Transcript

0:14:25I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education for Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. Board members may attend and participate in meetings remotely in accordance with BVSD policy and state law. Chris, can you please call the roll? Butcher? Here. Chavez? Here. Medler? Here. Clennon-Awuah? Here. Rajpal? Here. Timu Now, I'd like to encourage everyone to turn their attention to the screens for our land acknowledgement this evening. The Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral homeland and unjustly and illegally taken territory of the Ute, Pueblo, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations historically tied to this land who have called this land home since time immemorial. We acknowledge the atrocities committed here, including the painful history of genocide, forced assimilation, and efforts to alienate the indigenous inhabitants from their homeland supported by the policies of the United States government.

0:15:59BVSD is aware of the many indigenous peoples past and present and their dignified nations and cultures who care for this land with strength and resilience. BVSD recognizes the histories of the land in Colorado and the survival of many nations that carried their oral traditions into the present. It is BVSD's responsibility to educate ourselves, our community, and our students so that we can embrace the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples and actively stand together to address injustices. In offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm and honor the history, wisdom, oral traditions, and resilience of indigenous people and recognize the responsibility to care for and appreciate this land together. I'd like to remind everybody that the mission of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging, meaningful, and engaging learning opportunities so that all children thrive and are prepared for successful, civically engaged lives. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us here in person and remotely. We're glad to have you observe and participate in our meetings. At this time, is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda?

0:17:15Moved by Jorge, seconded by Anna. Chris, can you please call the roll? Butcher? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan-O'Aida? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Timu-Oading? Yes. Motion passes. Next up on our agenda this evening is a superintendent's report. Dr. Anderson, good evening. Good evening, Board President Rajpal, board members. Good to see you all. Um queue up the pomp and circumstance. It's time to celebrate the class of 2026. Uh starting on Friday, we all have graduates from our 12 high schools as well as our Transitions Center, and we'll be taking part in commencement ceremonies. Board members, I know you'll be joining me at many of those events. Uh for those in our community, you can find the details on our graduation page at www.bvsd.org/graduations, and congratulations to the class of 2026. Board members, we actually started uh celebrating this past weekend. Uh BVSD proudly celebrated the achievements of our Native American Alaskan Native 2026 graduates at the Title VI Graduate Honoring Ceremony right here at the Ed Center. It's a thoughtful ceremony complete with traditional dance, food, and community. Congrats to I believe we have nine graduates that were celebrated, um and congratulations to their families.

0:18:41Another sign of the season is School Food Project's annual plant sale. Didn't have a chance to shop for your garden staples? Be sure to stop by this Friday and Saturday at the BVSD greenhouse located right between the Culinary Center and our Apex Campus here on the Ed Center campus on Arapahoe Road in East Boulder. Whether you're looking for flowers, fruits, or veggies, or some great soil from the Panya Soil Company, we've got you covered. Learn more at food.bvsd.org/plantsale. Last Friday was a big milestone. Boulder High School marked 150 years in serving our community. It was a great night and a powerful reminder of what makes Boulder High so special, including its amazing history. Take a look at these photos from over the years. Boulder High started as the prep school at the University of Colorado. It was actually based in Old Main on campus.

0:19:36Current building was built back in the 1930s. And over the years, they've had some remarkable alumni that I'll list out while you're looking at students from over the years. Project Mercury astronaut Scott Scott Carpenter was in the class of 1943. Former University of Colorado Athletic Director Mike Bohn graduated from Boulder High in 1979. Former State Senate President, State Representative, and Colorado Attorney General Morgan Carroll was in the class of 1990. The founder and former CEO of Chipotle restaurants was a Boulder High grad, as was Sports Illustrated and ESPN columnist Rick Reilly. And Boulder County Judge David Archuleta, who spoke on Friday night. But Peggy Cop Copham from the class of '42 stole the show. Before becoming a CU super fan, she was a Boulder High cheerleader and helped to lead the crowd in some chance.

0:20:35With a B, with an O, with a U, L, D, E, R. With a B, with an A, with an N, T, H, E, R. Boulder and the team fight. Victory is in team's right. Boulder panthers fight fight fight. How great is that? Thanks to Congressman Neguse, Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett, State Board of Education member Kathy Gebhardt, and all of our board members and everyone else who came out to help us celebrate this milestone. Finally, board members, we just want to remind our community, everyone in our community, to participate in the Resilience School Survey. It's open until next Sunday, May 17th. So, if you haven't participated, please do. Only takes about 5 minutes and will help us gather insight regarding the values and priorities of our community before we begin to develop a plan for the board to consider. All survey results and the feedback from the recent community engagement sessions will presented to the Board of Education during a report scheduled on Tuesday, June 9th.

0:21:28Board members, those are our remarks for this evening. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you for that, Dr. Anderson. Board members, any questions or comments? Watching the Peggy chair really was a highlight at that anniversary. Seeing as there are no questions or comments, uh we will now move on to public participation. The board respects the right of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of our schools. The board does not endorse the comments of individual participants and remind all those who speak that you're responsible for ensuring your remarks are suitable for an audience of uh that includes kindergarten through 12th graders. Furthermore, this is an opportunity for the board to hear from our constituents. It's not a time for the board to engage with or react to speakers' remarks. Speakers will each have 2 minutes to speak. You will see a yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining.

0:22:15And a uh orange card when you have 10 seconds remaining. If you run out of time or like to share additional feedback, you may always email the board if you haven't already. With that, we will start kick off this evening with Duke, I'm going to apologize in advance. Duke Tuitele? Tuitele. Just push the little button. Uh you should see a green light on the microphone when it's on. Okay. Um hello, everyone. My name is Duke Tuitele and I'm currently a sophomore at Boulder High School. I've come to the board meeting today in order to discuss the enforcement of the current land acknowledgement at all BVSD school events. I believe this is the first step in establishing a greater support for different cultures within our community, creating a safe space for all students, as well as bringing indigenous related topics to current discussions.

0:23:26School events also provide an opportunity to reach a larger audience and raise greater awareness to respect and just indigenous communities that were historically oppressed and still experience the impacts of this today. Other schools in Colorado, such as Legacy High School and Mountain Range High School, include a land acknowledgement at all school events like sports games. I believe schools in BVSD, like Boulder High School, should be required to mention a land land acknowledgement in order to to support indigenous peoples within our community. Now, I've researched the history of the land acknowledgement um, within the district and I found that we do have a really impressive one that you guys probably heard earlier. Um, but it is not implemented within the schools and prior to reading it on the website and listening to the video, I haven't heard of it before, which makes me question why a school district has a land acknowledgement that isn't even recognized at the schools.

0:24:24I believe the solution to this problem is very simple and with the imple- implement- mention um, of the land acknowledgement at all school events, people will be will become more aware of the indigenous culture and land that all school schools operate on. Good. I am Odin Young and I will be speaking about the um open enrollment and the like priority enrollment at Summit. I'm currently an eighth grader at Summit. Going into middle school and transitioning is a really difficult. It's hard to make friends and find a community you are a part of. But when you have a sibling who has already gone to the school, it makes it much easier to get those connections. For me, because my brother was at Summit, I was able to connect more with teachers and students who already knew him.

0:25:28My uh teams that I was part of already knew him and liked me because of him. So, when you have a sibling at school, you don't have to spend your time in middle school worrying about whether you can find friends or a community to fit in and you already have like your people. I've also seen this happen with my uh sister. She has made connections with siblings of my friends, kids who, if Summit wasn't an option, wouldn't probably go to the same middle school as her because they all live in different areas. Because they are coming to Summit, they already have a built-in community before they even start. My sister has also come to concerts, games, and uh my Pinnacle Night, and walked around the school, and she really feels a part of that community and like it's her school already even though she's not in that school.

0:26:19Um because of those things, she already is like part of it. And she has a sense of security going into a new place where she where other people wouldn't necessarily have that, and it really sets um kid up for academic success. Um that's why I believe that the policy that uh people with um like um brothers or siblings that already graduated should get like priority enrollment in Summit. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is August Hirschfield. Hold on 1 second. We'll pull out a little step stool for you. Okay. Hi, my name is August Hirschfield. Please don't change the rules. I want to go to the same middle school as my older sister. Thank you. Thank you, August. Hello. My name is Zephyr Anderson, and I'm a seventh grader at Summit Middle School. Please do not remove the student graduate sibling preference. I, along with my family, was selected to join Summit through the lottery process. We, me, my little brother, and my parents, were all so excited when we found out because it wasn't just me that got in.

0:28:13It was my whole family. Summit became my family's neighborhood school. I love Summit, and I want my brother to have the same opportunities as I have had at Summit. My brother, who's in fourth grade, would be directly and negatively impacted by this change. Over the last 2 years, he has sat at the dinner table and heard about my classes, my teachers, my electives, and my tests. All of the sentiment I have shared is helping him get prepared for when he gets to Summit. After my sixth grade year at Summit, my grandma donated money to the school to help fund the building of the new wing because she believed that it would benefit not just me, but my younger brother, too. Now, me, and hopefully my brother, will get to walk past a brick with my our family's name on it every day.

0:28:58I know equity matters to BVSD. Equity within families is just as important as equity between families. Every family should have the same opportunity in the lottery. Robbing my brother of the promise to get the same opportunity that I had is wrong. I hope you honor your commitment to the Summit families and keep within family equity strong by maintaining the Summit graduate sibling preference. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Zephyr. Our next speaker this evening is Allison Sosa. Hi. Um my name is Allison Sosa. I'm parent of a student at Gold Hill Elementary, and I also have questions about increasing enrollment, although I realize won't get answers here. Um at least not right now. Um but I noticed that so I believe the district has two enrollment programs right now, one focused on resilient schools, another focused on the showcase.

0:30:06Um but I didn't find any other programs that were geared towards increasing enrollment, and even pulling from two neighboring districts that are arguably larger, uh and aren't distinguished uh like the Boulder district is. Um theoretically, we should have all the pull in the world to get students from those districts to increase our enrollment. Um but I was also told that we're not accepting students outside of the open enrollment window, which I think we're getting closer to that goal given um that let's see. And 2020, what was the data for? 2022, we enrolled 541 students outside the window, 361 inside the window. In 2023, we enrolled 486 students outside the enrollment window and 354 inside the window. And then in 2024, we enrolled 352 students outside the enrollment window and only 257 inside the enrollment window. So, I was just wondering uh how we could work on increasing that and also how we could clarify guidance on when students are accepted.

0:31:23There is public data on many of the enrollment pieces except for applications versus denials, which is interesting to me as well. Um, so I just wanted to find out if we could have more information. I also didn't hear back from the superintendents on this as well. Uh, in one of to see like I would literally volunteer for a program. Uh, to increase enrollment. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Stacy Proctor. Stacy does not appear to be present and she's is she she's not noted as virtual. Is she online? No. We'll move on to Lyle Stannard. Hello, my name is Lyle Stannard. I've been working with BVSD transportation for 12 years. For the last 6 years, I have been a dispatch helper. A little while ago, I was informed that my position is being eliminated.

0:32:30I understand and respect that the district has weighed and measured the decisions that it makes, but But like to point out why a dispatch helper is still needed at least a little longer. I work at the Lafayette terminal where we supply busing for 23 general ed routes and 34 special education routes. All of the special education routes are more frequent to call the terminal in case they are ill, have appointments, need extra minutes to get to the bus, all of which uh dispatch handles these calls with customer service. And smile uh a additional calls over the phone. Over the next year, the amount of transition kids will be increasing from 63 to over 70, increasing the amount of still yet more need in the office assistance. Finally, I have I personally have um become the terminal bus charge assistant. The Lafayette terminal supports 10 of the 12 electric buses. I understand the the uh district is very proud of uh its electric fleet. With only six working high-efficient I have a organized, coordinated, and scheduled drivers to charge in different times making sure that buses are ready to go.

0:33:44I simply like to propose a 2-year extension so that my position can make with all the challenges uh that are the challenges that are manageable and that we get over the uh the the hump until it's able to be resolved. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Crystal Chin on behalf of the BBSC Community Coalition. Our coalition continues to grow. Families and educators across 21 schools are still coming to us not just with past experiences but with current ones. I want to be clear about what that means in real time. Families are pulling their children out of this district right now. Others are desperate to leave, but don't know how to educate their children safely outside of it. They are stuck. Weighing their child's safety against their families' resource and resources and options.

0:34:54We cannot share the details of these situations publicly because these families fear retaliation. That fear is not abstract. It is grounded in what they have watched happen to others who spoke up. That is what it looks like when a district polices itself and is and consistently finds no wrongdoing. Families don't get resolution. They get a choice between silence and leaving. We have heard that independent oversight isn't possible. We want this board to know that Cherry Creek School District, right here in Colorado, has issued an RFP for independent third-party review of its operational practices. It can be done. It is being done in this state right now. We are still asking this board the same question we've been asking since February. Will you commit to independent oversight of student safety investigations? Families are still waiting for an answer. Children are getting hurt now.

0:35:56It is not okay. Hear us and please respond. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Katie David. Hello. Good evening. I'm here to uh request uh support for the draft academic calendars for um 26-27 and 27-28. Um I'm sorry, 27-28 and 28-29. Um On behalf of BVA, we request you to support the draft academic calendars of 27-28 and 28-29. We feel that the stakeholder meetings were conducted in a way that enabled rich discussion and thoughtful consideration of the many and varied stakeholders' perspectives. Particularly, we support the return of the spring compensation days April. We also believe the professional development days \{slash\} teacher work days are strategically placed to the best um possible uh places to ensure participation in professional development, and this is also a shared interest between BVA and BVSD. Um we request that you discuss this this evening and honor the work that was done by our calendar committee, particularly Robin Fernandez, and the great work that she's been doing all this time.

0:37:35Thank you for your support. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Peter Young. Peter Young. We'll come back to you after this one then. Good evening. President Rajpal and members of the board, uh my name is Barry Hirschfeld. I'd first just like to thank you all for your public service. We know what it means to take your time and serve our community like this, and we appreciate it. I'm here to talk about my family. My daughter is just going to start going to Summit Middle School in the fall, and we received the pretty shocking news today um from the school that the open enrollment policy was going to be changed. Um as you just heard from my 8-year-old, um and you can see my 5-year-old, we're really a proud BVSD family. We believe in public education.

0:39:00And I'm here to strongly oppose the proposal to remove that uh sibling graduate open enrollment preference for Summit. For 30 years, the policy has existed to keep families together. Middle school is a brief 3-year window. Because of their age gaps, my youngest two children, who you see sitting over here, will not overlap concurrently with my oldest daughter. Um and we made a long-term um educational plan for our family based on this 30-year agreement. And now, without consulting the Summit board, uh you're proposing a change that change that really pulls the rug out from our family and I think approximately 150 other families. So, it's a pretty big impact in the community. And it really penalizes children for being more than 3 years apart from their siblings. Um and just in terms of precedent, you don't force this type of family separation in elementary schools, high schools, or neighborhood middle school schools.

0:40:00And it really is fundamentally inequitable to force it on Summit families now. Um so, we hope that you will change your mind and stick to the 30 years of track record, the great track record that we have with Summit. Um please do not break the trust of our community. Trust is fragile. It's easily broken and it takes years to get back. We believe in BVSD. I think everyone here believes in BVSD. We want to stay here. Uh, thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Peter, you're back up. I apologize. No worries. Good evening. Uh, my name is Peter Young. Uh, and as we discuss the Summit enrollment policy, I ask that we're guided by a single principle, the best interest of our children. When we talk about sibling priority, the conversation tends to drift towards the convenience of transportation and the logistics of a family schedule.

0:41:09But for those of us rooted within the school, those are secondary concerns. The real value is the consistency, the stability, and the sense of belonging that a school community provides to a child. For my youngest daughter, Tegan, Summit isn't a choice on the form, it's her home. She has grown up on the sidelines of the ultimate frisbee games. She has been to every robotics competition and band performance. She knows the hallways, the teachers, and the culture. She already sees herself as part of this place. To tell a child who has spent years building that belonging that she is now a stranger to her brother's school ignores everything that our schools are really meant to be. We've been part of the Summit community for over 6 years. We believe in this community. We see the value it creates when families are fully rooted in it.

0:42:08We have moved our home closer to Summit. We've invested our time and our resources to keep it thriving for every student that follows us. To unilaterally dissolve the 30-year agreement of continuity is more than just a policy shift. It's a breach of trust. It overrides the local expertise of the Summit board and tells the families who have treated the district as a partner that really the partnership is only one way. I urge you to prioritize the interest of our children, honor the connection that they built, honor the consistency that leads to their success. Please keep our families together and keep the sibling graduate preference at Summit alive. Thank you. Thank you. I'm being conscious of waiting for the clapping to cease. Matthew Flynn is our next speaker this evening. Thank you. Matthew Flynn, three children BVSD, 10th and Monarch, 8th at Summit, 4th at SES. So, 11 years in, eight to go. Thank you very much.

0:43:24We've had a good run and hope to continue. Also speaking at Summit tonight and taking different approach. A lot of great a lot of great comments, but one the board really should consider is the fact that by eliminating the sibling admission rule immediately following a privately funded in parts project to that school, you're creating a significant potential legal exposure under promissory estoppel. And what I mean by that is many families, my family included, donated money to this with the understanding that not only was it going to be the right thing to do, but our other children, our younger children, would benefit from this as well. We we relied on that promise. It was marketed as that. And that's not a knock on the current team at the school. They're just as blindsided as everybody else about this.

0:44:19They're doing a great job. But we relied on that, much to our detriment. And so for for this to happen, for this change in policy to occur, like 3 months after the paint dried on the walls, um if this does go forward, that's that to me is an ethical breach, and it's also a potential breach under promissory estoppel. Thank you. Hello. My name is Pamela Genross, another Summit parent here. Um I have also three kiddos at BVSD. One in elementary, one in middle school at Summit, and one at Fairview. Um so like my predecessors have said before, like um this has blindsided us. We've had some long-term planning um into the education of our children, and we have built relationships with the staff, and with the teachers, and with our communities, our frisbee teams, and uh others. And actually you've already met some parents of some fourth graders. Mine is a fourth grader, too, and we were hoping that we would all meet back together at Summit.

0:45:43Um so I'd like you to reconsider um uh this new rule. And also I think the timing is kind of a little bit off here because uh our youngest goes to Flatirons Elementary, one of the schools that is potentially being affected by closures um due to uh low open low enrollment and so we are already all on edge to see what happens and sure you guys are too so this is just adding another you know point of stress to our lives so thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Megan Dawson Schwartz. Hi, I'm Maisie Schwartz. I'm a fourth grader at Bear Creek Elementary School and I think that it's not fair that me and other kids can't go to the same school as our siblings just because we won't be there at the same time. I've seen my sister and her friends do so much fun stuff like beast days and take fun classes and it's sad that other kids won't be able to do that.

0:46:58I've always wanted to go to Summit so please reconsider removing sibling preference. Maisie has been planning and sorry and counting on attending Summit ever since we came off the waitlist with her older sister and it would be heartbreaking not to have give her this opportunity. We're part of the Summit community. We've made friends here. We donate our time and our money to the school and Maisie's been following along all the way. Removing sibling preference suddenly doesn't seem fair, equitable or reasonable. Why would we start this social experiment amidst declining enrollment and risk alienating families already living here? Please reconsider. Thank you. Mary, I'm going to miss out on pronouncing this, Chung. Hello. Uh, my comment is regarding BVSD's plan to remove the Summit sibling graduate open enrollment preference policy. Um, if BVSD wants Summit to be a touch-and-go community, um, this is how you make it happen. One where there's taking but little giving back.

0:48:27So, we all know that Summit is an amazing school. And right now, Summit has a blend of families, some who are happy to take what Summit has to give, um, and just leaving it at that. And then you have families that have built-in motivation to care about Summit's long-term success. Um, these are the families like mine that have kids at Summit, see how great it is, don't take for granted that Summit needs family supporting its success, and are willing to put in the work because we have another kiddo that will be attending in the future. I, for example, have invested over 30 hours of volunteer time to Summit in 2026 so far. This balance in the types of families at Summit seems to be working great. All students benefit. Uh, Summit student who I would not have known but for my volunteering told my daughter that I was g o a t d, goated, because of some volunteer work I had done.

0:49:26And I'm so glad she had a good experience. And when students thrive, Summit thrives, BVSD benefits, and the larger community, such as even homeowners, benefit, of which I am one as well. Summit, uh, with the change that BVSD is making, you're disturbing this balance. You're excising the group, this second group of families, from even existing. And to what advantage? I have heard of nothing except alignment with the open enrollment policy that has not been required of Summit for 30 years. Thank you. Our remaining speakers this evening are virtual. The first of which, and I'm going to apologize for the pronunciation again, is Yoav Lurie. Hi. Good evening. My name is Can you hear me? Yes. Great. My name is Yoav Lurie. I'm a parent of a sixth grader at Summit Middle School and a third grader at Foothill Elementary. While I've lived in Boulder for 15 years, up until this year, both of our kids were in private school in Boulder. When our daughter got into Summit through the lottery, we did something we hadn't planned on doing. We explored BVSD.

0:50:39And we liked what we saw. So much that we pulled both of our kids out of a private school. Our daughter went to Summit and our son joined Foothill. If it weren't for Summit, our family would not be in BVSD today. The district gained two students because of Summit's community and its enrollment promise. And what a Summit family we've become. Specifically, our third grader is already a Summit kid in every way but grade. He went to the school play on Friday night and his sister wasn't even in it. He and I cooked together at the new food lab after I bid on a cooking class at the Summit auction. He cheers his sister on at basketball and ultimate frisbee. And I think he's got more friends there than she does sometimes. He talks about Summit like it's his school already and he's convinced that's where he's going.

0:51:26He does that because that's what we've told him and he does that because that's what you've told him with a district policy for over 30 years. Under the proposed change, he loses sibling priority. He'll still enter the lottery and will hope and pray that he gets in, but if he doesn't, like 150 other families, we'll have a choice to make and we will probably choose to leave the district and go back to private school. Here's what I want the board to sit with. My son's only failing under this proposal is that he and his sister are 3 years apart instead of 2. If he were in fourth grade today, he'd have priority. But because he's a third grader, he won't. That's not a policy distinction grounded in equity and educational value. That's not taking kids first. That's an arbitrary line that punishes families based on birth spacing.

0:52:16Our family committed to BVSD based on an agreement. Changing that agreement now breaks trust with families you most want to keep. So, I beg you, I ask you, and please keep the Summit sibling preference in place. Thank you. Who is in person, not virtual. Yeah, I decided to show up. Um hello, everybody. My name is Boya Deng, and I have a upcoming sixth graders at Summit Middle School. And then, the reason I'm here today is to ask politely ask you to do not remove the Summit graduate sibling preference because it's such a awesome policies. It's connects the family together at our community, especially Summit. And then, it is Summit's Board of Directors who should be responsible for school operations, including the open enrollment preference policies. And then, we understand that Summit is also part of BVSD.

0:53:27But Summit is also unique because it's a charter school run and run by parents and then also the school Board of Directors. So, we back you. Please do not remove these unique characters for characteristics of Summit. And secondly, I think as parents mentioned that we want to keep a very very close communities within Summit. And then by removing the Summit graduate sibling preference, it will this action will um break the trust of the families who were following the BVSD agreements that their siblings will be able to attend. Again, I think removing this um sibling preference policy is a punishment for kiddos that's were three more than three years apart. So, um please reconsider keeping the Summit graduate graduate sibling preference policy. Thank you. Thank you. Our final speaker this evening is Mercedes Gitter, Good evening. My name is Mercedes Gitter.

0:54:45I am a proud parent at Summit Charter Middle School. I'm here this evening to share a concern about BVSD's non-concurrent open enrollment sibling preference policy change, also known as sibling graduate preference. As a choice-based school with a 3-year enrollment period, the loss of this preference will present challenges to maintaining strong community continuity for Summit and has a significant negative impact on low-income ELL, RFL, and other disadvantaged families. These families take a longer period of time to engage with the community, staff, and teachers. Removing this continuity is exclusionary and will harm these members of our community the hardest. I want to highlight the importance of extended parent and teacher relationships. Parents who spend more years with the school become more invested and comfortable. As you've heard from others this evening, improving teacher-parent relationships, engaging in events, and supporting the school.

0:56:15Teachers who know families for longer periods provide more tailored support, particularly to families who take time to acclimate. The district focuses on providing a safe, inclusive, and personalized learning experience, ensuring that societal inequities and unique learning needs will not be barriers to student success. This change in enrollment will present a large barrier for student learning at Summit for families who need the most support. I urge you not to change the open enrollment sibling graduate preference for Summit Charter Middle School. Thank you. Thank you. This concludes today's public participation. On behalf of the board, I want to thank everybody who took the time to show up tonight to share your thoughts and experiences, along with those that have participated online. We'll now move on to board communication. Board members, who would like to begin? Wow, it's a busy month.

0:57:24Um I want to share with you that I got to attend a couple of uh great events. One was I got to go to the Title VI um celebration of graduates. And I was so happy that I had chosen that, not knowing that I was going to see hoop dancers, and I was going to hear music, and I was going to eat home-cooked um native foods, and it was a tremendous event. But as a board member, I have to celebrate something that I never saw in the time that I was a teacher. And that is one of those Native American students was a National Merit Scholar. Two of them had GPAs over a 4.0. And all of the students received a lanyard that celebrated their heritage to wear at graduation for having a 3.0 or higher.

0:58:24These are statistics that just didn't happen 10 or 15 years ago. And um I was duly impressed with all of the students and the families that I got to meet that night. It was a beautiful event. Sign up for that one next year. Um the second thing that I got to do is I got to go to the um AI uh meeting, teacher meeting. It had shrunk a little bit, and I think that's just cuz people are so uh busy, but we had some really great discussions about some of the legal changes that are happening in the AI landscape and how that might affect the work that teachers do. Um and um it was um inspiring to see that that the conversation had elevated beyond what we had started with about how do we use this? That was where it started, and now we're really talking about policy, and we're talking about legal ramifications of our kids using AI in school and what that means. So, it was a good meeting and I look forward to getting to meet with those folks again next next year.

0:59:37They did um ask me to um advocate for a the that committee becoming actually an advisory committee, a technology advisory committee to the superintendent. And that's a message I'll pass along to you. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Anybody else? Anna. Thank you. I also had the privilege of attending uh several events. Uh one of them being um the 150th anniversary of uh Boulder High School. I had the great privilege of going with my cousin who graduated there in 1999. Um and we got to roam the hallways. She got to tell me their senior traditions that she hopes that they still uh partake in today. Uh one of which is that they throw all of their uh school assignments over the balconies in that little center quad, which I would love to see sometime. Um but it was overall such a great event to see um so much history uh coming out of that building. Um so, it was a really really fantastic uh way to connect to um to the history there. Uh second, I did attend uh a parent meeting uh with several parents that are inside of our uh bilingual uh schools. And uh their biggest uh communication to me was just ensuring that um one, we are prioritizing uh our bilingual education in the the through our declining enrollment, um but

1:01:23also being aware of the intentionality of getting Spanish-speaking parents as inputs into the survey that is going around. Um and so uh to them I did commit that I would convey to the board um to uh the superintendent and um the rest of the administration that we um or that they really want to make sure that we are with the time that we have, um we are just pushing as much as we can for that participation from our Spanish-speaking parents. Um and then uh finally, um let's see, what did I have? Uh I had just an amazing meeting this week uh and I was just very impressed um with Rob and and all of the the uh directors um primarily around um the district's immigration response. Uh we came earlier this year um together with parents and a local nonprofit, El Centro Amistad, and they came up with a list of several different things that they thought that the uh school district should prioritize, uh and I've gotten feedback from the parents and from um that nonprofit of just how um how welcoming and how much in partnership they feel with the district.

1:02:48Um a lot of the things that they sent over um were very were very uh low-hanging fruits, some are a little bit more uh tricky than than the others than the other things, but they just felt really listened to. Um the the resources that are coming out for our teachers and our parents, um they're very excited to to see and continue to see, um and afterwards, after our meeting and before before the meeting ended, just seeing um the different facets of the district and how how intentional you're being in responding and thinking through uh your own policies within your own departments um was just really something that doesn't happen every day at different um government entities. So, I was really happy, really um really proud um to have been in that building or in that meeting. And then leaving it, uh again, I was talking to the co-director of El Centro Amistad, and just what a night and day shift it has been um to have the the partnership um that they do have with the district now. Um and they're excited for that continuing partnership to grow and to continue to to go on several years. Um And it was really nice to to to see and to hear all of the things that the district is doing um for our

1:04:16kiddos, for our parents, um for our folks in our community in general. And it again, it just made me very very proud of everyone that is here and the intentionality that you're all putting into and that you are listening and that you are taking action um to make sure that all of our kiddos um especially uh those that have immigrant backgrounds feel welcomed and safe in our district. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Uh thank you Anna for raising the the important issues and uh I want to echo those sentiments. I I know it's a lot of uncertainty right now, a lot of fear in the community. So, um I know that the district's working very hard. I also want to use that as a jumping off point. Um there was a email that went out today about the survey um regarding kind of resident schools and for folks to give their opinions about, you know, what their preferences are.

1:05:13Um so, we'll give our coordinator some Um, and that's open till um, Sunday the 17th. Um, so please make sure that you are responding to that survey and participating. Um, it's a separate link, so it's a little confusing as you get the email from the district and then you just go to you could receive another link to actually do the survey. So, we have to make sure that folks are able to do that. Um, so I just want to kind of reinforce that point that um, it's important for everybody to kind of participate in that process and I appreciate the district doing the additional work to make sure that we reach out to all parts of our community cuz that's that's so important. Um, I also want to touch on, you know, our great schools and all our great kiddos that are out there. If I look at our school today, I was out for two hours with the six with the middle school girls district track finals today.

1:06:18Um, so that's ongoing out today right now at Broomfield High School. I think it's still going on now. And tomorrow are the boys district finals at Centaurus High School. So, please check those out if you can. And I heard a rumor that uh, Centaurus High School ultimate frisbee is the state champion from what I understand. So, I I maybe you heard it here first. I don't know. But, thank you all. Alex. Uh, first off, I just want to express my appreciation for the staff and leadership at BVSD over this last month when I've been out of state on an awful lot. So, I really appreciate being able to trust that it's a great team to do good stuff and to keep me informed when I've been away. Um, I wanted to speak in general about, you know, part of what will happen as we work on our school consolidations or changes over the next few years.

1:07:11I mean, I've always championed uh public school choice, uh our enrollment in our charter schools. I think we're doing everything we can to get more families to enroll into the district from outside. There's multiple programs we can talk about for that that are that are I think working. And I also think we're trying to retain all as many families as we can. And I'm proud of our effort to facilitate public school choice in as open a way as possible so that um the out of our 26,000 families, by my count, we have about half of them that exercise public school choice. For those that enroll try to enroll somewhere and don't get to go there, I'd suggest more than half of our families are actually considering or exercising public school choice. And I it's incumbent on us as running a system to make that work for all of the 60,000 humans we touch in the families and the students. And that's a lot of kids and a lot of considerations. And as we work on uh consolidating schools, moving programs, uh doing all sorts of design, I want to just make sure that we remain committed to serving all kids, that the ability to participate in choice is open to everyone, that uh you don't have to pay money to get to exercise choice or

1:08:25volunteer hours, that uh your ability, your language, your class, your race have nothing to do with your ability to exercise choice. And I'm proud of our policies that move us in a direction to fulfill that. And I think as we work on it in the future, that's going to be hard for lots of families, uh but I think our commitment to all the families is that they will be treated equally as they try to exercise choice in this district. And I'm proud of us moving in a direction to facilitate that, not just for one school, but for all 56 schools, 19 of which don't have catchment zones, don't have neighborhoods. So, we have a ton of families who are managing our choice system and I think as board members we have to work for all of them.

1:09:18I'm I'm uh I'm grateful to my colleagues who were able to go to so many events uh with three kids of my own. I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend more, but May is a crazy month and what is it? 7 days of school left. Um so, not ready for that. Um but I did I was able to go to the Boulder High 150th and I just would add to what a cool um thing to see graduates from the 40s and the 50s and a school with so much tradition. As someone who went to high school, I think from the 1970s with very very few traditions, um I just really it was it was a great to see that. I didn't realize it was the oldest it's the oldest high school in Colorado, just how much history is there and grateful that we have schools of all ages, but particularly a school like Boulder High. So, really fortunate to be able to have to have gone to that event.

1:10:04Um and I'm looking forward to graduations starting this weekend. Thanks, Jason. Uh board members, since we last convened I was able to attend BVA BVEA's closing negotiations, which was lovely to see and I'm excited about the progress there. Um I was also at the Boulder High's 150th san- celebration and yesterday we had our quarterly meeting with the county and the city of Boulder along with the CU and they're all doing negotiations, too. It seems to be the theme right now. Um and I just want to like pause and say thanks to our staff and our students who are in the middle our high schoolers who are in the middle of AP exams and IB exams and gearing up for finals and participating in state competitions for athletics and activities. It's a really busy time of year. It's hard to manage all these moving parts and the changing of schedules. And so, I just want to give kudos to our staff for making all of that happen and for our students for being really patient throughout the process. It's a tough time. Tough time and an exciting time for high schoolers.

1:11:14And with that, we will move on to our information item this evening. We have three information items, the first of which is a ledge legislative session recap. And Heather Retzko from our Policy Matters Lobbying Team will present this topic. Sorry. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see you. Thank you so much for having us. Um I'm sorry the rest of our team is not here. The legislators are still working as we speak. Tomorrow is the last day of the legislative session, and they still have quite a bit of work to do, quite a bit of bills um on the calendar, and things to vote on. And so, thank you for having me. Um I wanted to just give you Oh, wait. Hold on. Sorry, I forgot this piece. Here we go. Um so, we thought tonight that we would just give you a quick session recap. Um and then a quick update on the state of the budget and then the School Finance Act. There's been a lot of moving pieces on all of those areas. Um and so, we Here we go. Sorry, I'm clearly not technically um savvy with this button item, but Um so, just taking it back like 119 days, we had an incredible legislative breakfast with our Boulder County delegation. Thank you so much,

1:12:36Superintendent Anderson and the board for coming to meet with the whole delegation and members of the um education committees. We were really able to have, I think, an honest conversation, at times tense conversation, about the realities of the state budget, about the realities of the administrators burdens impacting school districts, especially those coming from very well-intended legislation, but it turns out, you know, it always takes action to implement. Um And then also a deep conversation about the specific ownership tax. I know there was a lot of conversation about the state's ability to sweep that tax from districts and the impact that it would have had on the budget. And so I think just the ability to have that conversation on the front end of the state session really set the tone for us. And I am so thankful because I think it made our job easier because at least our members of the delegation were able to say when they were looking at bills, how is this going to impact BVSD financially? How is this going to put stress on our teachers, on our administrators?

1:13:43And really make informed decisions in a way that they haven't had to in the past decade. There were 712 bills that were introduced this session. They're still being considered. No more bills thankfully will be introduced because it takes 3 days to pass a bill it turns out. But 712 bills is incredible and our team goes through every single one of those bills and meets by weekly with President Raj Paul and Superintendent Anderson to talk through the impact of those bills on BVSD and take positions in the best interest of the district. The key themes that we saw in terms of legislation introduced this year were around transportation, tax adjustments, certainly revenue generating measures. We saw that through the special session and ideas to do anything and everything we can to put our state budget into a better place because it's certainly impacting K-12 and investment into school finance.

1:14:43Artificial intelligence, I heard you talk about that. There was a massive AI bill this year. That was a culmination of a year and a half of negotiations between employers and developers about the um liability as it relates to using AI. And so, I'm happy to say that there was a um an agreement on that bill in the 11th hour as well. Um and as comes with AI comes data centers. We're going to continue to see conversations around data centers over the um interim and uh through the next session. Um looking at bills that were of particular interest to BVSD, um two bills in particular that BVSD supported, which were just incredible bills. House Bill 1078 was the off-campus courses concurrent enrollment programs bill. This bill was sponsored by um two Boulder uh county legislators, Representative Leslie Smith and Senator Janice Marchman. This bill um would allow it will allow um districts to partner with four-year institutions on concurrent enrollment. Now, instead of having to either bus students to a four-year institution, um the dis- the four-year institutions are able to either send folks to the district or um work with the teachers at the district to provide those courses.

1:16:04Um the four-year institutions had heard loud and clear from districts across the state that there's um desire to partner, but this um location barrier was was really impacting the ability to partner um in really effective ways. So, that bill is um waiting for the governor's signature, which is really exciting. The other bill that we worked incredibly hard on and BVSD was a very early supporter of and Superintendent Anderson is very passionate about is the elimination of duplicative regulation of um before and afters care requirements. So, right now, after the creation of the um CDEC, the districts are under both CDEC and CDE rules. And so, our before-and-after care administrators have one set of rules during the day, and then as soon as the bell rings or before the bell rings, they go to a different set of rules. And um with different sets of rules comes different sets of violations and um needs for investment. And so, we really went into this bill looking at how do we try to eliminate the duplicative and contradictory requirements between the Department of Early Childhood and um the Department of Education.

1:17:16Turns out, it's wildly um there's a lot of people who care about this from private centers to um school districts. And so, we really were able to hone in on um the we really were able to hone in on training for teachers and then also um inspection of playgrounds. Um there's a lot of districts where the playground is okay to use during the day, and then as soon as the bell rings, those same students are not allowed to use the playground. And so, I think that there's a lot of work to be done in this space. It was an opportunity to have really thoughtful conversations and really um lift up challenges that are facing our before-and-after care teachers. Um those were the two that we were able to tackle this year, and I hope that we're able to tackle more next year.

1:18:03Um moving on to bills that we were monitoring, school finance. I'm going to get into that a little bit more um in depth uh as it relates to the state budget. Um so, I'll I'll pause on that one for a second. Um Senate Bill 68, the modify administration of education assessments. This was a bill that was introduced um it was a bipartisan bill to really look at the amount of assessments um taking place at districts that are above and beyond what's required by federal law. Um as introduced, the bill would have said that districts don't have to do anything above federal law Um in negotiation with a number of stakeholders the bill was amended to create a task force to look at all of the different assessments that are taking place in districts. Ultimately again it turns out there's a lot of thoughts about assessments that to do a task force cost money.

1:18:58They're literally again I'll get into the budget in a second but there was zero dollars for other bills to pass this session. So this bill is ultimately laid over until after the session adjourns which means that it's it's dead but certainly something that we anticipate to keep um talking about. Um the a bill that we opposed that was postponed indefinitely which means that it was killed in committee is the school board elections director district bill. This essentially would have changed school board elections from at large to where people can only vote for the district that they live in. BVSD took an opposed position as did virtually every other district in the state and the the bill was ultimately postponed indefinitely. So those are just a few of the 700 and 700 plus bills that we looked at this session but BVSD played an active role in.

1:19:59As it relates to the state budget going into the session and with the governor's November 1st budget request the state was looking at a 1.5 about a 1.5 billion dollar budget gap which is just astronomical. We knew that a lot of the budget pressures facing our state were because of Medicaid growth and expansion. This is this has created a structural gap in our budget so these are things that you know are not going to fluctuate from one year to the other. It's it's They compound over time. Um and then the estimated impact of costs as it relates to the federal HR1 um bill, the implementation in terms of redetermination of benefits um that that would have on the state. And so, just a a significant budget gap um in the Novem- in the governor's November 1st budget request, he really wanted to protect K-12 and public safety at most, but as um we'll talk through in a second um to 1.5 billion dollars is an incredible amount of money, and not a single department or entity in the state um was able to come out of this budget without experiencing cuts.

1:21:11As it relates to the um Department of Education in particular, the Joint Budget Committee really focused on the elimination of grants um that school districts participate in that are run through the Department of Education. So, things like behavioral health care professional grants, bullying prevention grants, READ Act awareness grants. Um the statewide social studies test, they removed the um now it will only be required um in 7th grade instead of in elementary school. So, these are um relatively in in in terms of a 1.5 billion billion dollar cut, relatively small um cuts, but added up and the people that they impact really um they made for very hard decisions with the Joint Budget Committee. Um as it relates to the School Finance Act, this was um a very interesting year because the past few years that we've had a School Finance Act, um especially Superintendent Anderson had to be at the capital almost daily um engaged in different negotiations. I think because there was no money, and because the state really wanted to do everything they could to protect K-12 funding. It was a relatively um low-key year, I would say, as it relates to the School Finance Act. They um Senate Bill 23 um will do a 30% implementation of House Bill 1448, which is about a 150-ish um million dollar investment to

1:22:45K-12. It um includes a 3-year averaging, which is something that's been important to um averaging has been something important um for for us to protect over the past few years. The big um unanticipated consequence of the School Finance Act happened in just the past week and a half, I would say, and it was on the cost of living factor. CDE submitted um probably four or five rounds of really complicated runs, runs that were not correct. Um runs that would have had um school districts anywhere from There were different variations from 140 school districts to 45 school districts who would have had experienced a cut if the new runs on this cost of living factor were implemented. Um sup- So, much thanks to to Keith and the Colorado School Alliance, and then all of the district lobbyists, we all pushed back very hard on um these cuts, and so there was an agreement um just recently uh to pause that cost of living factor in the School Finance Bill, so that the districts will not experience um a change in what they anticipated this year, and then conversations will continue over the interim about why um why 1448 is causing this cost of living factor um to fluctuate. The specific ownership tax I mentioned at the very beginning of this um

1:24:08presentation, again, the board and Superintendent Anderson were incredible um in our breakfast with the delegation in terms of um you know, a cut is a cut is a cut, and this would have been This proposal would have been a significant cut to BVSD Um to the tune of more than $7 million. We were able to get this cut off the table with the joint budget committee and then work with case to challenge the legality of the cut, which ultimately pulled it off the table with the speaker and the governor's office. So it's something that we're really proud of. Looking to the future because again, if you can believe it, the session ends tomorrow. But June 18th is a big day for us. It's the June revenue forecast and it's where we start this whole process all over again and all eyes are on this forecast as it relates to the risk of a recession as it relates to impacts of federal legislation as it relates to impacts of um potential ballot measures. It's it's going to be a really important forecast forecast for us to look at in terms of planning ahead. So we'll certainly as we always do send you all an update as to to how that forecast looks.

1:25:27That was a a long presentation, but any questions for me or that I can pass along to our team? I just want to start by saying thank you to Heather and her team. They are great partners throughout the course of the legislative session and while Dr. Anderson is a fierce advocate, we can't always get down to the Capitol as often as we need to. So we do rely on you for for that advocacy. So I just want to commend you for all the efforts that you put in on behalf of the school district. Board members, any questions or comments? Great. Well, Dr. Anderson? I just want to thank Heather, Tanya, and the team for always doing such a great job of of staying keeping us informed during session, putting us in the right positions to advocate. I was very uh, happy to see that SOT die pretty quickly. I think that, uh, the the the ways that we engage our delegation are are highly effective and right on time. Mhm. And I think we're able to deliver some messages in that meeting that really resonated and that helped our number one legislative priority, which was to eliminate that to come to fruition. And, um, even the work on, uh, child care, I think that was that's looking forward to to seeing that

1:26:41come in play. And, uh, Representative Smith's bill, I think it's going to really help make a lot of kids in BVSD happy when they're able to earn CU concurrent enrollment courses. Wonderful. Thank you all so much. It's an honor to represent you. Thanks, Heather. Thank you. Our next information item this evening is preschool and enrichment programming update. Dr. Anderson, would you like to do the introductions? Yes, I I would love to do that. I was looking to see if we'd, um, approve the personnel report yet, but we haven't. So, um, our current assistant superintendent, uh, Chief Academic Officer, uh, Nativity Miller is going and, um, Director of Academics, uh, Emma Herzog and Teresa Clements from Early Childhood will be giving you all a preschool and enrichment programming update. And so, with that, uh, Dr. Miller, I'll turn over to you. All right. Good evening, President Rajpal, members of the board, Dr. Anderson. Um, as Dr. Anderson just mentioned, tonight we are going to be providing you with a preschool update for the 25-26 school year. And just as a quick reminder, the Early Childhood Education Department lives under the Academics Department. Teresa Clements is our amazing Early Childhood Director, and Dr. Emma Herzog is their direct supervisor for the team. And so, with that, I'm going to pass it to the two of

1:28:05them, and they will be presenting to you this evening. Okay. stressed out about this clicker. All right. Good evening. Tonight, we will do a quick review of our existing preschool models, share updates on preschool enrollment, both current and project projected, as well as how we're maximizing our enrichment seats, share an update on the preschool impact analysis that was completed in partnership with Dr. Alzena and her team, and share some updates from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood on UPK. Going to pass it over to Teresa Clements, our director of early childhood, who will take you through the bulk of the slides this evening. It's the down one. Okay. Good evening. Uh we will begin with a visual of our current programming. This is our second year offering half-day preschool 5 days a week. Each preschool classroom is taught by a licensed early childhood special educator, and we have 3-hour preschool in the morning and a 3-hour session in the afternoon. In order to meet the 15-hour a week requirement for universal preschool, our preschool classes do not have late start on Wednesdays.

1:29:18At 14 of our sites, we also have the option to add enrichment. The second column on this slide in the middle there shows one example of how preschool enrichment supplements preschool to create a full-day bell-to-bell schedule for families. In this example, the student is enrolled in morning preschool, and then after those 3 hours, the student moves to the enrichment classroom, where they spend the remaining 4 hours of the day. Some students would have a schedule with enrichment in the morning and preschool in the afternoon. At Alicia Sanchez, we have a full-day model that is 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, and students spend the full 30 hours with an early childhood special educator. Students do not change classrooms midday like in the model with enrichment. Looking at enrollment this year, um our preschool enrollment over the past 2 years of universal preschool has stayed steady in both preschool and enrichment.

1:30:16As you can see, in October of 2024, we had 770 students and that increased to 832 this October. While the end of year numbers are similar, our October enrollment numbers reflect an increase from 770 to 832. We receive funding based on monthly enrollment, which means students enrolling earlier and remaining enrolled throughout the year increases our revenue. And the end of year numbers are ending very similar. Last year, 908 and as of right now, we have 917 students. This slide also shows the growth of our extended day enrichment program. Prior to universal preschool, enrichment had an enrollment of just 113 students and we are ending this school year with 319, which is very similar to ending last year, which I believe it was 318 students. So again, remaining consistent with enrichment enrollment as well. We are continually reflecting on enrollment and looking to see where and how we might make adjustments. One area we wanted to look at was maximizing enrollment in our full-day seats.

1:31:31For the 2026-2027 school year, we are going to continue to offer preschool and enrichment model that we've been implementing at both Mapleton and Pioneer. We will add this model to Eldorado PK-8 for next school year. There's a visual on the left side of this slide and at these three sites, we are pairing a preschool classroom with the enrichment classroom. In other words, 100% of the seats in that preschool classroom will be for students who are attending preschool and enrichment. All three of these sites have an additional preschool classroom, and all of those seats will continue to be half-day preschool, which allows families attending those schools to continue to have a choice in either half-day or full-day. One other change that we're making for next school year is reserving a certain number of seats for full-day programming at two of our sites, Birch and Coal Creek.

1:32:25At these two sites, a minimum of 26 of the 36 total seats will be reserved for students who are enrolling in the enrichment program. The other nine sites with enrichment will continue with the current enrollment model, which is a mix of half and full-day preschool, and families can choose which works best for their family. So, looking ahead to 2026-2027 enrollment, we are seeing strong enrollment for this coming school year as well, and we're on track to match or exceed this year's enrollment numbers. As of now, our enrollment for 2026-2027 is at 619 students, and 306 of those students are already enrolled or in the process of enrolling or in enrichment. Our community liaisons are actively enrolling students and will continue to enroll throughout the summer, so we will continue to see that 619 number rise over the summer months.

1:33:22There continues to be a demand for full-day enrichment seats, and sites with enrichment tend to fill quicker than sites who just offer half-day programming. And now, I will hand it over to Dr. Herzog to share an update on our analysis of preschool impact. So, we know that an ongoing question the board has had that we share is, you know, we believe in an excellent preschool experience for our students. We know research says it should have an impact, but does it have an impact and to what extent in BVSD particularly considering the significant cost of preschool given the lack of sufficient state funding through universal preschool. At our October 2025 board presentation, we shared that we plan to partner with Dr. Jessica Alzen, our executive director of accountability and evaluation, and her team to dig into our data to see what conclusions we might draw.

1:34:17Dr. Alzen and her team did a lot of work digging into a variety of data sets over time and the conclusion was it's not possible to have any conclusions right now given the changing parameters we've been operating in over time. Specifically, we've just adjusted preschool we have we have had adjusted preschool programming three times in the last four years. When we're trying to figure out the impact preschool has had on a student over time, it's hard to do when the preschool experience is not staying consistent. We anticipate now after new legislation and an adjustment to that new legislation, we'll have more consistent programmatic offerings over a longer period of time. It's also important to note that COVID continues to impact longitudinal data sets. If we look at student trajectories from the last five or 10 years starting in preschool, for example, COVID remains a key variable in those data sets and with that variable it's also hard to draw conclusions. So, all that said, for now, we will continue to work on maximizing preschool seats and improving and refining our preschool student experience in alignment with preschool standards, kindergarten readiness, and developmentally appropriate practices.

1:35:29After we have more years of UPK and our consistent model, we'll work with our data and accountability team to review revisit and review a longitudinal data set and complete an analysis to determine impact of our preschool program. This slide's from a previous presentation, but we wanted to include it here cuz we're going to transition from talking about our current preschool model and how that's going to some updates from the state that Teresa will share. It's important to remember that preschool is under the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, while K-12, as we know, is under CDE. And there are some real ongoing implications with this. So, at a really high level, enrollment is different. Preschool enrollment is managed by the state's platform, BridgeCare, while K-12 enrollment, as you know, is managed by local school districts. Time in school is different. Preschool's funded based on time per week, while K-12 is funded based on time per year.

1:36:26And then, as Teresa mentioned, funding is different. Preschool's funded per pupil per month, while K-12 is funded per pupil per year based on an October count. This structure also means that new guidance and new UPK requirements come to us from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, not CDE. Teresa's going to give you an overview and preview of refinements CDEC is planning to make over the next several years. So, for the last part of the presentation, I want to share some of these updates from CDEC with you. We will be going into our um third year of universal preschool, and um as of July 1st, all UPK providers um will need to meet these quality standards that are outlined in legislation and rules. This slide shows the five main categories of standards that will be required of all UPK providers.

1:37:23Boulder Valley has been and continues to provide the highest quality programming, and we already meet or exceed these requirements. But, I think it's important for you to know what will be expected of all providers. The first one is around instructional practice, and all providers will be required to have an approved curriculum by CDEC and an assess- assessment system that's aligned with Colorado academic um standards. We do have that in place and have had that for many years. Also, programs will be required to have on-site observations every 3 years from an outside observer that will um measure quality and classroom interactions. Again, this is something that we have put in place as a part of our quality improvement plan for the last several years. It also requires um some regulations around healthy development requirements, which basically is um requiring programs to provide screening such as social emotional screening, developmental, vision and hearing, and also oral health.

1:38:25Uh the next category is family and community engagement. There's a requirement to um allow families input on programming, allowing families to complete surveys to give input, working with um preschool staff, working with families to develop goals for their child. Again, all things that we have in place, our best practices, and we have had in place. The last one is around professional development requirements, which again, we have a robust professional development program. The change for us will be that CDEC is now mandating specific um types of training that we have to require, um such as trauma-informed practice, family engagement, and so forth. So, they've listed out the topics and how many hours we have to provide. So, we need to ensure that all of our providing fits um all those requirements. And then, um another change that I just wanted to share with you. This is just a proposal and a draft, um but it felt important to share that this is something that's being discussed um at the state level. There is a quality rating system for early childhood programs, and CDEC is in the process of updating that monitoring process for all programs. and currently CDEC is proposing that the quality monitoring process for school districts be aligned to some of the current Colorado Department of Education requirements.

1:39:52So, for example, um looking at requiring districts to have an early childhood specific goal in the district and school unified improvement plans. Also, with educator effectiveness evaluation system in those expectations, ensuring that um there are developmental instructional strategies that are in place preschool through third grade. Um one of the things under the principal quality standards as a part of the principal evaluation process, ensuring that there's training for evaluators so that they have the knowledge and expertise to um evaluate developmental appropriate practice, and also a strong preschool to kindergarten transition plan. And then the last one is ensuring that learning goals are aligned to the Colorado academic standards. And then finally, um although you already heard about this this evening, um was just going to give you a brief update on House Bill 26 1282 um to eliminate the duplicative um legislation or the duplicative um oversight for programs that are a part of a school district. Um we were hopeful that this would eliminate some of the burdens placed on school districts who have preschool and school-age programs.

1:41:13The original bill included preschool as well as school age. Um however, um there were major revisions to this bill, as you heard, um and it does only include school-age before-and-after school programs, um and it was whittled down to um just a few of the items. But, it is a win because um there is something in place, and it's a starting place. So, with that, um we will take any questions that you have. Thank you for that preschool early childhood update, board members. Do you have any questions or comments? Alex? Yeah, I have a few questions, but I'll start with a few and give my colleagues a chance. Um previously, we've gotten updates on the proportion of students with disabilities in our preschool programs. Can you give us some data on what the trends are this year for enrollment? In the past, I've been concerned that maybe our rates are higher than we would want uh in terms of least restrictive environment, and I want to know what they are this year.

1:42:13It's the first question. Um I can't I don't have the exact number, but I can tell you um we can certainly pull those for you. Um we typically start with around um 30% um of the students in our classrooms have an IEP. Um we need to keep the enrollment at 50% or less, and we are below that. Um I think right now it's probably around 40% because throughout the school year, we add about 100 students who have an IEP because, as you know, we continually need to evaluate students, and um students with IEPs start the program as soon as their IEP is in effect. Teresa's not going to toot her horn on this, so I'm going to toot it, and we were trying to figure out how to put it in the slide in a cohesive way, and we didn't, but I would say, and she can correct me if I'm wrong, we're also seeing a trend that more of our non-IEP seats are being filled earlier in the year. So, for example, as of now for fall, we already have sites that are full on the non-IEP seat side, but we're very mindful of the balance by classroom. Yeah, I I I would love to get the data. It's I know we were at 42 2 years ago, and somewhere in the mid-30s

1:43:26last year. So, I'd I'd love to actually find out what that number is, and I'd love uh our impact study to explore that pretty closely cuz I remain concerned that we would get the ratios we want in order to serve all the families and to make the LRE be effective for the kids. Another basic question, how many kids do we want in this program and what proportion of capacity are we currently serving? How many unused seats do we have throughout the year or the beginning or the end of the year? We have capacity again I have to look up the exact but it's a little over a thousand and so by ending the year at 918 obviously there's still open seats there. However again I will say as students come through child find and qualify for programming we have to hold seats so that we have a spot for them.

1:44:22So even though school is out in two weeks we still have families who maybe had their IEP last week and they are starting school. So we have to be ready willing and able to serve them at any point so we do need to have some open seats so that we have space to serve them. Jason Thanks for this update. I was going to ask a kind of variation of Alex's question about demand and you mentioned there's demand at some sites but then it looks like from what you just said there's a thousand seats and we're we're at 918. Can you talk about demand and maybe where we see other particular sites or is it you know areas of the district just just I think it's if we think about this strategically in terms of declining enrollment and where we want to think about where you know where we want to attract more families and particularly at preschool level. It's interesting because um there's always some surprises in there and so for instance I could name Emerald that's one school who maybe wasn't quite as full, and then going into this year, or I mean, going into next year, um it's I believe it's it's full with our non-IEP seats. We might still have some IEP seats that are open, and that

1:45:39is a site that has just half-day programming, not the full day. Um we follow the trend that we're seeing in the district that our Boulder sites um are struggling to um completely fill all of the seats that I'll refer to as non-IEP seats. Um again, we the number doesn't go over 50%, um but we do still see that there are students with IEPs um that we need to be serving. So, does that answer your question? Yep. I think one addition also is um the early childhood team has done a really thoughtful job of mapping out what are the other providers by town and region across our district, and essentially like what else is available to families. And so, then it can create some confusing trends because we may have an area of the district that doesn't have a large student population, but because of a lack of other options, we see an influx in demand for our programming or through word of mouth or whatever. And to Teresa's point, it changes year to year based on word on the street, based on what's happening in a neighboring district and the preschool they may or may not have. And so, we're trying to be constantly nimble in understanding what is the ecosystem that we are working within for pre-kindergarten, and what

1:46:52does that look like by sub-area, and also monitoring that over time while trying to be really competitive and and getting our word out for families. So, it's not a straightforward answer to a straightforward question. Um and that, you know, I know uh you mentioned just kind of, you know, data analysis. Uh I just, you know, add that um I do have my youngest is in preschool at Creekside, and anecdotally I can speak to the incredible quality of the teachers and the programming. Uh uh I hope more Boulder families in particular, it sounds like uh you know, can really discover, you know, the great offering that we have. Um and I think it's, yeah, really a kind of uh um kind of a hidden gem in our community that we have such, you know, incredible teachers, high-quality programming. It's not daycare. It's really, you know, really solid early childhood education.

1:47:41Um and, you know, again, from one perspective, I can talk about how effective and um strong the programming has been. So, thank you. That's not the official data we want on slides, but and I think a lot of other families in our um in in the preschool at Creekside would agree. So, thanks very much for all you do. Yeah, thank you. Alex. Yeah, uh a few more questions. Um Uh how big is our class size for these things? How big What does full mean? Yeah, so, um our maximum is 18. Okay. And per session, so, like when I say 26 of the 36 seats, so, we have 18 um in the morning session and 18 in the afternoon session. Okay. And I'd be interested in data in the long run that gives us a sense of the class size by school or the enrollment by school and the and the special ed ratio by by the school's program. Cuz that would help us understand, I think, how how it's working in the different places. Um I have Maybe this is a question for Rob or um Dr. Miller. Uh when we were doing the the round tables at the schools, I would always ask the principals about their preschool program. And to a person, they had zero ownership of these programs.

1:48:59They're like, "Oh, that's not mine. The district runs that." Um that seems exceedingly problematic to me in the long run in terms of like trying to get people to enroll in preschool and then enroll in the school or potential to integrate this into our system as we move forward and try to be special. What What's the deal with that? And is it okay, and can we do something about it? Sounds like a new kind of agenda item line. What's the deal with that? We could kind of Got to answer questions like a game show. Um And and I'll let Teresa and Emma answer this, but you know, the the enrollment's goofy because it has to go through BridgeCare. So, you can't go to the school and enroll, right? You have to go back to BridgeCare, and then through the BridgeCare, the the the early childhood team is in the liaisons are the ones that walk a lot of those families through that. I I would say though, Alex, that there is an opportunity to to better connect um what's happening in early childhood at with with what principals are doing in their schools around universal improvement planning, unified improvement planning, and I think that some of the legislation that Teresa was alluding to would actually make that a requirement. Uh cuz you don't want it to

1:50:12be this disconnected thing. You really want uh uh you know, from 3 to 4 years old all the way up through college or industry certification or, you know, grad plus completion. Um And so, uh you know, I I think the enrollment piece make is is difficult, right? You know, the principals don't manage the enrollment because there's this calculus that Teresa, over the years of her experience, is really good at, which is if you overfill your seats, and then you have students with IEPs show up, and you don't have room, then you're you're what you going to add another section, and then move kids from programs to another program? I mean, I just did the logistics around this kind of crazy. So, um I do think that there's opportunities to do a better job of connecting, and I do think over time, you know, the work that's happening um in early childhood, and and making sure that our principals know and understand what high-quality early childhood education looks like, and how it connects to curriculum is is an opportunity um for growth but the enrollment the enrollment piece I think is as traditionally been been been the tough part of that Teresa Emma do you want to add anything to that?

1:51:27I would just say yes the enrollment we have preschool at 24 of the elementary sites so they're not everywhere so there are students at you know a school where they may not be going there for kindergarten and up um Principals are the evaluators of the preschool staff so you know the preschool staff definitely is a part of that school I think also what complicates it is child care licensing and there's so many things and so you know as it should be there's a reliance on our department to make sure we have those regulations and so sometimes I think some of those comments come because it's just so big with CDEC and child care licensing and all these pieces and we don't expect principals to understand them but not the nitty-gritty like we're there to consult and support them.

1:52:26Horan and then we'll go back to Alex. Thanks Alex you you beat me to that question I know you mentioned the bridge and management of the enrollment and it's changed over the years we'll say generously right how's that process working out for parents is it improving are any is any of the legislation tackling that issue at all in terms of making change and the second question is is about the transition to kindergarten are we do we have numbers on how that looks like from the preschool program to the kindergartens and schools. So BridgeCare that's the state enrollment system that all families have to put their application into BridgeCare go through a lottery so yes there's been improvements, um, and the state has listened to districts, um, to implement some of the things. Like, for instance, there used to be several rounds and they were later, and so, like, families wouldn't find out until now if they even had preschool for next year. So, with advocacy of ourselves and some other districts, now those rounds happened earlier, um, you know, January, February-ish time. So, I think families, can't remember exactly, but I think they heard in March. So, beginning, I think it was April 1st, we can do direct enrollment. So, there have been some changes, um, still as a school district,

1:53:45we would like to have full control of enrollment, um, and be able to just have families work with us. It was so much more efficient for all of us. So. Um, and I forgot your other question. The other question was just about the transition from preschool to kindergarten. Oh, yes. that looks like. Um, I mean, that's definitely something we look at. Again, I don't know that I have the numbers. Um, we've been having Well, one, we work, um, really, um, closely with the schools, both preschool and kindergarten staff, sharing ideas around transition from preschool to kindergarten and how to support that, and that really it's a year-long process, right? Like, should be starting, um, for those 4-year-olds in preschool in the fall and and different activities happening at the school. As far as like specific numbers of if you're going to preschool at this school and are you staying there for kinder, um, I don't have those exact numbers.

1:54:43Um, I mean, it's something that we could get for you. We've been having those, um, discussions and also looking at, you know, what does that look like if I come to a school for preschool and, you know, being allowed to stay there or not because right now, you with the way that we do open enrollment, um, unless it's your neighborhood school, you would need to go through the open enrollment process to stay at that school. I was going to add and just say, um, in the fall we shared a a slide that we didn't end up including cuz we don't have an update other than we're still monitoring, but we do we're seeing a significant increase in the number of out of district students coming to us for preschool, um, which wasn't a part of pre-UPK, how we structured things, and now it is. And so something that we are doing is monitoring those students over time to see if we're seeing any impact, especially along the fringe of, um, our school district and whether we're retaining those students. I think to Teresa's point, it's it's a hard thing to track because when you have about 2/3 of our elementary's have preschool and the other third don't, um, it it really just becomes like we're we're trying to get to a place where

1:55:48we're nuanced of, are you staying? Generally the answer is yes, and if like at when are you staying in the school you were at for preschool if that wasn't your home school? And there's just a lot of nuance in there to to figure out the details. Thank you. Yeah, one of the things I'd be interested on that impact study would be to, you know, track that and figure out where the kids are going, so we know who they are, so we should be able to figure out where they end up the next year if we've got them somewhere in the system. Um, I'm also interested, this is sort of a two-part question. I'm excited to integrate them into our larger intellectual exercise, but I'm super anxious about that because of the track record of K-12 systems of not doing developmentally appropriate stuff with little kids once they're on the hook for it, and it all turns into how do we increase third grade reading scores, not how do we give four-year-olds developmentally appropriate play.

1:56:40Um, so I that's why I it's not so much making sure that and I look forward to like the UPK being, you know, part of that and integrating the preschools into it, and having discussions about the curriculum, and the ongoing oversight, but my greatest concern is that's going to lead to creeping um developmentally inappropriate uh practices or expectations or the system will be built that way. And my reading of the research from other states advancing universal preschool is that's often like the thing that makes it go most poorly. So, I'm interested in a thoughtful integration that's really focused on developmentally appropriate uh care for the little kids, but that also tracks it and educates like the school leaders so they know not to pressure them to like sit down more and let's talk about colors, you know, so um it's it's got to be different than that. And to that, I guess I am curious to know and as we move forward how and I know that we give like four stars on the on the state system and none of our competitors have more than two except for one that's five, but we don't have five and the districts don't try to get five. But I am really curious as we consider to hold ourselves accountable for quality I mean, I'd like

1:57:52us as a board to be educated about what quality looks like. What our metrics are that we're using, how it integrates with the state's quality system and the intentionality of when we choose not to do something that the state would, you know, expect us to do to get a five-star rating, for example. Can you talk about and I don't mean to say what's the deal with, but can you talk a little bit about how we make sure our we're being developmentally appropriate as we integrate into the K-12 system and how we protect that as we try to evaluate quality going forward? Really good questions. Thank you. Um uh something that I was going to add on later, but then I was doing my awkward dance behind the podium is um we've been starting with principals some virtual professional learning because when I started in the role of early childhood a few years ago, something that principals self-admitted is like, "My background's in secondary. Like I want to support, but when I go in a preschool, kindergarten, first-grade classroom, I need some help." And so we've been trying to provide some really targeted thoughtful um learning there for those who need it.

1:58:53And then in conjunction with that, with the support of Dr. Miller, a small group of us have been engaged in some learning about what do excellent PK through third grade practices look like and sound like. And to your point, board member Medler, how do you marry develop- developmentally appropriate practice with standards in a meaningful way for students of certain ages so that rather than your description of we're going to now learn to read when we're three, it's actually like what does play-based learning look like up through elementary, but in a way that doesn't compromise the rigor that we want out of standards, but is developmentally appropriate for kids. So, we've been doing some learning on that as we think about what resources do we have in place and how do we vertically align them thoughtfully. And there are some real inroads with our strategic plan over time. So, we're starting to think about how do we do that work and do some learning here in this building across teams so that when we're supporting schools, we're doing it in a way that helps facilitate that sort of environment and understanding. So, it's really exciting. More to come. And then I'll let Teresa talk about Colorado Shines.

1:59:51Um, yes. And I guess just one more thing to add just with the um the training and the support that we are um giving to principals is really understanding that it's not that you have rigor or you have developmentally appropriate, right? Like we can have both and we can marry them. And rigor isn't a bad word in preschool and early childhood in a high-quality environment. So, what does that look like in our environments? We need to have at least an hour of intentional play in our preschool classrooms in a three-hour program. That isn't just throwing materials out there and just hoping that things happen. It's being really thoughtful of what standards are we addressing this week? What are we putting in those centers that are going to help support that? And so, really being thoughtful as um the teacher of setting up that environment and knowing why are we putting these things out in the environment? What are our goals for the students to learn with them in a playful way and child-directed way, not sit and get from the teacher and, you know, kind of do some of that rote learning. Um, because you're right, that's not where we're going to see, um, the supportive, um, instruction for students.

2:01:05As far as Colorado Shines rating, um, that's that second, um, slide that I showed you about, um, aligning with the unified, um, improvement plan and so forth. So, there is something called an alternative pathway. So, as a school district, I'm very proud, we were the very first school district to go through the work to do an alternative pathway. Um, we originally were like, well, is one is one is fun. Like, let's just stay at one cuz it's a lot of work. Um, but we decided, no, we're going to go through the work. We want to do that. We're a leader, um, in the state. So, we were the first to go through that, um, six years ago, I think. And so, we just renewed it, um, and the alternative pathway, what it looks like right now is basically submitting seriously, like, hundreds of pieces of paper, um, documenting all the things that we do.

2:02:00Um, and many of those things are required, um, from CDE. And so, they're revamping the entire Colorado Shines quality rating. And so, one of the things is for school districts, this alternative pathway, one, it might not be optional like it is right now. And if we continue with it, that those are the recommendations that they're making, that it aligns with those requirements from CDE. And you are correct, we have a level four at all of our sites and that goes through 2029 now. Tracy, can you explain why we're not level five and what we would have to do to be Yes. So, five is the highest rating. Um, and so, the highest level that you can get in an alternative pathway is a level four. And so if we were to do the level five, um the administrative burden, the cost really just outweighs going from a four to a five.

2:02:56Because you have to do it by school, right? And we have to do it by school. So, correct. Um so right now we submit all of the paperwork one time for all 24 sites. Um and if we were to do that individually, um we would need to do it 24 times. And pay for different things and yes. Dan. Is there a program that helps um either educators or other school staff access a preschool program at the school they work at? Um I'm not sure I understand the question. So if I'm a teacher and I have a preschooler, can my child go to preschool at the same building that I work at? Yes, and we do have um several staff where their preschoolers um are coming to school. Um and um it depends on if they're three or if they're four. If they're three, they go through our lottery system and we follow the same open enrollment um priorities.

2:03:56I forget what the term is. Um but for four-year-olds, they have to go to Bridge Care and hope that they get matched. Okay. I I understood there was lots of open enrollment things happening there. So I didn't know if there was a specialized route for people who work in the building. Yeah, because um for four-year-olds, it all goes through the state. So again, if we could control that, we could have our different priorities, but it all goes through the state and if they get matched, they get matched. Uh the other thing that I would like to know is has anybody thought about um the possibility of training uh uh potential new preschool teachers from maybe our high school cohorts or something in order to prepare new educators cuz preschool teachers are sometimes hard to fill, right? Yes.

2:04:49Yeah. Yes, there definitely is um staffing workforce um concerns in the early childhood field. Um we have done some partnerships with um the early childhood classes um that the concurrent enrollment classes. Um we definitely work with our paraprofessionals um also in encouraging them to continue their education. Um if um you know, staff is coming to us and they're interested in getting their licensure, um myself or a member of our team meets with them individually. We talk with them, kind of hear some of the different steps, here's all the resources like Teach Colorado, here's scholarships that are out there and things like that. So, um we really believe in growing our own, supporting our staff, um and encouraging them to take that next step if that's what they want. Alex? Yeah, uh um Sorry, I just blanked. I had a great question and I just lost it. Um I guess I I am interested in learning more about this and I'm interested in hearing back as the the the study continues. But I'd want to One thing I did want to put on the record in case anybody's listening to this, I looked today at the ratings and just about every private provider within striking distance of Boulder is a one or a two on the five-star system and we are

2:06:11a four because of administrative decisions we've made to not bother to try to get a five, but we probably could if our individual schools put the work in. So, the community should know that we have the best kick-ass um preschool programs uh in the area and that we put a lot of work into it and we have really great people doing it. Um to that uh effort, I did remember the question and perhaps it's for Bill. I know we've spent like 1.3 million or more on top of what the state gives us for this in previous years. Can anybody tell me what the extra money was we spent this year and what we're anticipating spending next year? It's like a cliffhanger, Bill. Absolutely, and I think that's important for us to to know. We'll we'll prepare that for news and notes. Anna, if you can take the lead on that to make sure that we get that.

2:07:04While I have the microphone, I will say that the idea that it's mandatory that that schools go through private any providers go through a process to show quality. I think one of the biggest issues I've had with universal preschool is access to to non-quality programming is is probably worse than having nothing at all only because as a parent you think you're doing the right thing to send your kid to preschool so they can get ready for kindergarten, and if they're not doing the things that they need to do, your kid can end up behind even though as a parent you think you've done the right things. And so, I think it should be mandatory. I don't think that I think that you should be able to get a five through a system level accreditation just like I don't understand that, but it sounds like I might have something to to begin to advocate for because that doesn't make any sense to me.

2:08:00Actually, my comment was kind of related to how Dr. Anderson ended that. First, thank you for the presentation, and I'm wondering maybe optimistically hoping that as CDEC wants to align to some of the CDEC standards, maybe they'll just align themselves into nonexistence to to work around, you know, some of these challenges that we've had. And in this year more than in years past, there were there were a lot of pre-K early childhood bills coming through the legislature. I I don't recall seeing this many last year and we highlighted just one but there were several and I do and some of the best ones got watered down or you know, turned into non-existence. I wonder if if this is an area in which with your guidance we might want to take a firmer stance or propo- propose something for next year because this really is an important piece of education system and it every year we hear about the challenges that continue and challenges that are created by the state that really do impede us us and our ability to provide really great before and after care, really great pre-K services and so I know when we are meeting with our lobbyist several times this year I'm like I pre-K is and and early childhood is just something I'm not really

2:09:13familiar with and I was always struggling with how do I think about this bill or how does this bill interact with that bill and there were so many I'm like I kind of want to give up until somebody that is an expert weighs in but if if your team and if this district feels like that's an avenue for the board to pursue in the future with our delegation, I'd be very open to hearing that. So, that's all I had to say on this topic. Any final questions or comments on UPK before we move on for tonight's agenda? Seeing thank you so much. Thank you. We'll now move on to action items consent grouping. 7.1 personnel item approval of minutes April 28th, 2026 approval of minutes insurance package 26-27 7.4 approval of purchase for Riverside Technologies Inc. 7.5 approval of contract with Summit Hosting 7.5 resolution 26-14 to authorize necessary contracts during some of the summer hiatus. 7.7 grants strategic partnerships title six Indian Ed USDOE.

2:10:17Are there any items board members would like to pull from consent grouping? Seeing as there are none is there a motion to approve the items on consent? Approved by Lulaniya, seconded by Alex. Board members, any discussion? I just want to say we have some significant retirements this year and on this year's tonight's agenda we are posting the retirement of Robin Fernandez and I wanted to thank her for her time in this district on all the various levels for which she have served. You have left a mark and you will be missed. Likewise, congratulations to Nativity Miller. We're excited to have you working more closely with you in your new role. May I comment on the Title VI grant? Yeah. Of course, we want to pursue any funding that we can get to perpetuate that problem with that program that has been incredibly successful in the last few years, but I just want to put it out there that I think that we have we have parents in the community who are cooking for those dinners and we don't really have enough money to run that program on the 0.25 FTE that it supplies. So, I hope we look for other sources of income for that program.

2:11:51Seeing as there is no there's no further discussion, Chris, can you please call the roll on the motion? Booker Yes. Chavez Yes. Medler Medler Yes. Quillen Owada Yes. Rajpal Yes. Tammy Wadding Yes. Unger Yes. Motion passes. Board members, we have one item remaining on tonight's public portion of the agenda and I want to get a sense of if we have time for this 11 page slide deck or if we want to take a comfort break. May we please take a comfort break? We can take a comfort break. We will be back in about 5 to 7 minutes. Welcome back everyone. We will now turn to our study items. This evening we just have one study item, which is the academic calendar. Robin Fernandez will be presenting this topic this evening. Good evening, President Raj Paul, members of the board, and Dr. Anderson.

2:19:01Since I was before you in January to share the initial draft calendars for academic years 27-28 and 28-29, a lot has happened. So, this evening I am back before you, and I'm going to describe the process that has occurred since January, and I will be explaining the adjustments that have been made to these final draft calendars as a result of that process. There we go. When we were together in January, the board provided a significant amount of feedback about the original draft calendars that were presented to you at that time. Based on that feedback, adjustments to the drafts were made, uh and you see those on this slide. As we know, each and every change that is made has ripple effects, so some feedback was possible to be incorporated, and that feedback is listed on the left-hand side of this slide. That included begin beginning the school year later in August, ending the school year later in May, uh avoid ending school on a Monday, avoid extending winter break until Wednesday, decreasing the number of Mondays off, and maximizing staff attendance on professional learning days.

2:20:17The feedback that you see on the right-hand side of the slide was not able to be incorporated because of specific aspects of negotiated agreements or the existence of certain holidays. So, as a result, the draft calendars post-January board meeting when we were together were adjusted to include this feedback, and new drafts were created, which were then presented to our representative groups for them to consider and respond to. So, as described in the January presentation to the board, we have since progressed through this timeline, which brings us to the meeting here this evening. In just a moment, I'll share a summary of this feedback that we received from the representative groups that you see listed on the right-hand side in that box on the upper uh part of this slide. On this slide, you can see the general themes of the feedback that we received on the post-January board meeting draft calendars that were presented to the representative groups for review.

2:21:18The first bullet uh represents a request to decrease the number of 3-day weeks. As a reminder, we had increased the number of 3-day weeks in the current academic cycle in order to decrease the number of partial weeks. Therefore, we had tagged on professional learning and educator work days to establish holidays and order to meet this request. The unintended consequence of doing so resulted in feedback from both educators and families about the perceived negative impacts of 3-day weeks on students and families. Both groups cited negative impact on learning with a special call out for students on IEPs needing more consistent support during the week in addition to general decreased student and staff attendance and student dysregulation during three-day weeks. Additionally, families reported that arranging for child care for a three-day week versus a four-day week can be more challenging.

2:22:17Next, on the second bullet, uh the feedback we received was having Mondays off have a more negative impact on learning than having Fridays off and that was reported by educators at all levels, elementary, middle, and high. In addition, the continuing challenge for having enough substitute teachers on Fridays make Fridays a better no contact day in the minds of our stakeholders than Mondays. Third, there was universal support from staff and surprisingly so much from families, often met when I uh spoke with representative groups with applause at the return of the April conference exchange days. However, this also included requests to move them from a to a Friday and Monday off for some of the reasons stated above about three-day weeks, but also to address higher than normal staff and student absences on Fridays prior to Mondays off, which of course negatively impacts student learning in addition to the ongoing struggles with substitute shortages on Friday.

2:23:24There was also a sentiment to move the conference exchange days to later in April so that they were completely outside the MCAS testing window while still allowing enough time for high schoolers to gear up for AP and IB testing which begins at the beginning of May. The academic calendar task force, which is made up of BVEA leadership, principals, central office leaders, including professional learning and human resources and a parent representative reviewed and considered all the feedback that we received from our representative groups. The team used a consensus process to make adjustment to the draft calendars that also took into account other intended consequences of changes. In addition, the group worked to address other concerns when making these proposed changes that we are always trying to to solve for. This this includes maximizing educator attendance on professional learning days and addressing student and staff absences resulting in substitute shortages on Fridays prior to Mondays off as I mentioned a moment ago.

2:24:28So, with that I will share the adjustments that the task force made based on the feedback from our representative groups. We will begin with this calendar. This is the post January board meeting draft calendar for 27-28. What you will see on subsequent slides are animations that visually show the changes to the post January meeting drafts and you will see the final drafts that are on on study before you this evening. So, there are three adjustments that were made to the 27-28 draft calendar. First, moving the January 18th professional learning day to January 4th. The rationale for this includes an effort to increase staff attendance on professional learning days as these immediately after winter break historically are our highest attended professional learning days in the second semester. Moving a professional learning day in this manner eliminates a 3-day week as I uh talked about just a moment ago and a 3-day week so soon after winter break and therefore with this change second semester would begin on January 5th.

2:25:42Next, uh the there was the adjustment made moving the February 27th 22nd professional learning day to September 7th. This change allows for follow-up to the August professional learning time in in September, which made sense to many stakeholders as a good move given the implementation of so many curriculum materials. Also, again, this supports the intention of high levels of staff staff staff attendance on professional learning days based on past year's data that is far higher at the beginning of the year than later in the semester or later in second semester. And then finally, moving the conference exchange days from Thursday and Friday to a Friday and a Monday. This responds to the request to complete again CMAS prior to the conference exchange days, responds to feedback about negative impacts of 3-day weeks on student learning and family child care needs, and again mitigates lost learning on Fridays before a long weekend when staff and students often take off leading to low attendance and challenges with teacher coverage.

2:26:52And there's that animation. Now, moving on to the 2028-2029 calendar, there are also three adjustments that were made based on the feedback provided to us by our representative groups, and they are very similar and in alignment with the adjustments that you just saw for the 2027-2028 calendar. First, moving the January 16th professional learning day to January 9th. Again, maximizing staff attendance on professional learning days at the beginning of the semester and eliminating a 3-day week so close to the end of winter break. Moving February 20th professional learning day to Friday the 16th. Again, in response to lost learning opportunities on a Friday before a Monday off, uh and responding to the needs for uh increased substitute teacher coverage on Fridays. And then finally, the movement of the two April conference exchange days to later in the month after CMAS has been completed. And again, from moving one from a Friday to the subsequent Monday for all of the reasons that I stated for the '27-'28 calendar.

2:28:24And finally, on these last two slides, you can see the final drafts that are before the board this evening for study that will be brought back in front of you for vote at the beginning of June. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you for that presentation, Robin. Board members, any questions or comments? Lelania. Thanks for your work on this, um and the explanation of that the three-day school school weeks don't work for regulation, etc. I'm curious, and maybe I'm just from misreading this, says that drafts address avoid extending winter break until Wednesday. And so, but I see us coming back from winter break on Wednesday. You are absolutely right. So, the the adjustments that were made to the original draft calendars that were presented to the board in January, based on the feedback received at that January board meeting Okay, so that's Yes, that uh the the change was made to not return from winter break on on a Wednesday.

2:29:44However, after those draft calendars with all of these Oh, the animation take a bit of time to go back. You're saying one iteration ago um after the board gave that feedback, but then it's that feedback has been Then that feedback was considered and responded to by our representative groups and therefore changed, which addresses uh part of the board's request, which was to try to use previous data and maximize staff attendance at professional learning opportunities, while also listening to our families who were wanting to decrease the number of 3-day weeks, which we originally had in this draft calendar just a week after the the conclusion of winter break. And moving uh the additional professional learning day closer to winter break. It's the same number of 3-day weeks because you have 2 days in that first week of January. You've just moved the day one.

2:30:43And my question is um while that's okay, it's a 3-day week here or a 3-day week there, which I understand. Um if you could help me to understand I guess when I look at this, one of the important things to me um and this is well known that I care about teachers attending professional development. And maybe what would help me is to understand the difference between you know, we call it out here for our families as no contact days for students, but maybe what I need to understand is what the difference is between a work day and teacher development and how we're actually maximizing this given the changes that we're making here. Yeah, that that's that's a great question. So, a professional learning day is when teachers engage in learning specific to the continued development of their craft either at the building level or in professional learning opportunities provided by the district. The negotiated agreement for our unit B employees does stipulate that there are a number five and a half, I believe, of teacher work days that teachers engage in which is purely for their own planning and grading. Now, what we have done is maximized the organized either building led or district led professional learning days in alignment with the data that we have about staff attendance

2:32:18uh on those days. So, the days where we traditionally have our highest levels of staff attendance are the days identified as professional learning days. And the days that we know based on data from past years have lower attendance, we have identified those as individual teacher work days. So, that there is less organized professional learning possibly lost if staff do not do not choose to report on those days. And can I have an understanding instead of just all green on here which ones of these are professional learning and which are ones are work days? We we can. And that is some of those are building level decisions and some of those are district level decisions. So, as soon as the buildings have completed their professional learning schedules for next year, we are very happy to provide that for you.

2:33:11I guess that I'm still trying to understand if this really meets the requirement that I'm trying to put forward which is that I want teachers to attend professional development. And I'm not, you know, saying, "Well, we'll see what happens when buildings take it." That's I want to understand which ones are slated for that and which ones are slated to be work days. Oh, I see. So, yes, the ones that are both district and building directed fall on those five pre-service days. There is a mixture on the five pre-service days in August. And part of those, again, are delivered by the district, part are professional learning delivered at the building level, and part is planning. Uh September 7th is slated to be a professional learning day. September 7th or then Yep, September 7th, which is the day after Labor Day on the 27 28 calendar or September 5th.

2:34:16Mhm. Mhm. And those traditionally are our highest attended professional learning days of the year followed very closely by September professional learning days. Hence, the fact that you see on these final draft calendars, there are now professional learning days following Labor Day, which are district professional learning days designed specifically to follow up on the district professional development that was provided for staff in August during those pre-service days. Additionally, the the second green day in January is a district owned or district led, if you will, professional learning day. The first day after winter break, by contract, by negotiated agreement, is a work day for staff so that they have time to complete grading from their first from anything that remains from first semester and completing grade reports from first semester. So, that green day immediately following winter break is always for that reason slated as a teacher work day. However, the second one is um is a district directed professional learning day.

2:35:38What we often have seen in the past is that that second green day, when it has occurred, we've had iterations of the academic calendar over a very long time, some of which have one green day and some have two following winter break. What we know is that there are times that families and staff members will take an additional day after winter break inclusive of that Monday. So, that is why that second day is a district directed professional learning day. The final one in May is again a teacher work day per negotiated agreement, which follows the final day with students, which is their second opportunity in the academic calendar year to complete grading and report card work. And that is in alignment with our negotiated agreement. And November 12th? Mhm, the November 12th day will be a work day.

2:36:34And that is that exists only on the 27-28 calendar. And that's because we have discussed a lot in the past about that ever floating Veterans Day on November 11th, and we know that if we were to have a school day as it falls on 27-28, a school day on November 12th, we know already that there would be a great impact to the learning environment through both student and staff absences leading also to a the ever challenging um substitute shortage. So, therefore, in the 2027-28 calendar, when Veterans Day falls on a Thursday, that is a work day immediately following that on Friday the 12th. However, if you look at the 2028-29 final draft, um, Veterans Day is observed on Friday the 10th. An interesting fact is that if Veterans Day falls on a weekend, it is identified to be observed on Friday the on the previous Friday. And here is the 10th.

2:37:42So, therefore, there is no need to tag on on the in 2028 an additional work day to accompany a midday, uh, a midweek Veterans Day holiday. But, given that rationale, we have February 16th. I'm on 2028-29. We have February 16th, which looks like that floating work day. Mhm. And we've said how bad it is, you know, it Is that because we don't we think we should put it back in the November or we're trying to get a four-day weekend there or what what's the rationale of not doing it the same 2 years in a row? Right. That that's a good question. One, you know, and we had substantial discussion in the task force about this. And we talked about, okay, how can we best support teachers and students knowing that by contract, the negotiated agreement, the the teachers are allotted a specific number of work days. And so, they have to fall somewhere. And knowing that, uh, in November, having having not had a three-day week, we do not create an additional three-day week because we were also very cognizant of feedback both from educators and from families about wanting to spread out or have fewer three-day weeks. And so, we decided to put it in February, knowing that it's always a good time for a work day for for teachers. So, I would say

2:39:16probably the opposite is the most true that the reason in the previous year that it is tagged on to Veterans Day is because Veterans Day is in the middle of the week. And so, that just makes sense. Um and then knowing that uh the flow of work for teachers, it does work for them to have a work day second semester. Um in the middle of the in the middle of the winter. And last, can you enlighten me on um how we keep track of if teachers are going to their professional development days and what are the consequences for people who don't? Mhm. We actually have come in the past few years to track uh attendance on professional learning days very closely. That is done at the building level, and school office managers and school principals monitor that. And staff have the ability through uh our negotiated agreement, if they choose to take their own annual leave on professional learning days just as they do on regular school days. And if they do choose to take an annual day on a professional learning day, what the the principal does is monitor to make sure that that staff member has submitted um a request for their annual time. But principals also do have significant conversations with their staffs about the why behind

2:40:41professional learning. Why is it that we are gathering to discuss curricula? Why is it we are gathering to discuss our curriculum materials? How does this development impact our students? And the district and our building leaders have worked really, really hard to try to make this professional learning relevant because we know that our staff members are going to make the best choices for themselves and for their students when they know that the learning that they will be engaging in is relevant. So, we have tried to address it from a number of angles to both support staff members in wanting to attend, but also to help communicate what it is and why it is we're doing that. And do we have any numbers on on how we're doing if it's on an improve? Um we can certainly get those for you, of course.

2:41:33Yes, actually. Um exact numbers not right off the top of my head, but I do know that we have had increased attendance as a result. Very good. Thank you. Are there any other questions about the calendar? Comments? Jason? Uh not so many questions, more just thank you for I know how hard this is and how many um perspectives and much input you have. I just want to say a few things I appreciate, you know, I've I've talked a lot about, you know, the you know, why we start when we start and the consequences of that and so I appreciate that that's been addressed here to some to the extent possible. A later start to the to the school year and a later end to the school year. And I also appreciate it, not only you noted it, but it looks like we're starting on a Tuesday rather than a Wednesday, which I think has been at least in my experience typical and I I think families will appreciate that. I think finding kind of a half week of camps or child care has always been a challenge and so that is at least one day rather than two days, so that's appreciated.

2:42:45And I know just in my conversations um with teachers how hard it is to not have the April break and how much I know that was looks like a priority on on single focus group, but I think that's I'm really happy to see that back as well. I think good for you post C mass good for students and post you know it's a long stretch from spring break to the end of the year for teachers and so appreciate that they will have that break which I think is needed. So yeah, I just wanted to comment on that and thank you for your work and all the the various folks who provided input on this. I think this I think this is a a really good result. Thanks. You're very welcome. Deanne. This is important to me in two ways. One is all of my still teaching friends have had a lot of time to contemplate and argue and grouse about the lack of subs and so anything that you can do to reduce that need for subs on Friday. I think is brilliant. So I really appreciate that and my private school uses the BVSD calendar. So it looks beautiful.

2:44:09Anything else board members? I just want to echo Jason's comments. Thanks everybody that helped provide feedback on this. It is a collaborative process. Well, it's not really a significant complaint kind of tongue in cheek. It's funny that we we have fall break and it's one day. Doesn't really feel like much of a break when it's one day and I don't know if there's a way to rename that so you know, we don't get grief about you said you promised us a break and now it's just one day. So that's just all I had to say the words there are kind of misleading but otherwise I think the calendar is great and it is I I think another thing I've heard in addition to the begging for those April exchange days back getting back to a semblance of our normal rhythm for our academic calendars and whatever we whatever we have for the calendars, the closer we can do to adhere to a rhythm and a consistency every 2 years, the better.

2:45:00And so, um hopefully this this calendar is more appreciated by our staff and our students and our families. Seeing as there's no further discussion on that calendar, we'll move right along. Um Board members, next agenda item this evening is our future agenda request. Are there any items board members would like to prioritize for our upcoming prioritization session. Alex. Uh I'm not sure how to concisely articulate this, but I am interested in the integration of our uh preschool programming into our K through 12 instructional infrastructure. Dan. I'd like to add uh the um discussion about whether we can have a technology advisory committee that's official. Seeing as there are no other hands up, we will move on now to our final uh agenda item this evening, which is executive session. Is there a motion? Alex. I, Alex Medler, make a motion to convene into executive session pursuant to CRS 24-6-402 (4) (f) to discuss personnel matters regarding the superintendent's evaluation and pursuant to CRS 24-6-402 (4) (b) to receive legal advice regarding the superintendent's evaluation and charter negotiations regarding Horizons, Summit, Peak to Peak, and Boulder Prep.

2:46:44Is there a second? Seconded by Jason. Chris, can you please call the roll? Booker? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Nadler? Yes. Quinlan-Awoyele? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Temu Odeng? Yes. Unger? Yes. Motion passes. Board members, we will convene in the glacier room, and for the members of our public watching this evening, this this concludes our public portion of our meeting. Good night.