teacher in their classroom since October 27th. This is not acceptable. The lack of a licensed teacher is impacting learning. It is impacting behavior and it is causing confusion among these students who need structure and consistency to feel secure at school. These students have none of the power but are bearing the negative impact of this prolonged investigation of their teacher. When parents have reached out to BBSD, we either do not get a response at all or the response is we're following policy. Following the letter of policy without addressing the impact on the students that you are here to support is not carrying out your duties.

1:05:35BBSD needs to concern itself beyond policy steps and think about the students. There needs to be contingency planning for what happens to classrooms when teachers are removed for investigations. If this does not exist in the current policy, the policy needs to be changed. Investigation investigations need to be conducted quickly and efficiently with clear timelines and an end date, keeping the well-being of students at the front of mind at each stage. This whole process has been damaging to the students and the school community, and it reflects a complete lack of leadership and ownership by BBSD. I'd also like to follow up with a letter from a coalition of parents in Miss Kshner's class. Members of the board of education, we are writing as a coalition of parents of students who have been fortunate to be in Melinda Ker's fourth grade classroom at Lafayette Elementary this year. We wish to express our unequivocal support for Miss Ker and to speak to the profound impact she has had on our children and our community. Miss Ker is quite simply an exceptional teacher. Many of us have worked in education ourselves across a range of settings and can say without hesitation that she is among the finest educa educators that we have encountered. Her teaching reflects deep professionalism, clarity of purpose, and genuine care for children as learners

1:06:46and as people. She holds students to high expectations while meeting them with warmth, patience, and respect. An increasingly rare and invaluable balance. This year, our teacher our children thrived in her classroom. They felt safe, seen, and supported. They trusted her. They learned not only academically but socially and emotionally. Miss Kchner created a stable, thoughtful classroom environment where childrens could take risks, ask ask questions and grow. These are not abstract qualities. They are the daily conditions that allow children to succeed. Her sudden absence has had a significant and lasting impact on our students. The disruption, uncertainty, and lack of closure we have been have been deeply distressing for children at a critical developmental stage. Many of our kids continue to ask about her, express sadness and confusion, and struggle with the loss of a trusted adult presence in their lives. The emotional toll of this prolonged separation has been substantial, and its effects are still unfolding. We strongly and respectfully urge the board to allow Miss Ker to return to her students.

1:07:43Reuniting her with the children who miss her so deeply would be a meaningful step toward healing, restoring stability, and reaffirming the values of care, trust, and common sense that families expect from their public schools. Teachers like Melinda Kshner are the heart of a school community. Our children need her back. We hope the board will act with compassion, wisdom, and an unwavering focus on what is best for students. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Caitlyn Crouch. Good evening. My name is Caitlyn Crouch and I'm a parent of three BBSD children, all current and former Lafayette Elementary Cougars. I am following up on the email I sent the board on November 18th regarding the sudden removal of our fourth graders's beloved teacher on October 28th. I want to be clear, like any parent, I do fully support keeping students safe. However, the district's current practice of automatically removing staff whenever a complaint is filed, regardless of the nature of the allegation, is causing real harm to students. My concern is that it could be doing more harm than good.

1:08:53Months now into Mrs. Ker's unexplained absence, our children are paying the price. They've lost continuity, trusted relationships, classroom routines, and instructional momentum. Even the strongest substitute can't replace the stability and connection that a teacher builds over months. As much as I love new ways to connect with my son, joking over what degree of thumbs up or down that day substitute was is not the way I want to be greeted by him after school. This isn't the first time that our school community has experienced this type of disruption. Most significantly, our principal and dean were both out together for an extended period a couple of years ago. It fractured trust and created deep anxiety in myself and my family. My trust in the in our school community and our district has not recovered. For some students, especially younger children and neurode divergent children such as my eldest child, these disruptions really are devastating. Losing a trusted adult and a stable learning environment shatters their sense of safety and belonging and therefore their ability to learn. Students pay the price for these slow investigations at administrative batwalks. I hope there's a different way and that the district can reevaluate this practice and find ways to protect student safety without causing prolonged unexplained harm to classrooms and school communities. Thank you for your

1:10:18time. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Michael Whitaker who has been uh receives two minutes from Jennifer Whitaker. Hi everybody. Michael Whitaker. I have a ninth grader at Fairview and a sixth grader at Southern Hills. Several of you may remember me from the fall. We had several conversations about AI in schools. You said it's going to be a priority agenda item. The earliest you consider it is January. It's January, so I'm back. Um, I need you to understand that in the absence of the board taking action over the fall, almost nothing has happened in the district. My kids are not hearing any guidance. I was told after one of the early meetings that there would be clear AI policy posted on a website for everybody to understand. Three of the top seven Google search results for BBSD's AI policy are things I wrote or I said. Two more are policies from two years ago or and then two more are be um board candidate statements from the past election cycle and one was a student comment in an article last year. There is no clear policy out there for students or parents to understand the district stance. What is that doing to our kids in the classroom? I'll tell you what it's doing. They're living in a

1:11:40climate of fear and uncertainty because they don't know what's allowed. It changes classroom by classroom and they are torn by this. There's this tension with them. They know they need AI skills to be successful in the future. But there are real damaging things that AI can do to their development if it's not done in a healthy way. If they don't know how to have a healthy relationship with AI and they don't have guidance on that, they can go down a really dangerous path. So they know they have to use it, but they aren't being guided in how. And what's happening, and I've talked to several students in the district, is they are dumbing down their work to avoid being accused of using AI. They are taking big words out of essays. They are not putting the finishing polish on their work because they fear that an AI detector will call it AI work and they'll get a zero and they can't defend themselves. They are stifling their voices. And I will tell you that AI detectors flag non-English native speakers more frequently than English native English speakers. And good writing is pattern-based.

1:12:41And so as you teach better writing, it is more likely to get detected by AI. The kids are in a bind and they're getting no guidance. What's happening with parents? They don't know how to engage. They're not hearing anything from the schools. I ran a parent workshop with CU. 50 plus parents came to learn how to talk to their kids about AI, about AI companions, about AI in school, about digital deception. I wrote a book since we last talked because the parents needed guidance. And this book is about how do you tap into your timeless parenting wisdom and bring it into modern conversations like AI to guide your kids when you're not an expert when it can feel impossibly hard, but you still have to say something because the institutions and the laws and the everything else designed to protect our kids is impossibly behind and isn't meeting the moment. It then it turns to the parents and it's on the parents. And I will tell you that the district and the schools, you have enough knowledge and you have enough guidance that you can lean in right now.

1:13:38Whether that's gradual release of responsibility, whether it's building crosscutting skills that the kids can take forward, opting out is not an option. And it's critically important and it is only accelerated and gotten a deeper issue for our kids since we last talked in the fall. And I'll tell you also, St. Brain is ahead. They're running a summit with 185 teachers in February to talk about AI use. I'm running a workshop there about aligning parents and teachers to guide our kids in the age of AI. They have an ethos framework that has guidance for students, teachers, and parents to have conversations at home about AI. It is not impossible, but it takes action. And and silence is a choice. And whether that silence is because you're afraid of making a mistake or you don't know what to say, it is a scary territory. Nobody's an expert, but we have to guide our kids. And I'm urging you to really adopt this as a priority agenda item and put urgency behind it, not just discussions. Go talk to the community and discover where everybody's out and have intentional conversations with parents and students.

1:14:46Our next speaker, I brought copies of the books. Our next speaker this evening is Melissa Zens who has been given two minutes from Megan Maguire. Melissa is not here. So, we'll move on to our final final speaker of this evening, which is Katherine. I'm sorry, Katherine Kat Lararszik. Hi everyone. Um, I'm Katie Klarik. I'm a parent of um, three students in the Boulder Valley School District. I first want to compliment the student speakers who spoke tonight for their courage and conviction. It takes a lot of both to be here and speak in front of this group. Um, second, I want to thank the board members for doing what is often a thankless job. We know it's hard and we're here because we care. Every day since October 28th, my daughter and I have expected her fourth grade teacher, Ms. Ker, to come back to school. It has now been nearly three months of this uncertainty at Lafayette Elementary.

1:15:49From the perspective again of serving my children's educational needs, Miss Carshner was one of the best teachers I have seen in my eight years and three children through this district. Neither parents nor students have received communication providing a reason, a timeline, or a plan for this teacher's departure. I do think it's a district's responsibility alongside the school to provide a certified teacher to these classrooms. Rotating substitutes does not count. And a long-term sub without a certified teaching degree or curriculum responsibility and again without any known timeline for how long they will be there does not count. So I'm asking you to step in and take responsibility for the problems that were created when district policy allowed the removal of our teacher from the classroom. You either need to reinstate what we thought was a great teacher and still is or provide a suitable plan and timeline. um for what's going to happen next. Thank you.

1:16:47Thank you. This concludes today's public participation. On behalf of the board, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to show up today in person remotely to share your thoughts and opinions with the board. We do take that all into consideration because we have some new participants tonight as well as new members on the board who have not observed public participation since being sworn in. As a reminder, while we listen, the board does not directly engage with public comment. With that, we'll now move on to board member communication. Uh the board member communication portion of this evening's agenda. Board members, who would like to begin? Hello. I would like to um recognize something wonderful that's happening at one of the schools in uh district E, which is Monarch High School, which has a leader and a tremendous teacher named Jennifer Dixon. And Miss Dixon has organized um a unified bowling tournament at Cole Creek Bowling on the 22nd of January. And I I have seen many of these unified events and they are delivered with such passion and such greatness and such care for families and the students involved. I'd like to see everybody um attend if they can get to Cole Creek. And I just want to honor Miss Dixon for her dedication to this cause um which is something very close

1:18:26to my heart. my brother would have loved to participate in this bowling tournament and so I see him there. Um, thank you very much, Anna. Yes. I just wanted to take a a moment of privilege to just say uh thank you to all of the senior staff and directors at the district. Both Deian and I have been on a training uh schedule these past few weeks and we've gotten a chance to meet um all of the directors or not quite all of them. We have one left. Um but I'm just very really grateful for the time that you've all taken to really um take that time to really talk to Deian and I about the ins and outs about for uh of the district. Um and continually just growing impressed uh with Dr. Anderson's leadership. Thank you.

1:19:27Uh, first off, I want to ditto on the the unified sporting events. I've been to a couple of the basketball ones, and for anybody on the board who hasn't been to one, you really need to go. I'm bummed I'm going to be out of the state for the bowling, but I'm going to do everything I can to make basketball. It's some of the most powerful stuff you'll see at BBSD. Um, I also wanted to I would had the opportunity I didn't think I'd be able to get there for the culinary tour with the governor and the Chef Anne Foundation. Um, and once again, uh, just kudos to the previous board members for their leadership to move us in this direction to Chef Anne and the district and for the facility that's there. What I didn't know we had with the Chef Anne Foundation is a program for our nutritional staff to do um uh training and in uh um different professional development opportunities that allow them to elevate their own professional participation. And uh again, it's not just that we have a cool thing going on that we've invested in.

1:20:20It's that we care a lot about the people that work for us and are trying to present um to people in our nutritional program, some of which are our least paid employees uh with professional opportunities and partnership with something like the Chef Anne Foundation is is sort of a kudos to everybody. Um but I'm always frustrated by the scale like I just want there to be more of that. So anyway, it's it's very cool. Um I also want to thank all our speakers tonight uh especially including the students. I really appreciate the passion. I wasn't on the board when the Green New Deal resolution was passed, but I sure would have voted for it and its implementation is really um a key priority for me and I I believe it's a priority for all folks on the board from our conversations.

1:21:04Uh I also want to not speak to at all to the case before us um in terms of teacher stuff, but I I do want to give the district uh kudos for the progress we've made in being clear about our processes um for investigations. So we have a website now that includes a place where people can report the kind of things that lead to investigations and that website includes explanations of what can lead to delays and why there are o times when there isn't much communication. So I appreciate that that's really frustrating. I I hear from parents, teachers, community members who are somehow involved in that process and they frequently have that frustration of not knowing what's going on. And I appreciate all our speakers tonight and the other feedback we've gotten who recognize the legal um obligations that we face as a district and an institution. So there's we there's lots of things we cannot and should not talk about. Um, I do agree though that when when parents are facing a likely long-term absence of a teacher that the district can do more to communicate to them. So, we don't have to talk about ways that are inappropriate for the actual case that's before them. But when parents of especially young kids are knowing that the primary teacher is going to be with

1:22:15their kid every day, may be out for a long time, parents deserve to know what's at least what's going to h happen that's affecting their kid. So I continue to encourage us as a district to to continue thinking about that from a parentf facing perspective and I know we have to look after we have to handle these tricky things appropriately which is not easy and we have to handle all the obligations that constrain us but I also want us to maintain an empathetic uh communication with the parents as much as we can within those constraints and I don't think that's about the investig that's can be with um uh family medical leave or whatever else we can't talk about. But when the parents are facing a long-term absence, I believe communication can be uh can probably address some of that anxiety. So uh I would also like to start by thanking our speakers today. I'm always moved by the passion and commitment of our families and our students here and and I really appreciate it. I I also want to say thank you to to the district staff and leadership um and to the very other board members because uh we had a chance to kind of connect a little bit at Casby. It's been a while back now,

1:23:29but I think it was still um very useful for us to kind of get to know each other better and to and to you know make see the commitment that everybody here has um in the work that we're doing and serving our students because that's so important. Um I was able to attend some good sessions there and um and uh in particular some on family engagement and to see the sessions that were led by um Superintendent Adderson um talking about the work that we're doing and the engagement that we're doing and and it's it's striking to me that we're leaders in this area um that we're you know even tonight you know talking about how we're engaging our families and our students in terms of the calendar um hearing from the community about the the need for increased communication. we're doing it at so many different levels and we are leaders there. Um and and and I really appreciate that recognize that there's always room for improvement for us to continue this communication. Um and so I thank our community and our students for that and and the staff as well. Um I know there's also families that um don't feel comfortable communicating, right?

1:24:21That that that don't feel comfortable coming to these meetings. And I and I hear from a lot of uh families and students at the end of last year and into this year, there's a lot of turmoil going on in our in our national landscape. there's a lot of fear in our communities and I'm continue to hear about these sorts of things and not everybody feels comfortable coming to speak at these things. Um, and so I want to speak to that and about our need to serve all of our students, right, from all of our groups and the need for our students to feel safe. Um, and I want to speak to the commitment of this board to continue that work to make sure that all our students here feel heard and safe and able to engage in their work that we do um and the work that they need to do um to be successful because they are are the future. Um, so I just want to highlight that and and reflect that commitment that we continue to do that work and continue to work on the communication. Thank you.

1:25:14Uh, one last thing I we'll be doing our uh, prioritization as a board um, next week, but I just I want to reiterate uh, for me uh, in my day job I see the increasing impact and influence of AI and I do think it uh, for me it is a big priority for us to figure out what we can do and I know that we have so many other things that we're working on as a district but I think in terms of an impact on student uh, learning experience that has just got to be a bigger priority to deal with. I don't know what we do with it. Um, but I do think it is one of those things that we underestimate its impact at, you know, a way that's just going to really undercut the student experience.

1:25:50We will be discussing that next week. And if there are, as a reminder, prioritization items to be considered can bring those up at the end of the agenda. Board members, any final comments? Board comments. I just also want to thank the taxpayers, thank district staff, thank board members for allowing us to all go down to CASBY to learn from other folks in the school district for us to be leaders on the good work that we we are doing. I think there was a few different themes that I observed in the lineup of topics discussed at CASBY. Declining enrollment was a significant one. Multiple conversations on how to handle declining enrollment. The other one that makes me feel sad and worried a lot of conversations around board and superintendent relationship and what happens if you need to hire one. So I Dr. Anderson and I talked about presented on board and superintendent relationship. We had great attendance in that one. Colleagues, we presented on another conversation on board governance which was well attended and I think throughout the meeting all of us and I know Alex presented on some charter school stuff but all of us were asked a lot of follow-up questions throughout the meeting. We are seen as leaders. I appreciate having past board members, current board members to really set the

1:27:11tone, be um across the state and um the work that we do is really making an impact not only here in BBSD but statewide. So um that was great to be down at Casby. Since we got back, I was able to attend the DAC meeting this month. Um biggest topic of that is their budget update they will be presenting to the board on January 27th. Um I think one of their better budget pre writeups that I've seen in a long time. There's a lot of good discourse around how they came to the recommendations that we received in writing and that we'll discuss on the 27th. But it was good to reconvene with them. Kind of related to board prioritization. You know, previously the board had prioritized board policy. We didn't quite get to it because we got derailed with some other policies, but they are still planning on giving feedback to the board on policy and on the grading policy because those were previously prioritized in our joint work session. So, if there's any deviation to that plan with the board, we'll have to figure out how to readjust that with the DAC, but they are working on those still. And then um kind of thinking really working hard on doubling down on school and community engagement and some really good work that they're

1:28:28doing there anchored in best practices and to really um have that authentic two-way communication between school school and families. Last night I also discovered that with Kitty's reg resignation when our lack of appointment to board committees we didn't have anybody to represent the board at Elroch. So, I jumped in on that meeting. It was good to see I had never been to an IRA meeting before, so it was really great to listen to their conversation. Um, and they are just sort of responding to some questions that will help inform the board presentation on the 27th. So, thanks to ALRACK members for all you've done in the past four years to get us to this point of really um getting to a significant action phase to address facilities and declining enrollment in that. Um, so was able to do that.

1:29:17And then lastly, open enrollment window officially closed last week. First round of slots have gone out. I've received a lot of questions and clarifications. I even had to reach out to Robin to say, you know, what happens if you're on a wait list and you pick your second spot. Do you get to stay on the wait list for your first school of choice? Apparently, this feels new since when my kids participate in this process, but that's yes, you do remain on the wait list for your first choice school if you select a second choice school. So, that just the public if you're watching um that is that is the case. And then just some questions around there are still folks that fully plan on attending their neighborhood schools and aren't really sure what they're supposed to do. So, for staff, just a heads up, like those communications to capture intention to attend the neighborhood school at the next level. Um, I'm not really sure where where there's a miscommunication, but I've received some questions about that as well.

1:30:20And that is just a I mean, open enrollment periods are a exciting and turbulent time here in BVSSD. So, I appreciate everybody's patience as they wait and work through those processes and those weight lists. our staff does a really good time, a really good um job managing all of those roles until we get to the end when no more seats are available. Um I think that is all I have. Jason, um I just want to echo your comments on CASBY. It really was a great opportunity to get to know folks from around the state. um and Nicole kind of summarized the topics, but it's really great to get to know Deian and Anna better um and work as a team and uh really looking forward to working with you too in this board. So, just wanted to add that to your summary of CASBY. So, thanks.

1:31:18Well, that concludes board comment for today. We will move on to an our one and only information item, which is the legislative update. I'll turn it over to Dr. Anderson. Thank you board president Raj Paul. Uh board members as you know uh session is starting. Uh just a few things to highlight I think for our public. Um the 2627 budget will be the topic during this session. Um I would say that uh from all all uh signs indicate that if anyone is tries to bring forward legislation that costs money that that will be quickly um voted down or made go away. Uh and so I I do think that that is is the thing for us all to be paying attention to. You know, there's there's something that's happening. you know, the the ways that our governor the way that our governor balanced the budget in his in the governor's budget was the sale of Pinnacle. Uh so that's something to be paying attention to, which is the um it would raise in the governor's budget 400 million to sell the workers comp um insurance company, Pinnacle Insurance.

1:32:34Uh and so privately selling that uh and so the JBC has to get behind that. Uh and if they don't, then that's 400 million that they'll have to a gap that they'll continue to have to close. I think that uh in addition to um in in addition to the budget, uh we're paying attention to um specific ownership tax uh that has been floated, I believe, in in one of the last JBC meetings as a way to potentially close any gaps in the budget. And that's the $78 million cut to BBSD, which would be pretty significant. And so we're watching for that. We we'll include that within our legislative priorities board members. As a reminder, the morning of the 27th, uh we will be meeting with our delegation down at the capital to to try to talk about things that are important to us. Um and so we'll be finalizing what those legislative priorities will be. uh mostly around budget uh that uh to make sure uh to ensure that uh that we're able to continue to provide the services we need to for our kids and for our families. So, I don't know if anyone else has anything else, but uh legislative session here we go.

1:33:50Do you have any thoughts on some of the proposed legislation or coming out of Adams or some our neighboring school districts? So, so there's there's um a bill that's being proposed that would make some significant improvements to child care licensing uh which impacts us in terms of the afterare programs we're able to offer and the number of seats we're able to offer. Licensing is pretty strict. Um in some instances, kids throughout the school day can be on equipment, but because the licensing changes when it goes to child care, then there's areas where kids can't go. Uh, I'll get the board more information on that, but I do think it's something that we're probably going to want to support. Board members, any questions or comments on the legislative update? Just as a point of information, right about this time of year, Dr. Ernest and I meet every other week with our lobbyists that those meetings will by phone those meetings will resume later this month or next early next month. So the the cycle is really kicking off and I will say I was at an event for a candidate this weekend and the peanut gallery one of the peanut gallery questions was do the bills you're running have a fiscal note and it was an unequivocal no because none of our bills

1:35:12can have fiscal notes. I think that message is being heard loud and clear. So, we will now move on to our action items. Consent grouping portion of tonight's agenda. 8.1 Personnel items. 8.2 per approval of minutes December 9th, 2025. 8.3 approval of minutes December 16th, 2025. 8.4 acceptance of donation University Hill Elementary. 8.5 acceptance of donation Mesa Elementary. 8.6 Board adopted fees amendment. 8.7 board member reimbursement. 8.8 new courses and current course changes. 8.9 resolution 26-01 regarding the notice of meetings for the board of education. Are there any items board members like to pull from consent grouping? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve? Move by Lenia, seconded by Anna. Board members, is there any discussion on the items within consent grouping? I want to say I'm excited about the new course offerings and their potential ones particularly the creative new electives at the middle school level. I think that is really exciting. Also is part of the reason why like IG needs a look at because that language is pretty antiquated and doesn't really reflect the good work we're doing with grad plus and some of these creative electives.

1:36:37So, thanks to the schools and to the staff for updating those and continuing to work to make sure our BVSD course catalog is aligned across all of our schools and levels so kids can have access to these o awesome opportunities as much as possible. So, thank you for those and also for the change to the fee document. I think that'll actually be really helpful. But we have zero control over what API exams cost. And so having language in there that can fluctuate that allows the fluctuation on those fees that are assessed to us will be helpful moving forward. And there was a rate increase on those exams. Necessitating that change. And as a reminder to our community, for folks that cannot afford to take those pay for those exams, we do provide in part through our partnership with impact on education financial support so every student can take th those exams um without worrying about the fees associated.

1:37:36So just wanted to elevate those ones and any other if there's no other discussion, we will move on to a vote. Seeing none, Laura, can you call the role on consent grouping? Ber, yes. Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Linua, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Tuading, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. Next item on tonight's agenda is policy action items, consent grouping. Thanks to the good work of our staff and our board, we have several 10.1 board policy DD grants management. 10.2 board policy DD--R1 projects partnership subawward grants subcontracts pursuant to grants and thirdparty grants involving district personnel programs and facilities regulation 10.3 board policy DD-R2 grants to district personnel regulation 10.4 Four board policy deeb loan programs and cooperative funding programs 10.5 board policy deeb revenues from state federal tax sources 10.6 board policy DH bonded employees and officers 10.7 board policy DI fiscal accounting reporting 10.8 board policy did capital asset accounting 10.9 board policy DN district property disposal procedures 10.10 10 board policy EDA resource management use 10.11 board policy EDA receiving and warehousing 10.12 board policy EDC authorized use of schoolowned materials are there any items board members would like to pull from consent grouping hearing none we need a motion to approve items on the consent grouping moved by Alex seconded by Anna board members are there any discussion on the policies

1:39:35within and consent the policy consent grouping. Alex, um I know it's a long list and it's great progress towards our general goal of uh revisiting all our policies. I just want to give thanks to uh Kathleen Sullivan and the financial team under Bill for answering all our questions on this complicated stuff uh when we had our study on it. And I just appreciate us being able to clean up stuff and make it easier to be an efficient and effective public steward of money. I want to second what Alex said and aso also as I'm reading these if you want to take the liberty and decrease the title for board for 10.2 two board policy DD--R1. You can do so. That was a that was a paragraph of a title. Um, any other discussion board members?

1:40:33Hopefully, this will really help our operations and finance teams implement the work of this district. Seeing as there are no comments, Laura, can you call the role on consent grouping? Booker. Booker, yes. Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Linua, yes. Rajpaul, yes. Tuading, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. Next item on tonight's agenda, board members, public is policy study items. We have one policy to study this evening that we spent a long time studying earlier this year and receiving a lot of community engagement from. So my hope is that our focus of this study is on the language that Kathleen Sullivan has proposed for revision and that sort of section alone. With that I will hand it over to Kathleen. Thank you board president Raj Paul. So, as uh Robin Fernandez presented earlier, we are now in our first implementation cycle of the board's new policy.

1:41:53And as we worked it through, I realized that I had really co-mingled two concepts that cannot be co-mingled and have an understandable policy. So, the correction that's offered today for the board to study is simply making sure that we acknowledge we've got the instructional days referenced in the negotiated agreement at that number of 176. But because it includes conference days, which we also consider to be instructional, we needed to add that explanatory language and then just reference the general proposition from the CASBY sample that the school year and the instructional time needs to be long enough to satisfy the state requirements and then also to accomplish the directives of the board and the instructional leadership and strategic plan. So, we're just correcting the language there to make sure that we're teasing out instructional days for teachers are not exactly the same as actively engaged in the educational process. And hopefully that will be an easy correction.

1:43:02Thank you for that explanation, Kathleen. Start off with Lenia. I know this isn't in the paragraph that you're discussing, but I notice it says that this uh development process um that the draft shall be presented no later than January 10th. And that provision is in fact in the negotiated agreement which is the the reason that I left it in the policy to make sure we we're bringing together enough of the details that are in law or other places so that we could really understand the requirements that we have to meet. That's also why I said we are behind when we were discussing the calendar itself earlier this year. Other questions or comments? Board members? Alex, sorry I had to step out there for a second, but on that issue of January 10th, might it be better to have it be like the second Tuesday of January? So times that we'd actually have a meeting in January with a chance to do that.

1:44:32I think it's copied over directly from the language in the negotiated agreement, right, Kathleen? So that you know that it could be something we could think about as we head into negotiations as just a cleanup measure. Uh typically we present this well before January 10th. Uh we present typically in November. Uh but um that's something that we could discuss with BVA. But until we do that, I think it has to stay in the policy. And just so our new board members know again, part of that was we had a very engaged conversation on this policy. It took multiple gorounds and that kind of just getting we had to have the policy in place with the new regulation before we could draft a calendar. So that that was the reason why. But typically November it's before we head out for the end of the year that we do discuss these calendars.

1:45:22Jason. Yeah. Yeah, I just had it's more maybe a clarification in kind of going back to our earlier conversation tonight on Veterans Day. Um, in that slide deck that we saw earlier, it said that Veterans Day was a must on our calendar recognized by the state for November 11th. I wonder if that's just recognized or has to be observed. And then here it's listed as a um vacation or closure date. And so just given our conversation, I don't I don't have strong feelings about it, but I feel like we need to have some um some clarity around or maybe some consistency and maybe I just missed something. I don't know. Um, I think what actually happened is that in that slide deck there typically there there was a slide that we were going to skip because when we looked at this language originally, we really did understand that those holidays were required and that was the way it had always been referenced. When I went back through and really analyzed each of the negotiated agreement and the state law, we realized that it is not a mandated closure date. So, I think there was a slide that was confusing and I'll make sure that I'm I'm clear on that and our language is consistent all the way through. Must be considered, but it's

1:46:42not mandated as a closure day. But so, Kathleen, in this in this policy, it does it is listed here. Do we take that out? It says holidays, holiday and vacation or closure date. So I guess it doesn't have to be closure. Got it. Okay. Sorry. Thanks. Your corrected item looks great. Thank you for amending that to be accurate. Anything else, board members? Seeing as there are none, that concludes our policy study item for today. We do board members. So, looking ahead, I just love to get a sense we have our budget study and then we have exact session as far as comfort break. Do we want to wrap up budget or take a comfort break before budget? Budget. We're going to rock and roll. is Bill's. I was like, where is Bill? He's already over there. Our next item on tonight's agenda is a study item, the 2526 revised budget. Bill Sutter will present that topic.

1:47:59Good evening, President Raj Paul. Uh board members and Dr. Anderson. Uh we are in the final stages of the annual budget journey that we began about 12 months ago. uh set in motion six months ago with the start of the fiscal year and will complete about a year from now with the audit report for the current fiscal year. Colorado school budget law allows for the revision of the adopted budget after the completion of the prior fiscal year uh enrollment revenue and expenditure adjustments uh all of which are included in this budget revision. If you will recall uh the fiscal cycle video from the December 9th me 9th meeting uh at that time we were talking about next fiscal year with the budget process milestones and outlooks. Uh now we are stepping back and talking about this fiscal year with the revised budget. Uh and note the color coding in the top right corner of the slides. Uh we're trying to keep that consistent as we move through this. Here's a little uh overview of what we'll cover. uh enrollment general operating fund uh in detail. Uh other funds, these are accounting funds and notable changes within that uh strategic investments. So the strategic investments that are included uh within the revised budget uh and some comments around that and then

1:49:23next steps for enrollment. Uh as has been topic of discussion uh we are continuing to decline Uh we did come in under uh what we had originally adopted the budget in June uh and Glenn Sigru went into detail uh at the December 9th meeting uh regarding this. We're seeing uh decline across u both our general fund and our charter schools uh and then some slight adjustments in some of our non-traditional uh schools. Uh when we look at uh the grade levels in our uh traditional schools, non-charter schools, uh greater decline in the elementary grades uh than in the secondary grades, but uh certainly spread across all grades. Did that move? Yes. Uh for uh preschool, uh we have our uh students with IEPs, a little decline there. Uh some increase in the UPK program as well as the tuition students uh within the preschool program. Uh so uh some slight glimmer of hope there with uh maintaining uh overall and some slight increases.

1:50:53Uh the takeaway on this uh is declining enrollment continues to impact BBSD. Uh those larger declines at the early grades will progress through the system. Uh and impacts include the educational experience for students as well as the efficient use of resources. Moving into the into the general operating fund. Starting with the beginning balance. So this is the portion of uh the budget that is uh representative of finalizing last fiscal year. So we have our uh carryover items. These are unspent budgets from the prior fiscal year. Uh additional revenue uh for uh Medicaid funding and specific ownership tax. Uh net transfers. Uh so these these are we received more revenue in last fiscal year than we had projected in the uh adopted budget in June. So that's what these changes are. um net transfers. So, we did not have to transfer some dollars uh to other funds out of the general fund uh which uh increased the beginning balance uh for the general operating fund and then net unspent budgets in personnel and non-personnel.

1:52:12So, an increase of about uh $23 million uh 23.8 eight uh in the beginning balance on the revenue side. Uh specific ownership tax uh as uh Dr. Anderson mentioned, this is the non-equalized portion. This is the portion that is outside of the school finance act. Uh that $800,000 increase uh the total built into the budget uh for this year is uh 6.8 million. So that would be the loss uh and the reduction in funding um if that change were put into place by the legislature. Uh ongoing revenue 1.5 million. So this is the finance act. This is uh representative of that uh additional decline in students uh property taxes. So mill levy collections are a little bit down. Uh this is uh projecting the um loss of students. So this is based on the uh total program funding. So when that uh goes down a little bit, the total uh mill levy collections go down. Uh abatements which is a portion of uh property taxes. So these are a levy that we're informed of how much has been abated by the various counties.

1:53:35And so uh we don't increase the uh ongoing budget on the revenue side by the total amount uh because it can be kind of spiky from year to year. So we count this as one-time revenue uh and then uh one-time revenue also for interest earnings and uh donation from impact on education on the expenditure side. Uh so those unspent budgets that uh from last year that uh led to the increase in the beginning balance uh those are our carryover items. So we have standard carryover uh textbooks uh unspent materials adoption uh Medicaid funding which is required by law and then the school resource allocation those unspent budgets there. special carryover requests. So, these are from schools, departments, or district-wide uh activities. Uh one-time funding request for special education mental health advocates and the summer summit. Uh the mental health advocates um I believe is related to the uh donation from impact on education. Uh that ties through both on the revenue side and the expenditure side. And then uh for uh technology devices uh operations and translations uh additional one-time funding there.

1:55:09Little summary uh with the decline in students were able to uh reduce the number of FTE for instructional staff related to that October count. Uh this doesn't mean that we went in and uh uh laid people off or anything like that. There were uh staff positions FTE that were held back in the staffing process um because the the students weren't showing up uh in the beginning of the the staffing process. Uh so this is just a a recognition that uh those reserves in the staffing formula that were remaining were able to be reduced. Uh ongoing expenditures for inflation and software. Uh so ongoing changes, a reduction uh and then an increase in one-time uh additions to the budget for transfers. Uh so we have built into the budget uh a transfer of $5 million for future investment in the diff uh differentiated school support fund. Uh this will um make a the third twoyear this is a second year of the third cycle of the differentiated funding cycles that we've been doing. Uh it's kind of a mouthful to think of uh but uh we started it with a three-year cycle. We are in the second year of the second thirdyear cycle and we have funding available for the third year and two more years beyond that. So uh the

1:56:45differentiated funding program is set uh to be funded for uh several more years. Preschool funding uh there was a change in how uh CDC is funding uh preschool. So we uh that was a reduction uh in funding. So we had to increase the transfer over to the preschool fund. Um one-time expenditure uh reduction because there was a donation from uh impact on education going into uh the preschool fund uh and some adjustments in compensation in there. uh transportation. Uh this is relatively small dollar amounts uh here, but uh some reorganization due to the staffing that has been changed around in the transportation department and the state reimbursement uh going down a little bit. Uh other ongoing changes to the charter fund for uh their uh student count adjustments, the preschool and athletics. Uh and then also one time uh as we are required by contract and state statute to reconcile expenditures and what we charge uh charter schools for the services we provide. Uh we give them dollars back if we charge them too much after the reconciliation which is uh what's happening here. Uh as well as uh a little transfer into the cap reserve fund on the reserve side. Uh so we have increases in the tabor and contingency reserves at 3% and 4% respectively. As we uh add to expenditures, we have to

1:58:26add to those reserves. Uh we've added something in the budget here that's a long range planning reserve. So this is to address declining enrollment. It's $5 million. There's no identified use for it at this point in time. It's just sort of hedging on uh anything that might need to happen in the near future. Uh that we've set aside some dollars to be able to address expenses uh related to declining enrollment uh and what comes out of the long range planning process. special education staffing reserve of $2 million for uh looking at uh the needs around special education perhaps uh maintaining some of the activities that if we have done on a onetime basis this year uh pre purchased materials reserve so when we uh buy curriculum or buy software uh and pay upfront for it because the uh companies like to give us big discounts uh it's actually an accounting reserve that we have to set aside for that. Uh and then multi-year projects again as we uh plan to fund something with uh some activity or expenditure uh with one-time dollars but over the course of more than one year.

1:59:47We set those dollars aside uh in a reserve uh so that they're able to be spent uh in the future years that are part of the plan. little summary of the adopted budget from June, the changes that I just walked through and then the revised budget uh uh that's put forth. Uh there is uh an ending fund balance in the revised budget. Uh this is these are one-time dollars. These are not ongoing resources. Uh but 2.6 6 million. Uh essentially a rounding error in some of the projections. Uh when we're talking about, you know, 440 million worth of revenue or $400 million worth of expenditures uh a relatively small uh ending fund balance. The takeaway uh on this is uh the district continues to balance ongoing and one-time resource investments uh to meet student needs, operational requirements, and inflationary pressures while maintaining long-term fiscal sustainability.

2:00:59for the other funds uh on a one-time basis. Uh again, I mentioned uh these items as I was walking through the transfers uh but charter school fund so the reconciliation the preschool fund impact on education donation and adjustments for compensation uh cap reserve fund with a planned project uh and the differentiated school support fund the future investment funding uh included in the transfer on an ongoing basis. We have the charter school fund uh and the adjustments for PPR and enrollment. Uh preschool, the decreased funding from the Cdeck practice change. Athletics, uh we have a updated uh ticket sale and participation revenue projections. uh the revenue projections were uh perhaps a bit robust uh and so we had to dial the revenue back uh which was a increase in the transfer over to the athletics fund and then in transportation uh that reorganization of the positions uh that I mentioned moving into the strategic investments.

2:02:05Uh so the the important piece to capture out of this is these are the items that are in the budget that are we'll say uh easily identified. Um it's governmental accounting is not cost accounting. So um to to cost account for an account an activity um is uh difficult in an accounting structure that's built for government accounting with uh the required fields and required uh parts of the account code uh that are determined by state law. So um these are items that we have built in the budget and we can identify. Uh what these do not include are the staff time for doing the work uh other than some identified positions. So uh for example the coordinator cost is identified as a strategic investment but the school staff time is not for professional development or implementation of restorative practices. So board members, this is in response to um during last year's budget process. Uh the question was really brought up on, you know, how do we see where the dollars we're investing are impacting our strategic plan. And so this is our first attempt in order to begin to at least start to quantify those things that are easy to quantify. So you can understand that this board, previous boards, uh where investments were made that keep going, investments were made

2:03:58that were one time and run out. Uh and to Bill's point, with everybody focused on the strategic plan, we're not saying that our strategic plan investments are 400 million or 300 whatever million. uh we're just trying to quantify this for you all and for our public to let them know how we've invested dollars strategically to get the results we're getting. So this is new, this is different. I want to appreciate Bill and our team to begin to try to put this together for you all. And certainly if there's any questions, we're happy to answer those. But that's why this is coming forward in response to um some requests to let Rob, let's look at, you know, what it is that we're actually doing here with the strategic plan and and our budget. And to clarify, these investments have already been made or dollars have been set aside. So, they're included in the previous portion of they're included in the budget this year. It's not what we spent last year on a onetime basis. These are 2627 numbers updated as of the revised budget, but these are not all brand new investments we're making right now.

2:05:04These were investments that were previously made. Yeah. With the with adjustments to some of the one time because of the the shift of the 5 million to the weighted differentiated funding is reflected in here. Yep. Can I get a drum roll? Okay. So uh the weighted and differentiated funding um program that we have in place is very easy to identify because it is a separate accounting fund. So uh it's pretty straightforward. Um but we have the 5.2 million that is included for this current year's expenditures as well as the 21 million uh that is for the future years. uh the UVA um professional learning e something that one um uh cohorts um again these are these are doesn't include the time of everybody that's that's working on this but these are the the contract with UVA uh the travel expenses things like that the strategic plan support team uh which is again continuing out uh in future future years. Uh mental health advocates. Uh there are ongoing dollars uh in the general fund for that as well as uh a little bit for the um I believe the the 200,000 one time is the wellness centers.

2:06:37Uh CTE programming again ongoing funding for our uh CTE programming. uh dual immersion as we've expanded that uh and the families and educators together uh teams the ongoing expenditures for that uh the wellness rooms are here not in the either uh the past one. Uh so this is the uh uh funding from impact on education for the wellness rooms uh curriculum. So, we have a $2 million that is in the ongoing budget for curriculum and then the 9 million is one-time funding that's in the current budget this year. Uh restorative practices, assessments, MTSS, and professional development. Uh these are all ongoing activities uh within the general operating fund. Before you move on, Bill, just would love to highlight for the board and for our public the significant additional investments we've made into curriculum where our ongoing budget is really only $2 million a year. And so we've leveraged fund balance one-time dollars over time to make significant progress in um in updating the highquality instructional materials that our teachers need to make a difference with our students. and board members, you've seen over the years, for those of you who have been on the board, we've used this money to accelerate some of our pro uh the middle school math curriculum that we accelerated. And I think that, you know, we've seen really great

2:08:11results coming out of middle school math for the first time in a long time. Um, you know, our new math instructional materials in elementary school, the new science of reading materials and and and literacy materials in elementary in in elementary. uh this if you were to compare our budgets to other districts, where is it that we've traditionally spent less? It's in curriculum and we've really changed that. And so uh just wanted to highlight that as I think what is a significant um investment that we've made that is changing the the teaching and learning conditions in our district. Moving on to next steps. Uh so we have the budget adoption scheduled for the next board meeting on the 27th. Uh adjustments can be made to the budget uh up to June 30th. Uh was it with additional information uh if there was some uh big revenue stream that miraculously came in uh the board could adopt that uh as a budget adjustment uh with that new information. Uh and uh again revenue changes, unexpected expenditures. Uh and then there's also the possibility of additional transfers uh to other funds. If there are uh some activities that happen in another accounting fund that were uh required to to do, uh we'll bring that forward as a an authorization uh for an additional u

2:09:39budget change if needed. The end. Thank you for that presentation, Bill. Board members, questions or comments on the revised budget? Dr. Anderson, I I just want to give kudos to our academics team. Um, I would say that as we began to adjust practices due to declining enrollment, um, our team made some really difficult decisions to not, um, respond to, uh, what folks thought the numbers were going to be, but only allocated staff to the students who showed up. And so as you saw where when Bill showed um you know because of the the decrease in students based on um the number of students we lost over projection. It was just a financial transaction. We didn't have to cover those expenses of people that we had hired with one-time dollars which is what we've done in the past. Uh so it's to the tune of um almost $2 million, we were able to uh really tighten up some of our staffing because because typically what had happened is schools begin to ask, hey, listen, we think these kids are going to show. Just give us the money so we can hire somebody, but they'll show then they don't show. So then we have to shift those one those ongoing expenditures to one-time expenditures.

2:11:15And then you endate those positions at the end of the year, which looks and feels like cuts of people even though we're um actually hanging on to folks we probably didn't need in the first place. And so I would say that that's something that I'd want to highlight that our team I think did a really good job with. And that's not easy and takes a lot of work and a lot of conversation. So uh kudos to the team on on creating efficiencies that uh um to the tune of $2 million. Piggybacking that a little bit, I just also want to highlight our investments in the strategic plan are paying off in dividends. And it takes all of us to really be focused on supporting with dollars that strategic plan and really not getting sidetracked in where we're spending money, but really being committed to supporting the work of the strategic plan first and foremost. And so I think continuing that effort is going to continue to pay off for our students and for our staff. And so just kudos to everybody that allows that continue to happen over the past couple years. Alex, yeah, I want to follow on to that and say thank you very much, Bill, and your team for this presentation and and in particular for the strategic investment

2:12:33portion. It's one of the things I was really curious to see and I'm delighted to see not just the transparency about it but the scale of it and how much it reflects our priorities. So, I know budgets are full of numbers and in our case full of hundreds of pages, but they really are a reflection of values and I think that fact that we are valuing the things we do to increase performance and outcomes for kids shows up in our budget and it's great that we can talk to it, understand it, and as board members know how to protect and safeguard and continue it uh because our budget issues will only be more complicated going forward with the context that we're in. Um, so thank you very much. Uh I a couple um I would like to point out one little tiny thing in there. I think the smallest item in the whole strategic plan investment is the UVA program that we now are mostly sort of brought in house and aren't really using UVA anymore. That was only 0.1. So if if it's really a great program, which I believe it actually is and is quite transformative for the folks who are in it, maybe we shouldn't always out we shouldn't try to bring it in-house and that an ongoing partnership with UVA is

2:13:38not outside our means. And I'd be curious to uh know maybe what Robin or others would think about uh continuing to rely more on the partnership rather than the decision to bring more of it in house as one question. So, so that does not capture all the money we've already spent. So, uh, for seven years we've been sending cohorts. And I do think that, um, that every time we feel like it makes sense to send folks to UVA, we do. And so, we're not we're not trying to save money by doing some, but scaling some of the practices in house, I think, has been an effective practice. But uh to your point and for any districts out there watching uh it this is a very affordable smart thing to do when you think about adopting best practices and scaling them and turning around schools.

2:14:30Uh but do appreciate that and um uh I do think that we've sent a good chunk of our our our central office staff has been uh I know at least 10 principles and their teacher leaders and administrators have been uh and so uh but it's something I believe wholeheartedly in and uh and appreciate you lifting that up and uh a wise investment for sure. I would also like to start by thanking um Bill and the staff for putting this together and for really emphasizing the strategic investments. Um I I think it was useful to understand that this is above and beyond staff, right? this is a which is a bulk of our budget and that we're investing in the things that are part of strategic plan and are really focused on addressing the needs of our most vulnerable students and that these commitments are now and ongoing right and that we need to continue this work over the years to come. But you focusing on our mental health uh as students who through differentiated funding um you know thinking about the pathways after students leave the district um engaging in the focus on curriculum and MTSS. I think these are the it's a valuable change that we've been working on the last five years or I guess eight years

2:15:53now. It goes quickly but that we need to kind of keep that focus on moving forward. So I really appreciate seeing that here above and beyond kind of what we've already invested. So, thank you. Um, on an on on a different issue, I just wanted to um call out uh is the slide on the UPK stuff. One of the issues I've been concerned about and tracking over the last few years is the proportion of our students with disabilities that are in our uh preschool. And a couple of years ago, I believe we're up over almost 42% um of the students in the preschool programs that had disabilities, which starts to get to a point that kind of makes sense in a small program that is driven by special ed, but starts undermining uh least restrictive environment requirements and is problematic in general. So, I'm really delighted to see those ratios getting back towards um uh places that safeguard least restrictive environment and get below closer to 35%.

2:16:50And it'd be great if that could continue moving downward and not because we're serving fewer students with disabilities, but because we're creating a context where all kids can learn and we're making a supportive environment for everybody as UPK has had a chance to expand. So, I'm delighted to see the trend and I'd like to continue tracking that. Board members, any other thoughts or questions? I look forward to hearing how for the next year's budget we can continue to make those strategic investments happen. Thank you, Bill, for a very thorough presentation. Board members, we are now moving on to future agenda requests portion of this evening's agenda. I know we are doing board prioritization next week, but if there are any items board members would like to consider for prioritization for fall of 2026, now is the time when you can add those to the list. Deian, I'd like to make sure that we put priority on reviewing policy GBA, which is defines a conflict of interest uh for staff. Uh there's been some um confusion about what that really means for teachers and principles, and I'd like to see us clarify that policy.

2:18:22Anything else, board members? It's hard to know. We have a long list next week. It's hard to know what's going to make it, what's not. So, um, we will continue to work through those agenda requests as meetings continue. Last item of business, as noted on our agenda, is executive session. Is there a motion for the board to convene in an executive session? Anna I, Anna De Muading, make a motion pursuant to Colorado Revised Statute 244024B to convene into executive session to receive legal advice regarding the board's policy LBD regarding charter schools and charter school renewal applications submitted by Horizon's and Summit and to receive legal advice on current and potential litigation involving civil rights, teacher dismissals, and insurance claims. Board members, there a second. Seconded by Jorge. Laura, can you please call the role? Booker, yes.

2:19:26Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Lenoa, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Tamuading, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. This concludes our public portion of tonight's business agenda. Board members, we will convene in the glacier room. public. Good night.