Transcript

0:08:22Call to order this meeting of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education for Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. Board members may attend and participate in meetings remotely in accordance with the Board Policy BMEA and state law. Laura, can you please call the roll? Here. I'd like to direct everyone's attention to the screen tonight for our land acknowledgement. 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.

0:09:58BVSD 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.

0:11:04Thank you for joining us here this evening. We're glad to have you attend our meetings remotely and in person. At this time, is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? Moved by Deanne, seconded by Jason. Laura, can you please call the roll? Booker? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan-Awoyele? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Tamuwating? Yes. Unger? Yes. Motion passes. First item on tonight's agenda is our student moment. I'm excited to hand the microphone over to Dr. Anderson to do the introductions. Thank you, Board President Rajpal, board members. Good evening, everyone. Board members, as you may know, this is art show season in the Boulder Valley School District. We have several uh shows going on right now, including the high school student staff staff show at the Dairy Art Center. Artwork, as I'm sure you've seen, is amazing, including including beautiful photos, intriguing videos, and sculptures like the one created by tonight's student moment guest, Sofia Holtquist, from Boulder High School.

0:12:12Sofia's piece was chosen as best in show this year, and also won a golden key for national scholastic, I believe. We're excited to get to hear from her about her journey as an artist, and how it translates to her life in school, and wait till you see what it is that she created. Oh, here it is. Uh Sofia, I'm turning the microphone over to you. Uh yeah, hello. Um my journey as an artist has been super fun and amazing. I've been doing art for as long as I can remember, and I've slowly been progressing my talents to the point that you see now with the art piece that's uh displayed. Um I've always loved dragons, and I picked a dragon as um my focus for the sculpture. And art has always been a huge part of my life, and of course has affected uh my school life. It's helped me find and make friends and express myself to my friends, so they can know about um like what I like to think, who I am, stuff like that. Um and it's I think art is just an amazing way for expression, and to uh have it so people can know you in another way other than what you say or what how you look.

0:13:37And uh yeah, so that this piece that I made uh is a naga that represents my mom's culture and it's representative of her culture that I I like to look at of her Laos culture um where I get to see these dragons and I like to uh that I've got a chance now to represent that in my art. Um and now uh people at the school too now get to see a part of that culture as well through my art. Board members, any questions for Sophia? Melania. So, will you tell us what materials you used and what your process was? Right, of course. Um I used uh clay, specifically raku clay, which has a special firing process and glazes. Um and it was the process was like using the clay and like having to work around the fact that sometimes it gets a little cracked and crumbly and like twisting it into these unique shapes and smoothing it out and then adding armor plates on top of it and um having the scale textures and smooth parts and it was a lot of twists and turns and a very long process uh but eventually turned into that.

0:14:59It is so neat. Thanks for sharing it. Yes, thank you. You alluded to what my question was to be was how long did it make you to make how long did it take to make those pieces? I think roughly around 2 weeks to make the entire piece. Alex. Yeah, I was going to Can you tell us about uh some of your favorite art classes and teachers you've had so far in school? So far I've enjoyed all of my art teachers. I have found them all amazing and they've all supported me in the different art classes that I've done which I believe I've done pretty much all the ones available other than photography. Um so far though I believe I've enjoyed clay class the most where I made that piece. Um and the teachers have been really supportive and helpful. They're the reason I even got into the competitions that that uh piece got submitted to.

0:15:53So uh yeah. Deanne how will you continue your art after you graduate? Um I'm thinking I might go to an art college um just to progress further in art. I might pick a specific one to major in and I might eventually start doing freelance art or um moving into a more specific career. It's not entirely planned out yet but I'm definitely going to focus on art in the future. Well, thank you for sharing your time and your talents with us here tonight at the board meeting and best of luck in your future art endeavors. Thank you. Our next item on tonight's agenda is a superintendent's report. Dr. Anderson, good evening. Good evening. Thanks again uh Mr. President Rajpal. Have a few things uh for remarks this evening to to update the board and community on.

0:16:53Start tonight with a big milestone for one of our schools. Escuela Bilingue Pioneer Elementary recently celebrated their 100th anniversary. To celebrate the impressive event all students and staff posed for a once-in-a-lifetime photo outside of their historic building in Lafayette. Uh wish the sun was out for that but it's a beautiful beautiful picture. Uh as we mentioned during student moment BVSD's annual art shows are in full gear. Dairy Center High School and staff show kicked off a couple weeks ago with an exciting opening reception, and we've got a clip from that night. It's a lot of passion, a lot of support for the arts, and a lot of talent. I think one of my favorite things about this art show is that we have all these students, individual students from so many different schools, and then somehow we combine it all together, and there's a lot of like themes and things that play together. It's really cool to see how it all works together.

0:17:54The 2026 Best in Show award goes to Sophia Holtzman from Boulder High School. Super shocking. I I wasn't expecting to win the best overall. I I I'm not I don't even have the full words to describe it. It was just crazy. I wasn't expecting my name to be called. Well, my mom is from Laos, and uh, she like told me about her culture and stuff, and uh, the Laos Nagas, which uh, were like a they're very big part of the culture, and it inspired me cuz I already love dragons, and I thought the uh, Laos Naga looks super cool. So, I made the piece for her, and uh, yeah, so she and her culture was my inspiration. Art means to me uh, ins- like expression of yourself and like the emotions and what you believe in.

0:18:45Um, and like bringing your ideas to life. That's what art means to me. It's up for a month, and the Dairy Center is open to the public, so come check it out. I mean, I know for myself, this opening is great, and there's so many people here, and sometimes you can take it in a little better when it's actually a little quieter, and you just have time to absorb it. So, um, every time I come, I see something new. And every time I come, I notice new things, and different pieces jump out of me, or different details. So, absolutely, come out, check it out, and enjoy the artwork. So, the high school show at the Dairy Art Center will be on display through May 3rd. So, be make sure that you, if you have a chance, stop by.

0:19:35Also, would like to give a shout out to our partners at the Dairy for providing work-based learning opportunities for our students who helped to install the show, learning about the job of a curator, and had the opportunity to give an artist talk as part of Boulder Arts Week. So, just a hugely successful event. Our K-8 student art shows are also on display at our public libraries through the beginning of May. Our opening receptions are tomorrow, April 15th, from 5:00 to 6:30 at Boulder Public Library, and from 5:00 to 6:30 on Thursday, April 16th, from 5:00 to 6:00 at the Lafayette Public Library. So, even if you can't make the receptions, we hope that everyone will come out and check out the incredible talent in our district on display within our community this month. Colorado State Representative Kenny Win, who went to Alicia Sanchez Elementary and Angevine Middle School before graduating from Centaurus High School, recently took some time to show the next generation of leaders from BVSD a behind-the-scenes look at his work at the State Capitol. 64th graders were on the field trip, and during their visit at visit, Representative Win realized they all had something in common.

0:20:37They're all dragons. After all, the dragon is the mascot for both Alicia Sanchez and Emerald. Last week, students from across the district came together at Boulder High School for annual unified basketball tournament. Stands were packed with fans, and students showed off their skills and teamwork. As always, this event was full of joy and camaraderie, along with friendly competition. Centaurus took home the win after some hard-fought games, and all of our student athletes did an amazing job on and off the court. We also celebrated our seniors with awards and medals for their participation in Unified Athletics over the years and we wish them best the best in their future endeavors. Finally, uh board members, we are approaching prom season in our school district and as you may know our parents uh throughout our school district do an amazing job in providing safe opportunities for students to gather after the big dance. Number of our schools events started after a series of tragic alcohol and drug-related accidents that claimed the lives of 11 Denver Boulder metro area teens back in the '90s.

0:21:36Sadly, there have been reminders of the importance a number of times since. Each of the amazing events are organized by dedicated caring parents who create epic and memorable nights of fun filled with food, music, activities, and prizes. We want to share with our community so folks can donate to support their efforts. The first this year will be the after prom shared by our two Boulder high schools. This event brings about 1,500 students from Fairview and Boulder High School at the East Boulder Community Center. Go to fhs.bhs.afterprom.org for more information and to donate. Centaurus' after prom, known as C SNAPS, Safe Night After Prom, will be on Friday, April 24th. It's held at the YMCA in Lafayette so students can have access to the Y's activities including ice skating and swimming. To donate, visit centaurussnap.org. Monarch After Prom is the next night, Saturday, April 25th at Monarch High School. Parent volunteers are planning to transform the school into a paradise island theme. Donations can be made at www.monarchafterprom.com.

0:22:43There are two schools on May 2nd including Just JAM, Just After Midnight, which is Broomfield High School's after prom event. It's held at Broomfield High and similar to Monarch, their parents really pride pride themselves on creating a cool theme inside the school. Always so cool that Broomfield community members line up at 7:00 p.m. that night to get a preview. Donations can be made at www.bhsjam.com. Last but not least, Nederland's after prom event is held at the Caribou Room in in Nederland. Nederland students voted on a neon glow night theme, so they'll have tons of fun neon photo proms and props and decorations. Donations can be made uh to Nederland High School, 570 County Road 130, Nederland, Colorado 80466. Board members, that's all I have for my remarks this evening. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

0:23:31Board members, any questions for Dr. Anderson? Just want to double down on those after prom parties. They are a great place for our students to be incredibly safe on prom night, and those donations go to a lot of amazing prizes and activities and events to really keep those kids entertained and safe. So, if you can give, that would be great. Seeing as there are no further questions, we'll move on to the next item of tonight's agenda, which is the public participation. The board respects the rights of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of our schools. The board does not endorse the comments of individual participants and reminds all those who speak that you are responsible for ensuring your remarks are suitable for an audience that includes kindergarten through 12th grade students. Furthermore, this is not an opportunity for the board to This is an opportunity for the board to hear from our constituents. It is 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 and an orange card when you have 10 seconds remaining. If you run out of time or would you like to share additional thoughts with the board, we

0:24:31do read all of our emails. That being said, we will begin with our first speaker this evening, Gabby, I'm Gabby, I'm sorry, I'm going to not going to say this last name right, but Scholtes, who is virtual. They're not on. Well, then we will move on to Esme Kubermann and Natalie Marshall, who will each stand together, but speak to us independently. Hi. Hi. Our names are Natalie and Esme. We are third graders at Louisville Elementary School. Thank you for serving our school district. We are concerned about the two abandoned oil wells that are leaking methane gas near Meadowlark and Peak to Peak. Fortunately, there's a program called the Enterprise Marginal Well Plugging Group. Oil well operators can apply for funding from this group to plug the well. That means BVSD can put pressure on the oil well operators to to get the well closed. Plugging these wells is important to the health of all students. Additionally, over time it is equivalent to taking a thousand cars off the road.

0:26:24This is important to us because we are eight and nine year olds, and we have many more decades to live. We need a healthy planet to live on, but the oil from these two wells pollute our community and kill lots of plants, so we don't have fresh air to breathe. We ask that you put pressure on the extraction oil and gas the oil company that manages the the well near peak to peak. Thank you for listening to us. We hope we have encouraged you to put pressure on the well operators and plug the oils. Our next speaker this evening is Alice Cohen. Our next speaker then will be Elizabeth Miranda. Moving on to a virtual participant, Ilet Letman. Also not in attendance. Mary Newberry, who's also virtual. Deb, can you push the I'm sorry. I'm Deb Darnell and due to the 2-minute limit, I'll be focusing on these salient points.

0:28:12In October of 2023, the Daily Camera reported the results of a parental enrollment choice survey. It concluded that parents would be most likely to open enroll in BVSD for STEAM, which is science, technology, engineering, art, and math, and gifted and talented programs. Programs not available in all the schools across our district at that time. Rob Anderson emphatically acknowledged this choice stating, "This idea of STEAM and gifted and talented, those are the things that parents are really interested in here in Boulder Valley. This is trend number one. Trend number two comes in light of the BVSD showcase fairs where a driving theme showed that parents were enrolling their students in other districts or private schools for steam and other programs. The trend number three is that many schools in the district have decreased staffing or funding and have some have outright removed GT academic options.

0:29:20Trend number four is a very concerning long-term trend that is that enrollment in general is down. And trend number five is that GT population in BVSD is increasing. BVSD's percentage is 20% as opposed to the state percentage of 8%. I mean, we have a unique opportunity with the students we have here in BVSD. Taking these three trends together prompts me to totally support the BVGT proposal that BVSD should require GT informed professional development and differential differential training at least for all teachers at the elementary level and hopefully grow it or regrow these programs to stem the decreasing enrollment uh of our decreasing enrollment tide and attract more students to BVSD. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Crystal Chin. Good evening. My name is Crystal Chin. Over the past several weeks, families and educators have come forward to share their experiences both publicly and privately.

0:30:49At a recent community town hall, we heard consistent patterns across multiple schools. Concerns related to student safety, harm, and retaliation are being raised. And when they are, they are handled internally by the same system being asked to review itself. We came forward in good faith. We participated in this process. We brought forward patterns, not isolated incidents. And we asked a clear question. What independent pathway exists for concerns to be reviewed objectively without conflicts of interest? At this point, we have not received a meaningful answer. We are hearing about community community engagement efforts, but when it comes to concerns about harm and safety, there is still no independent pathway for those concerns to be reviewed. That leaves families and educators without a clear pathway inside the system. At a time when the district is making important decisions about resources and priorities, it is critical that systems for accountability and student safety are also clear, consistent, and independent.

0:31:54So, I want to be clear about where this stands. This is not about disagreement. This is about a structural gap. When concerns are raised and raised, and the only option is internal review, trust breaks down. And without trust, safety cannot be assured. And because of that, we are now exploring next steps beyond the district level to better understand what mechanisms exist to ensure accountability. We remain open to engagement, but we are also committed to ensuring that these concerns are taken seriously and reviewed in a way that is objective, consistent, and independent. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Tekla Ayers. Good evening. My name is Tecla Ayers. I attended the recent community town hall and heard consistent experiences across multiple schools. This is not isolated. What we are hearing reflects patterns in how concerns are raised and how they are handled.

0:33:04We need a pathway for concerns to be reviewed outside of the system. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kirsty Maynard. Kirsty, sorry about that. Kirsty, thank you. It's a challenging one. Uh good evening. My name is Kirsty Maynard. When concerns are handled internally without independent review, trust breaks down. Families and educators need to know that when they raise concerns, those concerns will be reviewed in a way that is fair, consistent, and objective. We are asking for a process that is independent, transparent, consistent, and accountable. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Liz Jimenez. Appears Liz is not here, so our final final speaker will be Gabriella Flores. I think the rain has kept some folks away tonight. This concludes public comment for this evening. On behalf of the board, I want to thank everyone who took the time to show up to share your feedback with us. We really do appreciate hearing from our community, and a special special shout out to the youngest advocates in the audience. That was really brave of you for coming and sharing your thoughts with us tonight on the oil wells. So, thank you for that.

0:34:32We will move next move on to board communication. Board members, who would like to begin? Anna? I did just want to take a moment just to show gratitude for the teacher round tables that we went through. My final one was at Emerald Elementary School, which is where my son goes to, and that was amazing. And just thank you to all of the teachers that took the time out of their day to come and share some of their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions with us. I really did appreciate everyone's point of view, their ideas, everything that they have to say. And I am looking forward to going to the engagement sessions with community. Primarily planning on going to the Broomfield one happening on the 20th at Broomfield High School. And just thank you in advance to all community members that are planning on going to these engagement sessions.

0:35:44I had the opportunity to attend the IT the technology group after our last board meeting where we had a presentation. And this group is made up of different folks, so it's community members and a lot of teachers. And while I'm not a participant there, but an observer, I can tell you they were doing a really good job of figuring out what their next next steps might be and how they'll be able to move forward with developing some ideas for accountability and um procedures for how we're going to use AI in the schools and with a with a moderate approach um so that we're and we are flexible enough in order to um take care of things that we can't even see are coming. And I was really impressed with the meeting and I look forward to working with them again next year.

0:36:52Alex and Elena. Uh yeah, um first off I just wanted to express my gratitude uh towards the staff and leadership for the community engagement design. Um I had the privilege of being at the DAC meeting last week and at the first one meeting at New Vista last night and I was amazed. Um I was really amazed at our community and the parents and teachers who were there and their um their candor and the depth of their thought and their ability to listen to one another. I was sitting at one of the tables and just really really impressed at how quickly and deeply people dived in and I was gratified how much they were focused on all our kids. Um and I think it's really helpful in our community going forward that we keep that focus on what's good for the kids and keep that civility from person to person and know it's all good people acting in good faith.

0:37:42And it's amazing to see that level of engagement. So I'm I feel privileged to benefit from that. Um so kudos to the team and for the great leadership and facilitation by our principals who were there. That was really great to see. And by the responsiveness of the team to the feedback from the first meeting. So it definitely evolved. I I bet it will continue to evolve and be even more powerful. Also I want to give my thanks to the IT team at BVSD who helped me keep this laptop going um which is not easy given my abuse. Uh but I also wanted to bring up something um that I would like to see us do in the long term. I've heard from parents who use GoGuardian and like AI I think we have a small group of intense expert users of GoGuardian. Whoops, speaking of bad technology.

0:38:28I apologize. That's ringing in my hearing aid, but not for you. Um uh when you see what experienced expert users of GoGuardian do to manage their children's screen time, access to what they're looking at, and track it, it's really impressive. But, if you're like me, I use 5% of Outlook and 2% of Excel. And I believe uh many of our parents would like to have the benefits of GoGuardian, but the actual use of setting it up is more than they have the time to do. And if we had 30,000 families ask us to do it for them and customize it for them, it wouldn't work. So, I think we should really explore um presets in GoGuardian, in which you have option like A, B, or C that are predesigned that we can do for them, and then D would be other, and you can do the current customizing that parents do.

0:39:17So, if a parent wanted to say, "Hey, I want the minimum that's a lot that will allow my child to finish their homework assigned by their teacher." That would be like a preset they could just pick. And if they wanted to say, "I want to make sure that the internet on a district device turns off at 7:30 p.m." That's a preset they could pick, and we could figure out how to do it for them. I recognize that that would be a lot of work for the great people in the BVSD IT team, but it's an unreasonable ask of our parents to develop the expertise to use a tool that I know that many would like to have its power, but would not like to the obligation of learning how to use how to design and and code its power. So, I suggest we explore that. I also think we'd end up with great data on what it is parents want about their kids' screen use, cuz we'd get all their sort of voting, for real, about what it is they want kids to do with their devices once they're out of school. So, I hope we can make progress on that, and I have confidence in our IT team pull it off.

0:40:12Um I also, of course, want to thank our student awardees and speakers tonight. I know they left, but we really love hearing from students and are always really gratified to see the the great leadership they present. Uh finally, I want to talk um not directly to uh different proposals, but one of the issues that's near and dear to my heart is how the district responds to parents when something is not going satisfactorily for their kid. And I know we've had calls for like an independent investigatory body, which I know from my experience on the board is actually just logistically, legally not a viable option. Like pretty much anytime two people do something bad that's being investigated, uh the district's hands are tied about what is public and what is private data, whether it's social services, the police, our uh collective bargaining agreements, um uh FERPA, you name it. There's almost nothing we can share with everybody once investigations are underway. And once the police or social services are involved, we literally have to back off and not do anything until they're done.

0:41:16So, for reasons beyond our control, investigations can take a very long time and they can be very opaque to affected parties, including the students who are suffering from an activity that that harmed that child. So, our obligations um put us in a place where we can't do some of the things the community would like us to do. Many of these situations are really complicated and they're legally fraught and they are morally and ethically fraught. So, professionals are trying to do really hard stuff. I know from what we hear as board members of stuff that's privileged that these are tricky situations where professionals are trying to figure out what to do. I do think there's a way to make progress. I mean, I'm happy to have advocated for our changes in the website where it's now easier to make a report, and I'm glad that we include information on how hard it is what we can't communicate about. I believe um in the long run, maybe medium term, I believe that what we should do is pursue better metrics of school climate and culture.

0:42:16And that in our UIPs at the school and district level, um we could have additional measures. They'd be really powerful to me as a board member to understand do how kids are feeling safe, how they're feeling included. Um our current strategic plan metrics are outdated. Um I don't feel like the discrepancy between white and Hispanic um out-of-school suspension is the best metric of what's going on. I don't feel like the proportion of kids involved in restorative justice tells us how well that restorative justice played out. So, I'm really interested in additional metrics of climate and culture that get at our students and family sense of safety and inclusion and the responsiveness of the district when they have serious concerns cuz those are very real. Whether it's I can't begin to name the different ways that something can be hard for a kid.

0:43:05And I and I don't want us to be having public discussions about individual cases. That's totally inappropriate. Um we want to protect everybody the way we should, but I believe we should have governing board discussions about how we're doing on it. And we collect a bunch of data. And I I sort of challenge us to figure out what's meaningful data that we can share, that we can use, that would inform our feedback to the superintendent, that would inform our feedback to the different departments, and say, "Hey, it looks like we have an issue in litigation about special ed, uh state complaints, um you name it." Or the exit of students who've been involved in disc discipline proceedings from our district. You know, there's metrics that we could get that would protect the students' confidentiality, uh not get into the legally fraught manners, and still give us more insight into how kids and families are fee- and staff are feeling about our conduct. So, I'd encourage us to think about that.

0:43:58And I'd encourage people in the community who care about this to explore uh in full partnership with their school SACs uh to talk about like what are the metrics of the things you value. That's what a UIP is for. Um, and I'm not saying that that solves an individual family's problem, but it speaks to the systematic stuff of how we prioritize safety and well-being and and the feedback we give to people that when we we are I'm sure as a board member I fall down and haven't handled something well, but people need the feedback. They need the the sense of reflection that comes from actually keeping track of it. So, I'd encourage us to explore that. Uh, so that we can, um, address the root causes appropriately at the different levels. And I know that's a lot, uh, and I would probably pri- I'll add that to the prioritization list eventually that we explore what those metrics can be and you know, we should along the way explore like the role of ombudsman, um, if that can add some of the independence that might help affected communities or or the role of our community liaisons and how they interact on this. So, I know there's lots that we can do. I know there's great people working on this. And I know

0:45:05we can't talk about it the way we would like. Uh, but I do think there's progress that we can make and I appreciate the feedback from the community as well as I appreciate the real diligence protecting our students' interests from the staff now. Um, it's not that people are hiding things. They are protecting students and they're figuring out what to do and we are left needing to wait too much. So, um, I'll stop there. Alania. Uh, I'd like to echo thanks for the community engagement. In particular, I'd like to give a shout out to, uh, our DAC. Uh, I went to that community engagement session and was really impressed as Alex was, uh, by the depth of their participation. So, um, thanks to DAC and thanks for the parents who are in community community members who are showing up at those engagements now.

0:46:06We're looking forward to all of those. Um I'd also just like to draw attention to Senate Bill 26 004. And that uh was signed by the governor since the last time we met. And it expanded the list of pre- petitioners for protection orders for red flag orders. A red flag order is something where somebody can go in front of a judge and say, "Hey, um this individual has a firearm and could not be safe, you know, there's potential for unsafe behavior in our community." And this expansion um is something that I do think will help keep our students safe and more people in our community safe. Uh as a school district, we are now able to petition for red flag laws. So, that was just signed into law. Um there also be behavioral health facilities, um higher education institutions, all charter schools.

0:47:12So, um I was really happy that Governor Polis signed that. Um lastly, since we last saw each other, um I got the good news that we're going to be doing a pilot of hotspot mapping at New Vista High School. And this is a way for um us to get student voice about where they feel safe in their school, where they feel welcomed in their school, and any places that are challenging. And once you have that information, of course, you need to figure out what to do about it, but hotspot mapping is a way to do that. Um that will be provided by SPAN who we have current contract with and I'm so excited about this pilot and so I want to thank Rob, his team, Kathleen, her team for helping make that happen. Thank you.

0:48:19Jason Yeah, thanks. I was going to save the community engagement for that section of the meeting but since we're talking about it, I was able to join last night also and like my colleagues who were there I was just so impressed with all the work from our district staff from our principals that went into a really thoughtful process you know for folks who attended to be able to to understand this issue in more detail and really get some important data and and understand the various perspectives and possible solutions and so I came away you know really really energized about the you know very positive great turnout number one but you know positive discussions very hopeful and I think you know one thing I was I was very nervous going to this process but seeing kind of the discussions around you know really solutions based thinking you know really gave me hope that you know for for this process so thanks to everyone who put so much time and effort into that thanks to all the staff who were there last night and will be there I guess for the next five and all the principals who go above and you know in addition to all the work they do during the day are there at these sessions helping to facilitate and

0:49:31lead so I I was just really really impressed so thanks for that and I didn't did not have a chance to go to other things it's spring and my kids are in a million different things and it's hard to get to other places but I was really grateful to be able to go last night and then Alex among your many great suggestions I I really love the idea of some kind of a way to make it easier for parents to use GoGuardian when we had our in-person or when we had our daytime session on AI, Lynn who helped lead that was kind enough to give me personalized instructions on how to do it and it's still sitting on my desk among a pile of things to do and if I had a personalized instruction and I still didn't get it done, I think that you know I that's that kind of speaks to how it's not set up not anyone not because of anyone's fault but not set up you know to make it easy and to maximize you know a really great and probably expensive technology that we should be able to give more families access to. So I'm in favor of any kind of thing that you know makes it easier to use that as a parent. As I said it during the

0:50:40meeting it's a source of great tension in my household. The Chromebook and what is what is what is actual school work and what is not and I'd love to be able to have a little bit more visibility literally about what is happening on the Chromebook. So I would love to explore that further. Thanks Alex. Horace, do you have any comments? Yeah, thank you. Hi and nice to see you all virtually. I appreciate the consideration. Sorry I can't be there today. I want to echo some of the sentiment. I know we've gone through this process right now to complete the kind of school engagement part talking to teachers and administrators and get a perspective and that was so critical. You know visiting all the elementary schools and being able to be a part of that. I you know I think that really set set us up well for the discussion and so I want to echo the thanks to the teachers for kind of sharing their concerns and perspectives and and giving us some starting points for the discussions as we think about the broader community engagement. It was really valuable to be there as part of the discussions and the pictures I've heard back from they appreciate the they appreciated it as well.

0:51:50Uh I'm looking forward to the community engagement component of it. Um and I would like to give a kind of a a thanks also to the L rack um committee for helping to kind of iron out this process and and coming up and and and and uh kind of outlining the the the the ways in which the discussions are being shaped for the communication part of it. I know that there's a lot of work going into that and it's they've been at the forefront of kind of helping us figure out what this process looks like. So, I appreciate that and I look forward to kind of hearing from folks in the community as we move forward. I think we've been really thoughtful about this process. So, thank you to the Superintendent um Anderson and the administration for the work to really make sure we're being thoughtful about how we're approaching um this tough decision point moving forward.

0:52:35Thank you. Thanks. Um I'll just a lot of my board members have said what I was going to share about the community engagement sessions. Another thing I would add is it's nat it's instinct if you feel like your school might be one of the ones that is up for consideration for a closure or consolidation or something to really attend in droves. And I would really like to encourage folks who feel like I my kid goes to school that's solidly three rounds or doesn't feel like it's going to be impacted by any decisions that the board makes to show up because all voices are really important as we consider what are part of the trade-off exercise is what is of most importance what is of greatest importance to you. And so, I think I would be great I would be ecstatic to hear from a wide cat like net of parents and community members in that not just the from in addition to the those that attend schools that that have been thinking about this for quite some time because they've been experiencing declining enrollment in more significant ways.

0:53:39Along that I also wanted to just give a shout out to some of our local other local electeds, Judy Senator Judy Amabile, City Council member Tina Marquis for sharing our community engagement sessions. The more we can share when they are, the better engagement we'll get from both those that have students in the district that teach in the district and then those that are taxpayers in our district. It's really important to hear from a wide variety people. So, thank you to everybody out there who is amplifying these sessions. They are really powerful and and I'll also say that it might seem a little discouraging to know that they run from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. I will say everybody that participated last night in our first one was fully engaged that entire time. So, the time goes by really fast because they are so thoughtfully designed and are in intended to be truly an engagement activity. So, don't be discouraged by the time. It's well worth it. Um and I as many people as can that can come, the the better.

0:54:36It's been a few weeks now. I was able to a couple weeks ago attend the community leadership academy to talk about what the school board does. And as I was sitting there, I was um Colly's Closet, two students from Colly's Closet showed up to share what they do in our schools to teach about health-related topics. So, they ran this group of volunteers or engaged citizens through one of their lessons and I just want to give a shout out to Ella from Boulder High School and Kennedy from Centaurus. They did an outstanding job talking about health-related issues, suicide, depression, all of the things. I was impressed. So, that is a volunteer organization. A lot of our students volunteer for that. They take donations. They do good work in our schools and I think it's really important for our our students to learn from their peers. So, Colly's Closet shows up in class to health classrooms in eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade at most of our schools.

0:55:30Do outstanding work. So, huge shout out to them. Um and then lastly, but not least, I just want to elevate that we are in C-MAS testing windows today. A lot of our schools had PSATs and SATs that will continue this week. It is a It can be a stressful time for students and for staff. And uh changes in schedules even just can be a source of stress. So, I wanted to thank everybody for all that goes into that and for creating the conditions to the extent practicable that encourage our students to take the test because that data does help us in in important ways and it it's good practice for our students as well. So, just elevating that that's another one of those things going on this time of year. As Jason said, there's a lot going on and um thanks to our teachers and thanks to our students for for working through that process.

0:56:20With that, um we will move on to our next item this evening, which we have three information items this evening, the first of which is our 26-27 preliminary budget, which Bill Setter will be presenting. Good evening, President Raj Paul, board members, Dr. Anderson. I uh come to you once again for the uh starting the details of the uh budget presentations uh as we work our way towards uh adopting the budget for next year. Oops. Do I have to point at it? It's not picking it up. Oh, well. A reminder um we built this into the slides just to as we talk about uh updates, we have audits, and uh which is the prior fiscal year, the current year activities, and we are talking about next fiscal year uh right now. So, just uh there's a little color coding up in the corner of each slide uh to remind everybody of where we are in this conversation.

0:58:02There we go. Uh a little agenda of what I'll be covering, budget development timeline and milestones, the input uh enrollment projections, uh preliminary budget adjustments, and next steps. On the timeline and milestones, uh a review uh of what we looked at back in December. So, this is uh the continuation of that presentation. Uh the red line is where we are right now. Uh we are still taking input, uh still incorporating new data uh as that comes to us, and uh the majority of the budget uh has already been committed uh through staffing uh that has been uh distributed out to uh schools. Uh this sort of shading highlights uh the remaining steps. Uh finishing the legislative session and the school finance act uh in the next um 4 weeks or so, 5 weeks. Uh the proposed budget presentation uh after Memorial Day uh at the end of May, and budget adoption in June.

0:59:21A little summarization, the budget development process spans many months. There are numerous options for input uh with relevant data and information coming all the way up until the end of in June with budget adoption. So, the focus of uh budget development for this year uh is very similar uh to last year. Uh focusing on employees, uh employee compensation the strategic plan and strategic uh investments, uh strategic initiatives within the strategic plan. Uh inflation, which continues to impact uh districts across the country and in Colorado and uh Boulder is not escaped that. Uh and then we added uh mitigating state budget cuts uh to the list this year uh as conversations uh seem to be continuous at the legislative level of how to reduce funding uh for K-12 uh in uh obscure ways that uh aren't tracked and are not uh transparent uh going forward.

1:00:54The uh input, these are just uh items, committees uh that uh meet I've commented many times before uh just about any meeting that occurs has a tangential connection uh to budget development. Even if the meeting is not called a budget input meeting, uh right? Anytime there is a conversation about uh availability of resources or what kind of services can be provided or additional services, uh those are essentially budget conversations. Uh the superintendent and his staff take those conversations into consideration as the budget is developed. Just a little reminder of the board meetings and board meeting topics that have occurred this year since the beginning of the year. Uh strategic plan and strategic initiatives updates. Uh revenue impacts and declining enrollment and the state budget and state economic outlook. Lots of opportunity for the public to go back and watch board meetings and get information on any of these topics over the past months.

1:02:21uh no surprise, I think, uh that there's further projected decline in enrollment. Uh this table shows actual enrollment uh physical students, not uh students that are uh funded at FTE or part of enrollment averaging. Uh the decline is concentrated in our non-charter schools and at the early grades as previous board presentations have portrayed. There are legislated student count reductions. Uh this is compounding the effect in the loss of enrollment as legislation that reduces funding by changing how students are counted or funded. So, this table shows the change in the school finance act uh and how that has reduced funding for districts across the state uh with declining enrollment. Projected per pupil revenue for Boulder for next year uh is a little under $15,000 per student including our local 25% mill levy override. So, that is approximately $7.3 million when compared to the previous 1994 school finance act with the 5-year averaging. So, again, all of those numbers sort of get larger as we move to the right uh as the enrollment averaging changes from 5 years to 4 years to 3 years to a smoothing factor which is sort of a weighted average uh to 2-year averaging.

1:04:07Uh and so, that is one of the methods of uh reducing funding uh by just changing how students are counted and funded. So, the takeaway on this uh these changes were not part of the original 1448 implementation. I think the initial one was just changing it from 5 years to 4 years uh but has been introduced as a way to pay for the plan uh that the legislature didn't really have the money uh to fully implement. Bill, Alex has a question. Yes. Can you back up to the previous line, please, Bill? Um so, what has the legislature done? Have they done made these changes? Are they proposing these changes? Are we planning for the possibility that these changes will occur? So, the current year is the 4-year averaging. Uh the next year uh for uh 20 26-27 uh has the 3-year averaging built into the uh school finance act that's been introduced uh proposed current law says either two-year averaging or a smoothing factor in the following year.

1:05:26The smoothing factor it was developed by group of colleagues CFOs from across the state to kind of split the difference between three-year and two-year. It's a weighted average 50% of the current year 20% and 5% or something like that. So it's sort of uh creates a way that counts current students more and then as the the enrollment from prior years gets further in the rearview mirror it gets less weight to it. So the last two columns are current law that will go in effect one or the other in the following year. And so the the three-year average is proposed in the finance act now but hasn't been enacted. Correct? Correct. And what is the unit of these numbers? Are these millions? Are these dollars per kid? What what is what is what is 208 .5 mean? FTE. So student FTE that is the the averaging benefit that is included in our funding. So it's dollars.

1:06:45Per child then? Times 15,000 Right. equals the dollars. Yeah. So that's a per pupil dollar amount that would be reduced if we went from the current four-year to the three-year and then from the three-year to the smoothing. Is that a cut all those against the status quo today or they against the column to their left? The second one from the bottom is comparison to the prior year. So, 141 is comparing to uh five-year averaging. Uh 135 is comparing to four-year averaging. 144 is uh the smoothing factor comparing to uh the three-year and then two-year, same. And then the bottom row is all comparing to the five-year averaging. All right. And then if we're using the factor word, is the smoothing factor a new euphemism for the budget stabilization factor? Or is that a wholly new thing? Euphemism for averaging. For averaging. Okay. And what is what what's our What are we telling the CFO group that we would like to do in terms of BBSDs participation in developing the smoothing factor?

1:08:06Uh in so many words, uh the legislature said "Tell us how you want to be reduced uh and come up with a factor that is not called averaging." And so the smoothing Literally, it says smoothing factor in the legislation. Um so, that factor was developed to It couldn't be more, right? It couldn't It wouldn't be a accepted uh to have it be more than three years uh value, similar value in averaging. Um and certainly we wouldn't want it to be less than two-year because that would be not beneficial. So, it's again kind of split the difference to come up with something that met the current law that said a smoothing factor needs to be developed. Robin and then Jason. I think this slide highlights our frustration with with the the new school finance act. Um which uh makes it seem like they're implementing more money for schools, but then gives us more money but for less students as opposed to when they just say how much more per student they're giving us uh alluding to the fact that this is some big windfall for education. And it hurts us because the messaging doesn't match the reality of what it is that school districts across the state are facing.

1:09:51And I do appreciate the 1994 comparison on the bottom bill. Board members, you'll recall we were one of a handful of districts pushing against this new and improved school finance act that all we've seen is change and morph and phase in and then the smoothing factor, which is uh you know, folks are really avoiding the realities, which is they're not funding education in the in the ways they said they would or they should. And they're trying to make it seem like it's not that bad. And uh to the extent that that this is I think a frustration uh but it's also a problem because it's hard to communicate. I mean, we've been talking about this for 5 to 10 minutes and you all are informed educated school board members. So, for our general public, so they know and understand the school finance act was changed. The it had different factors. Uh it had a phase-in plan. And as we had predicted when we stood against this, there wasn't the money to implement it as it was written. And so now the rules continue to change.

1:11:01Uh literally there's a um in the school finance act I believe that uh uh one of our our legislators has coined the positive factor. Have you heard this bill? Yeah. Uh where um any new money is going to be the positive factor. But so it's just uh it's it's really it's really hard for a public that I think deserves to be um leveled with and and and be communicated honestly and clearly. And I think a lot of this just creates tons of confusion. So uh to the extent Bill that we can clean up some of these numbers but as so we know that they're students and dollars where students are students and dollars are dollars. I think as our community relies on our communication of these numbers as opposed to the state. Um uh let's make sure that we go through and clean that up before we post it or or when we clean it up Laura, let's make sure that that happens.

1:11:58Um I guess on the subject of making this easier to communicate and understand I think between Alex's questions and Dr. Anderson's remarks it's a little clearer but I think uh if I'm looking at like column two the 5 25 26 and 26 27 numbers in the like high 400s and then you move down to like column four of the 218.5. Is that like that's probably the what we're looking at in the future, right? This smoothing factor some version of that. Like how do you explain that like 50% or more jump? Like what does that mean? Uh that's a change from four-year averaging to two and a half year averaging. I know but what what does it mean when it goes from 496 to 218? Is that like like we're seeing a more than 50% cut from the state level? Are we seeing like how would you describe that in those are funded FTE.

1:12:54Uh and then you multiply any one of the numbers by the $15,000 per pupil. And which is the What did I say? 7.something million. 7 and 1/2 million dollars is the 500 493 uh funded FTE difference is 7.3 million. So, that's how much less funding we will have in one of those out-year scenarios than if the four five-year averaging was in place. Okay. Yeah. Alex. Yeah, I I just I really appreciate the idea of how we figure out how to make our budget more transparent cuz one thing I Whenever there's a budget discussion with parents in this community, it is Oh my god, can you figure out how to make that budget transparent? We can't figure anything out from what the district shares. So, I I do think it's like incumbent on us in a period where we are advocating against the state in order to not cut funding from our community when we're having really hard discussions with people in the field about closing schools, that we be able to communicate clearly what's going on with the budget.

1:14:03And I I've been the treasurer for 2 years and I still can't figure out a slide like this. So, is in 2024-25 with the five-year averaging, $368.9 per student is up or down from 1994? Is that what that says? Uh Which number did you say? 200 Uh the cell 368.9 in the upper left cell. What What is that? That is What are you telling me with that? Funded FTE. So, funded pupil count. So, that's a uh the the benefit the district received in 24-25 under the 1994 School Finance Act with five-year averaging. We were funded for 368.9 more students than we actually had. This is where the conversation of uh funding phantom students uh comes from, which is um like a really uh derogatory way of uh explaining that that just some legislators use cuz they're funding the students that are in our school. It just gives the district a little runway to make adjustments and changes as we experience declining enrollment. Um so, those were additional resources that the district received over and above the actual students in the district in each of those years. And then the bottom rows are the decline or the the reduction uh as the averaging went from 5-year 4-year 2-year.

1:15:47Okay, that's that's not at all what I thought it was. So, that's helpful to explain it. And again, I'm always arguing that our figures and graphs should be labeled so that someone who doesn't know what's going on can interpret them when we're not explaining it. Lulenian then Diane. Thank you. I'm starting to understand it. Um and what would be helpful to me for my discussions with folks in our community would be a a chart that shows that $7 million. That's that's the chart that I want to have or that I want to be able to have the numbers there. You know, because I understand that and we certainly are not calling them phantom students, but we see that we would have had 639 students. Is this right? That we would have if if we if things had stayed the same that we would have received funding funding for.

1:16:55And now by the time we get to smoothing factor, we're down to 218. Um and I'm sure some could argue about continued phantom students, but I what I need to understand is how much less money comes in. So that then when someone asks me that that is that's the piece of information that is more understandable for the layperson. Um Is that making sense? Is that what you need, too? Can someone else speak up? No, I think that'll be I think that's helpful. So you don't have to say 146.3 * 15,000. So I I hear what you're saying there. Deanne My question may be irrelevant because if we turn this into actual dollars and cents I won't need to ask this question, but if I go back to 1994 Well, for this the 1994 finance act and I'm taking the numbers for 24-25 that's 368.9, which I understand is an average even though it's last year, do I multiply it by 15,000?

1:18:13Uh Or is it a less? It would be a less amount because it would be in the 24-25 per pupil. Okay, so dollars and cents would help a lot. Yep. All right. Uh just a little reminder uh that we are in what I would consider uh the early stages of the budget finalization. Uh enrollment is being monitored uh as students uh and families continue to put in uh open enrollment requests uh and the wait lists are being cleared on a daily basis. Uh staff negotiations and compensation is being finalized. Uh we're still meeting with uh all our various associations and employee groups. Uh new expenses are uh being identified and legislative actions are being actively engaged uh over the course of the next uh month or so. Uh this really is right up to the last minute uh as changes come along.

1:19:44So uh uh the first step in the process is to identify the base budget, uh what we would consider the base budget. So, this removes all the one-time items uh both revenues and expenses uh to find uh the starting point uh from moving forward with the budget adjustments. Uh this is a key to maintaining a structurally sound budget, uh something the legislature is struggling with. On the revenue side, uh this is the uh net amount of per pupil revenue. So, this is a 2.3% inflation, so that was the uh 2025 inflation number for uh the Denver Lakewood Aurora metropolitan statistical unit. So, that is the the number that is inflation under TABOR. And incorporates the decline in enrollment and the roll out of the new School Finance Act. So, 3.7 million. 25% mill levy override for that. So, the mill levy override is only on those new dollars in the School Finance Act.

1:21:03A little increase for categorical funding. Some of the categorical funding is based on enrollment, district enrollment. So, with a declining enrollment, there's a little reduction in categorical funding when inflation is taken into account. And then services provided to charters as part of the charter school contracts, they buy services from the district and so that's a revenue line. So, 5.3 million dollars in ongoing revenue adjustments. So, just for some context, in April of 2024, when I was here for the 24-25 preliminary budget, that number was 15.9 million at the bottom line. And in 23, it was 18.2 million. So, that included negative factor buy-downs and inflation rates of 5.2 and 8%. So, much higher inflation two and almost three times higher, but that is what is driving those revenue numbers and a large portion of it was the negative factor buy-downs, which is gone away now that the the negative factor is at zero right now.

1:22:37Uh transfers, so as dollars come in to the general fund, uh they are transferred over to charter schools. So, it is their portion both legal and contractual share of per pupil revenue, categorical funding, and mill levy overrides. Uh and the adjustment for enrollment. On the enrollment slide, I think there's five more students projected for our charter schools overall. Um So, a little use of those new dollars into the general fund. On the expenditure side, compensation. So, we have not included a cost of living adjustment in here yet. Uh we have salary schedule movement. So, movement on the salary schedules that are in place or under negotiations. Uh a little other change associated with some negotiations process we're working through now. And then health and dental insurance. This is what the benefits committee recommendation was that came to the board I think last meeting.

1:23:44Um There is also a employee contribution increase on those health and dental insurance benefits. So, this is just the district contribution. Further budget adjustments. So, as we experience declining enrollment, we reduce staff by our staffing formulas. Uh so, this is where districts can get into a financial squeeze uh keeping staff not supported by enrollment uh and then have to announce large staffing cuts instead of addressing it annually. Board members in for our community, um this is just a really important point that Bill is talking about. Each and every year we adjust our resources based on our revenues and ongoing um dollars that we have. If you are looking at other districts that are looking at declining enrollment, and I there was a news article the other day, you know, districts cutting 150 160 individual teachers.

1:24:53Uh if you if you do things the way we're doing, which is continuing to decline as the students aren't here, um that's why even though we're having this conversation around declining enrollment, it doesn't mean we're you know, there's there's 150 um people being being laid off or we're in some kind of reduction in force scenario. Uh it is our formulas, our staffing formulas, that are allow us to budget in a way where we're not deficit budgeting. Uh next we have uh utilities. Uh so this is um a portion of what I would consider that inflationary cost. Um water is a big component of it of this, about 2/3 of that amount uh is both the water rates uh and usage. It's been a wee bit dry if uh folks haven't noticed. Um this is ex- we have started watering earlier, uh and um that uh is going to be challenging this summer.

1:26:01Next we have uh cost savings for staff turnover as more experienced people retire and uh newer folks are hired in. Uh and then uh expanding Apex uh for new programs, a new CTE programs, uh behavioral health, computer science, pharmacy tech, and medical assistant are the new programs being rolled out in the fall. Uh little summary here. Uh new resources, new uses, and an ending balance 1.8 million. That's unallocated at this point. Um just to put this in context, right? This is on about 400 million in total revenues and total expenditures in the general fund or total uses. Uh so um pretty small margins of what we're talking about as changes uh even though millions of dollars sounds like big numbers, it's a pretty small percentage of the overall general fund budget. Uh as I regularly comment, we are very careful to track one-time revenues and expenditures to ensure ongoing expenses have ongoing resources uh to create a structurally balanced budget. So, we specifically call out those items uh that we add to the budget uh both on the revenue side cuz there are one-time revenues that come in that we don't want to commit on an ongoing basis. Uh but then also uh expenditures that we're committing to for either 1 year or multiple years, we'll call that out if it's a multiple year

1:27:50use of resources. Uh but our staffing reserve that we've been putting in place for a number of years now for the enrollment inefficiencies uh special education support for the moderate needs program rolling out uh some curriculum sub teacher pay uh and communications to continue our showcase and marketing efforts with that. Reserves required by state law and board policy, so a little increase there. Um net expenditures aren't going up very much, so the net reserves don't need to go up very much. Uh this is the summary of the one-time available, about 11.5 million. And the one-time uses that I just described. Um there are one-time uses being discussed in negotiations, so this number will get smaller. Um as we're working through salary schedule transitions and things like that with our employee associations. Summary of the base budget as I referenced earlier. The new one-time, new ongoing, and the total preliminary budget at this point.

1:29:23Uh there have been years where the bottom line numbers are negative, uh which is not a great place to be, but also we're early in the stage. These are not negative, and we are continuing those discussions on particularly on negotiations. That'll be the biggest changes that will be included in the proposed budget in May. I guess I'll pause there and see if there's any questions. Anna, and then Horry, I don't want to forget about you. So, if you ever need anything just chime right in. Anna For the 2026-2027 projections, uh and I know that this is a super short runway because the JBC just passed the long bill on Saturday. Um are the projections in line with what uh did pass in the long bill? That is the next slide. So, yes. Uh the long bill has been introduced. Uh the school finance act while still uh being discussed um there is I would say pretty limited legislative desire to make changes. Uh there was pretty significant pushback on the SOT uh change that was uh discussed. Um you know, taking those resources, making a cut to school districts, and counting it uh the the local share, the local portion uh of the school finance act. Um so, they backed off on that. Um there's lots of uh talking points for campaigns

1:31:26on how the budget stabilization factor has been eliminated and uh we're not bringing it back. And so, it would be kind of backpedaling uh if that was to come back. So, there's not a lot of uh desire to do that. Um The next item on here, though, the mid-year recession, uh so, the JBC decided to use a um we'll say it's somewhat aggressive revenue target uh for next year, uh which sort of increases the uh chances for a mid-year recession if the state economy doesn't uh perform as expected or there are further federal legislative changes or anything like that. So, uh the chances of a mid-year recession, we haven't had one in a while, uh but it's not particularly pleasant when the legislature comes in January and says, "Okay, we need some money back that we uh said you would get."

1:32:33Um whether they're sort of hedging their bets on uh passage of the referred measure uh that will bring in uh additional dollars to the state um to cover that potential deficit. Um pure speculation, but um uh that sort of is out there. Um and then the last one, enrollment uh changes. Uh so, a 0.1% uh decline or 25 students is about $375,000 or 1.5 million for 100 students. So, if enrollment doesn't materialize, uh that's where some of our revenue sensitivity uh also exists that we experienced uh this year in this past fall. Uh some other funds, notable items, community schools, uh the high school scoreboard, uh and advertising and marketing, uh the board approved the uh install purchase and installation of the scoreboards for the high schools. Uh So, including that uh within the community schools fund, and then the initial estimated Sundance uh impacts.

1:33:52Um want to be very clear that uh the intent is not to spend any taxpayer resources on uh the Sundance Film Festival or the impacts thereof. Uh and so getting the festival to uh cover the direct costs for the district. Um we're not in the same situation that the city is with collecting uh sales tax revenue or lodging tax revenue, uh things like that. Um there's no benefit to the district uh for increased property values because Sundance is not here or whatever. Um the the So, the district needs to make sure that we're recouping those uh hard cost direct costs associated with the festival. Uh on the preschool funds, uh we're in the third year of this new uh structure of funding. Uh we've not received any communication on the funding rates, um which is uh sort of challenging.

1:35:00Um It's probably the third year of uh funding being below inflation or funding increases being below inflation. Uh so, that continues to put pressure on the general fund as we're needing to uh support staff compensation out of general fund resources uh because the uh preschool UPK program isn't keeping up. Bill, Jason has a question. Then Alex. Yeah, thanks, Bill. Just on this Sundance impact uh you know, I actually wanted to ask kind of what the word impact meant. It sounds like you you're clear on that. Are there no opportunities for revenue? I mean, maybe it's something we need to prioritize and discuss, but I feel like that would be a real wasted opportunity. There are uh opportunities for um revenue. I mean, our normal rental rates uh that we would charge that are posted on the website um uh are sort of the starting point, right? Are there benefits to the district uh um altruistic benefits, artistic benefits, you know, all the things that will come uh from uh Sundance being in our school, in two of our schools.

1:36:18Um So, yes, it's also a new location after I don't know, 40 years of being in Park City. So, I think everybody's feeling out just exactly what this is going to look like. The facilities uh that they were in, the school facilities in Park City uh was a giant addition wing on the school. So, um not in the building in the same way that uh it's going to be in uh Boulder High and Casey. So, uh kind of a different setup um and we're working through all the contract negotiations on that even as we speak. Yeah. Uh I would have interrupted earlier, but I I wanted to go back to um again the theme of making this um easier for the public to understand or the board members to understand. Uh this one? Actually, I'd go back to slide 19.

1:37:23Ooh, all the way back. Yeah. So, for me, like the column on the far right is our bait budget. Budget. And we make one-time changes that are affected by our reserve that results in the column to the far left. Right? Like what in you in American Western culture do we go from right to left to sum the columns of something for someone to understand? Like, wouldn't it start with 433 that has a one-time increase of 8.3, nothing from the reserves that adds up to 441.9? Like, I usually add up from left to right, I guess, would be my point. So, is there an accounting reason why you would put the first number as the sum and all the other numbers that add up to it? Uh Or I'm understanding it wrong. Maybe yeah, it's more of a subtraction, right? So, the revised budget that was adopted in January includes 8.3 million of one-time expen- uh one-time revenue, and the base budget is 433 million to start next year.

1:38:27So, that's that's the 2026-27 base after the 431 revised. So, the four the 2025-26 revised budget, that's our baseline for what we're moving forward, and then the 2026-27 is a new budget year, or is that the 2025-26 revised budget for 26-27? The far right column is the starting point for 26-27. So, we've removed all the one-time revenues and expenses, and that is then the starting point as we add revenue, so on and so forth. So, the the the 2025-26 revised budget is the revision to what we had spent or uh in 25-26. And so, are we assuming that the 25-26 budget is the baseline for what we spend in 26-27? Less the one-time Less the one-time changes. So, we're starting out with it that way. Okay, well, that I guess that illustrates for me why one of the points I've made for quite a while that I I would love to see us at some point like on slide subsequent slides like 20 you know 21 when we're dealing with the amount of the changes I would love to have them proportionate to the baseline for them so that people could evaluate whether they're big or small numbers. So in something of a preschool fund you know changes 100,000 bucks it's a big deal to know if that's out of

1:40:05a 200 thousand baseline or if it's out of an 11 million dollar baseline. Right? So with the addition of a single column I think we could add make that data so much more meaningful to people so they would know what it is proportion of and then we could maybe reinforce what I get confused about when I look at the slides and can't figure out how the numbers add up from left to right or right to left. So it it sort of a a base budget to the left and the amount of the change Yeah, I think the public and myself would be able to on slide 21 like 1.3 million in the charter schools fund is a transfer which is great cuz money becomes available from school finance act or the override and it goes into our fund but is that 1.3 on top of 100 million or 1.3 on top of 3 million right? And so are we where we off by a factor of 10 or we off by a factor of point 01? Like if if the idea in public governance is to oversee how close we were and how well we were able to predict it if I don't know the baseline I can't make a a governance evaluation of how well we did at anticipating or knowing unless I go

1:41:12back and do it myself. So that's why I'm like that's one of those things of of making it opaque is making it harder for someone to interpret it where all we have to do is add the baseline number and then at least know how close we were. So I've asked for that 3 years in a row and I would love to see it next year. So, this kind of sums up but not individual lines as you're referencing. Yeah, to illustrate my point, like I don't know how these numbers uh correspond to the other ones cuz the other ones are summing up those individual pieces within it. So, this is the baseline data, but this baseline data isn't necessarily divided up into the same things that the transfers are going into. Those are sort of sums of points that are transferred or in the one-time expenditures as I understand it.

1:42:14So, in order to judge the numbers on the previous slides, I need to know those baselines and then I need to know how those baselines add up into this slide. That's the way I would aspire to understand it. Yep. Transportation. Uh an additional transfer of 200,000 uh for McKinney-Vento support uh there's an expected reduction in Title I funding uh and an additional school uh being qualified as a school-wide school uh elementary school. Um so, that sort of uh spreads the resources a little thinner. So, uh covering the costs of the McKinney-Vento transportation and the homeless student transportation um uh as a uh transfer and additional resources into the transportation fund. Uh and then the charter school fund um So, here's the total um for the uh charter school transfer. So, 37 million inclusive of that 1.3.

1:43:40Bill, I I have a question actually about Title I funding. I know the federal government is decreasing that pot of money. I was also the other the impression that they were making it harder to qualify at the same time for Title I. Is that not the case? Is it just the pocket of money and that just is spread around more thinly, but not that the qualifying standards are changing at all? I have not heard of changing the qualifications. It's still based on free lunch status. Okay. And the percentages haven't changed or anything like that. It's just just that money is shrinking. We determine the cutoff. There's some minimums uh to identify a school-wide school. Uh but we get to determine where that cutoff is. So, um we've have in 30 years focused the Title I resources at the elementary level um to make them go further uh so that it they're not spread too thin.

1:44:39Um and then the one high school, like it's uh once you hit 75% at the high school level uh maybe it's secondary in general. Um you're at you have to be school-wide school. So, it's just as high as a Title I school as well cuz they're 80 or 85% uh free lunch. And as we're making our assessments on that, do we ever consider particularly as that pot of money at the Title I funding from the federal government is decreasing, there are times where a Title I school in our district frequently is a very good fundraiser because while they might have a large percentage of students that qualify for free and reduced lunch, they also have a very large percentage of folks that are able to generate generously donate a lot of money. Do you ever take that into consideration when we're thinking about the allocation of this shrinking resource?

1:45:34Uh no. It is just a number and a cutoff point. Okay. Strategic investments. Uh so uh we added this in the revised budget uh for this year back in January uh to uh identify some of those uh strategic investments that are included in the budget both on an ongoing uh and one-time basis. And then if there's any uh future dollars that have been set aside the weighted differentiated funding uh school support fund uh that we have transferred uh dollars into uh which is the future dollars, that 11.5 million. Uh and then next year's uh allocation to be used uh 5.2 million uh for that weighted differentiated funding. Uh and then uh so on and so forth through these uh they're the same items that were uh discussed in the revised budget. The ongoing programs are continuing to be ongoing uh and the one-time uh are continuing uh as one-time. Uh the UVA um professional learning uh cohorts uh is the last year uh of that uh funding that has been set aside so far.

1:47:04Uh the wellness rooms uh one-time funding that's uh expected uh to be available for next year. Uh and then uh the ongoing funding that exists in the uh current ongoing budget curriculum, restorative practices assessments, MTSS, uh professional development. And Bill, is that wellness rooms what we're anticipating receiving from the county mental health tax, or is that a different source of revenue? Combination of donation and that county tax. Uh this is a subtle question that's maybe more important for later. Um in looking through like some of our charter school renewals, uh not all our charter schools are accessing like interim benchmark assessments, which are really key to assessing, you know, the student quality and growth. Are we letting when we spend our money on our state assessments, I mean, excuse me, on the district assessments linked to our curriculum, are we offering those to our charters, or is that a fee for service thing we can offer? Because I sure want to insist that a school coming up for renewal that has no C-Mass testing data have benchmark data that we can use to assess their quality. Otherwise, I have no insight into whether kids are learning there. So, as long as we're spending the money, it would be great to allow 100 kids at a charter to use that

1:48:20assessment, too, and sort of encourage or require a charter to do one. Do you know if we do that yet? I'll have to check. I'll have to check. Um it it may be different for the um for different charters. Let me check. Laura, you're making a note. Strategic realignment of administrative resources. So, board members, um as as we're going through declining enrollment, and we're going through um adjustments in budget, I need to be clear with you and with our community that that means that we need to make adjustments to central office spending. Um we are currently finalizing budget reductions in central office. Um I anticipate those those dollars that we would recoup to drive towards priorities in schools to be in excess of a million dollars. And across all of our divisions, I think that we've asked all of our cabinet I've asked all cabinet members to to really look to see where where can we make reductions without negatively impacting schools or teachers or educators.

1:49:43You know, if you start to cut certain things or if you cut people across the board percentage-wise, it may have unintended consequences where all of a sudden there's more work for teachers to do. There's more work for leaders to do. In some instances, central office staff takes the takes work away from schools. And so those are those are investments that we'd want to keep and where there's opportunities to make those reductions as as tough as they may be. Certainly all of our schools in our system are facing those same types of challenges. And so I will have a finalized number when we bring back the final budget for study. But you can expect that to be in excess of a million dollars. And I would say that based on the teacher roundtables and the feedback that we're getting from our families as we go through this community engagement, there may be a redeployment of those resources to priorities we've identified through those opportunities.

1:50:51Next steps. So the legislative session ends here in the early May. We'll have the proposed budget public input session at the board meeting on May 26th and then the study item followed shortly thereafter. And then June 9th is the tentative adoption date uh for the '26-'27 budget. That's the end. Thanks, Bill. Board members, any I know we spent a lot of time throughout this information item asking questions, digging in. Any additional questions or comments? I see Dr. is raising his hand. I'll just say thank you, board members, for your feedback. I appreciate your focus on making sure that our community can understand. Um we do have we have been taking notes. We will make some of those adjustments prior to posting this. Laura, if you can make that note, um in particular making sure that when we have numbers, whether it's students, whether it's dollars, that's that's incredibly clear with a footnote. Um and uh to the extent that we could add some of that proportionality of budget, I think that we could probably add that. That's just another um column. We can add that prior to posting.

1:52:13Uh and then we'll continue to strive to to do everything we can to try to tell the picture in ways that are um that are accurate, not so overwhelming, but are clear for folks to understand. Thanks for that, Dr. Alex then Jason. Yeah, I just want to express my gratitude for that cuz um uh I find I find the budget tricky for me to understand as former treasurer and member of the board a lot of time. And my interactions with the public are 100% like I've yet to have someone say, "Thank you for how clear your budgeting is. It's really easy for me to understand how you you get raise and spend money." Zero people. All the people who have mentioned budget cannot finish the conversation without saying, "I don't know what the heck's going on with your budget. Can't you be more transparent?" So I and I think it's it's incumbent on us when we're doing something as intense as potentially closing schools, um dealing with coverage of the staffing changes that we make that may or may not be accurate, to do whatever we can to build public trust and understanding of it. And so if there's a way we've done something for 10 years because we've done it for 10 years, doesn't make it the right way to

1:53:18do it. Cuz our public can't understand what's going on. I'm not sure our board can unders- My I myself can't understand it. So I do think uh it's one of those exercises where we should ask ourselves, what's the function of our communication about the budget? And what's the outcome of it? And if we were teachers in a classroom teaching a class on the BVSD budget, we would have failed as a collective teaching force to educate the students about it with the way we do it. So I just think um we really should do better and it's in our interest in the long term to do And I'm not saying anyone's doing it wrong. It's just we are going the way we are, public can't understand it, we're struggling to understand it, and uh the more I dive in, the more confident I am that we're doing it right and we're being prudent and I feel good about our stewardship, but I give us a very low grade for our um transparency.

1:54:14Um I should have asked this question earlier. Uh could we go to slide 11? I should I didn't know we had question opportunity earlier. Um it's kind of a big picture question. Um not not so different from Alex's, but more in terms of kind of board member understanding of how of the process and the inputs. Um the slide shows like I think it says 14 different board meetings uh that kind of contributed to the budget process. And I really appreciate that cuz I feel like I've never seen that translated into a slide of where our you know, we talk about a lot of things, we prioritize a lot of things, we care about a lot of things. Um and I don't mean this in like a gotcha question way, but like when we talk about all these things here, could you just like how how does that translate to the work that you all do and you and your team into you know, in addition to the priorities we have, you know, strategic priorities that you mentioned, like when we had a conversation about the with the B Well action plan, we talked a lot about mental health and counselors. And what what is that like that conversation, how does that translate into budget processes and prioritization? I think like and and

1:55:21again, I don't mean this in a kind of tell me what you've done with our with our priorities cuz I know we have limited resources, a very narrow budget to work with, and we like I said, we talk about a lot of things that we care about and a lot of things we'd love to do that we know we can't, but I think, you know, and I guess this is my third year of with the budget, and so I guess first appreciation for this cuz it's the first time I've seen kind of our work here translate to what you do, but I really want to better understand how this translates into the rest of the slides. And maybe that's another conversation, but maybe just some initial That In summary, more it's about um all of the conversations that happen uh as we talk about uh mental health and the supports that students need and what we're doing, that goes into the collective um uh needs bucket of the district uh as the superintendent is working with staff and pulling together uh the budget for the next year. And so um if there are resources that are available to uh new money uh to spend, what are the top priorities that's within the uh strategic plan, or if there is something that is such a

1:56:47high priority that we need to uh redirect uh existing resources, make reductions to uh add something, like that all goes into the collective budget development decision. So, I think what Bill has tried to do here is this has evolved. It used to be we'd go out and ask people what we should spend our money on. Disconnected from the conversations at the board table and disconnected from our strategic plan and strategic initiatives. Right? And so, it used to be the we would build I mean, remember when we I started, Bill? We would go out and say, "What should we spend money on?" And people didn't they it's a hard time articulating exactly the investment, right? So, then you get real generalized feedback. And then folks were giving feedback in ways that wasn't maybe necessarily showing up in the budget, right? With the idea that um every time we have conversations, a couple of things have happened. Number one, you have all prioritized this as something we need I need to focus on.

1:57:48Many of these are embedded in my superintendent goals, right? Which are then embedded and cascaded through our entire cabinet into our principals. And so, when you have an aligned organization, your conversations matter. And so, in some instances, we've decided to to maintain the a level of funding. In other instances, we've had to change and shift resources. Sometimes we add, sometimes we subtract. I so but I think what Bill's trying to do here is to really um you know, inform the budget that our conversations right inform the work of the school district. So, it's not a um it's not a direct, you know, at the end of every presentation I say, "Okay, $40,000 goes to this thing we talked about." Right? But I do think that it does shape goals, it shapes our further prioritization. Every time we have a conversation on a topic, some you know, topics come up.

1:58:40And then at the end of the meeting we can say, "Hey, based on this, man, I really like for us to dig in here, dig in there." And then over time, those things be then can can come in um in either a redistribute redistribution of resources, a new resource, um sometimes a reduction in resources. So, uh I think that um I really appreciate the idea that our conversations matter when it comes to budget. And that our conversations matter at um at uh at the board table when it comes to um the direction of the school district and uh you know, that this isn't a list of things that I decided I wanted to do. These are things that we kind of really talk about together. Um yeah, I really I I appreciate that. Again, you know, I'm grateful for this slide. Like I said, it's the first time I've been able to connect uh you know, the conversations we've had to this process. And so, if I can make a request for future presentations, it would be to continue this stuff and even build on it. And so, you know, here, you know, I could I could look at a few of these bullets where later in the slides you show, you know, how that budget has changed. Not Not maybe

1:59:51not as a result of the conversation we've had, but like, you know, strategic plan progress. And so, if there's a connection to hey, this we plused up this not because of the board discussion, maybe, but you know, here is here is the connection between what you all talked about and how it impacts the budget process. And so, I don't know how that looks, but if there's a way to tie this stuff to kind of the actual budget development and actual numbers. And you know, in some cases there might be nothing. And it's not I'm not asking for like, oh hey, we we mentioned AI, there's a $40,000 plus up. It's more just you know, for us to be able to understand, you know, that these um you know, that these conversations are important and where they do translate to budget, you know, budget impacts.

2:00:34I mean, deciding to to maintain budget is a decision, too. Right? Like, so I think that to the extent that based on any conversation that either you do something differently or you maintain your efforts, right? I think those are decisions as well. I I like that idea. I do think that we can take that back and think about how our prioritization aligns with um conversations that align with budget implications. Anna and then Alex. Uh first I do just want to say a big thank you for guiding us through all of this. This was uh very in-depth. Um I am going to pull my new board member card out and say what would be helpful to me uh in understanding new board member card, but also uh relatively um new parent in K through 12 as having just a kindergartner in the in the system.

2:01:34Uh it would be helpful for me to to yes have the footnotes so that when I go back um I know uh specifically on slide 15 um what these units are measuring. Um it would be also helpful for me to have some sort of a matrix um that tells me what our FTE for BVSD is, um but what the average per pupil revenue is for the state. Not so that we know like um like where we land, but just like to have an overall sense of what the state is trending at. Um and to that to that um also highlighting how much uh per FTE we're getting from those mill levy overrides um so that I also can break out what is the state and what is the district. Um along with these uh student counts totals for projected future years of FTE um so that I know kind of like what we're looking at so that we have that like we're losing the $7 million um what and and to that effect what that is going to mean for um for programs within the district. Um I know that that's a little harder to to really dig into and and weed through but um trying to understand some of the the district priorities and being able to see the numbers and being able to kind

2:03:14of guestimate of like what would be the the trade-offs um for that declining um declining future projections. If it's like a matrix or a whatever it could be just so that I have a whole a holistic picture for the district and for the state I think would be very helpful to me. Um ditto, great idea. Uh it's always it's we have a lot of that in there so we embed things in different documents. It's just hard if we don't pull it out and summarize it and give the executive summaries for people to to find things. You know, I feel like we're we're very transparent if you read everything and but you have to read everything and understand it which is part of the challenge. So totally been there, respect that very much. I I will and I would benefit from it just as much as a new board member.

2:04:09Um back to the point of the long list of people up there uh I do think um one of the things that helps with understanding the budget is actually to not talk about all of it in a quantitative way. So like I think to understand how you and your team have acted on these things is actually a fairly narrative qualitative discussion about like well I heard this and I heard this and we're making an investment in X and it's part of this bigger thing. Like we can't say oh it's 42,000 or 41,000 that you added because of this discussion. But you can say I've heard a lot about the importance of teacher needing more support from our interventionists. And so we need to work on either the, you know, the collective bargaining agreements for the numbers of thresholds for those interventionists or the inefficiencies, and there's where it shows up. So some of it I think of it as sort of a storytelling that helps us understand your thinking and your leadership's actions. And I And I'm not asking for a a spreadsheet that adds up to the penny.

2:05:04I'm asking for more philosophical and like um uh big picture decisions that you and your team have made that are based on either this input or our discussions. And part of my motivation is to make sure that we are safeguarding the ability to do the things that come up. And that, you know, we do these budgeting processes on annual basis and we got two or three shots at making changes. But things come up in our community, mass shootings, fires, declining enrollment, mental health crises, you know, a suicide cluster, you name it, super important stuff we have to act on. And if we're not responsive to those things, then we're not responsive. And so I really want to make sure we're protecting our values and our priorities in our budgeting, too. And but I don't expect that to add up to the dollar.

2:05:53What what I really appreciate about this board is um that uh that that you trust my leadership to be able to make these decisions. And we talk about outcomes and what we're trying to accomplish, and then you empower me as the superintendent to make the the moves that we need to make to begin to create the conditions for success to happen. And I think that that served that that that relationship I think has has served us incredibly well. So um so so yes, some, you know, based on these things, based on this feedback, based on what we're seeing, these are the investments that that we're making that are different. And I would say that that Alex, that flexibility is critical. And and to the community at large, um that you know, that we do have the ability and flexibility to to real-time make some shifts and adjustments depending whether it's board priority or community need. Um and whether it's through our funds or other funds that we that we can access depending upon what's happened.

2:06:54Uh that we set budgets and then we run the district. And I think that uh often times almost every time at the end of the year, what you spent isn't what you thought you were going to spend. Well, always less, never more. Uh um overall. And so, you know, trying to capture some of that nuance. And I do think that and I want to be clear. I I do think that what we do, to your point, is transparent but very complicated. So, how do we simplify what we're doing without cheating the budget of its complexity? You know, we we try to tell Bill Bill to tries to tell very high-level complicated stories through kind of some of the things that he shares, right? Like if you go back to the slide that we've been talking about, you know, the story Bill is telling is that um you know, the the ways that they're counting students is is creating a different narrative than what you might hear in the public. Now, to do that in a spreadsheet without the conversation is impossible, right? If you if you buy into the premise that uh you know, every presentation's going to get legs and you have to be able to read it upon its own without the narrative and without watching 40

2:08:07minutes of video to get it, then you know, certainly. Uh so, um so, I think that sometimes um you know, clarity versus tran- I mean, trans- We're we are as transparent as as We we've We have enough awards in Bill's office and over in business services to prove our transparency. It's the clarity and clear clarity with simplification so folks can understand. Now I think the danger becomes then people you know you over simplify things they misinterpret things and come and jump to conclusions that then you have to try to get more complicated to solve. There's a balance and you know since I've been here Bill has has has adjusted and shifted the ways that we presented the budget but has always done an amazing job making sure our resources are where they need to be and accounted for and transparent. So I do appreciate Bill for that and the great thing about Bill is always open for feedback right Bill? So we can make all the adjustments that we need and and and try to get to that clarity for folks that they're looking for.

2:09:09And get clarity around the school finance act which is anything but. Jorge I heard your ding which means you must have put your hand up. Thank you. I appreciate this discussion. I want to say thank you to Bill for presenting this and to the administration for putting it all together. I think it's an important discussion to have and I really appreciate that we're having this discussion in this sort of way thinking about the ways in which we make this more clear for our community and for folks to understand kind of what's happening with our budget but I think that's a really at Alex's point the way we can tell stories from this is really important and powerful for helping folks understand. I mean so that that slide that we've kind of gone back to numerous times so they understand what FTE means right that it's that it's full time equivalents for students and that you know declining enrollment is cutting our funding as we lose students but that the ways in which the state is counting students is accelerating that trend even more and and deepening the cuts going from a five year to a two year average right? So how do we tell that story more clearly and efficiently?

2:10:17And then to the slide that that Jason pointed out right? The story we have there is that these are the investments that we've made. This is part of our strategic plan. These are the priorities that we think are important for us to serve all of our students. Um and our ability in that's in our budget. And then looking further down the budget, and looking at personnel, that's over 80% 85% of our budget that's going to people. The people who are there with our kids, educating them and supporting them. And we're doing a lot of heavy lifting with one-time funds. Um you know, I think it was something like over 40 million of one-time funds to kind of support initiatives, um support personnel, support our curriculum in terms of the direction that we've kind of gone in and as our our budget decreases, you know, we'll have less wiggle room. And and so having these conversations now, while we're still kind of working within the money that we have, is really important. So, I want to commend the district for for doing that work and the board for keeping us all for us for you know, the board members for asking the questions that are hard, um but having the discussion. So, um I think it's been a really useful discussion this evening.

2:11:24So, thank you. I'll chime in cuz I haven't had a chance to talk yet before we go back to you, Alex. Um I just want to say thank you for this. I know one of the challenges is also balancing to one of Mona's questions with our MLOs and different revenue streams. We our per people funding is can can be more generous and I think sometimes we we don't want to make an example of ourselves in a negative way. So, there's a balance I feel like Bill is always trying to strike in these presentations. And to Rob's point, not over simplifying things to the point where somebody's misinterpreting. I think that happens a lot. A point, you know, we've received some emails lately. There was some new Nextdoor threads blowing up over the weekend about administrative bloat and how what we really need to do and consider in this declining enrollment situation is cut dollars at the at the administrative level, central office level, and I appreciate Dr. Anderson. I just want to elevate that that slide we that we are doing that. We do run very lean at our administrative level. Our staff work a lot of hours and exceedingly hard to try to juggle all of the things. I think at the last board meeting I joked our academics

2:12:36department is three. I mean, there's we have very few people at the administrative office. And and as we continue to make cuts everywhere, we will continue to make cuts there. It's an easy place to point to, and it wasn't on a slide as necessarily negative number because central office staffing doesn't decrease proportional to student enrollment in the same way that our teachers based on our contractual obligations, they do decrease that way. Uh but I just wanted to elevate that because it has been coming up in the community. Are you looking at central office spending? It came up at round tables, and every single time Dr. Anderson has said, "Yes, the central office will not will not stay as it is when everything else in our budget is most everything else in our budget is taking a decrease." So, I just we didn't spend a lot of time on that, and it has continues to come up in the community, so I just really wanted to elevate that that piece of um in there as well.

2:13:29And we'll do one last question, and then we will move on to our next information item. Dr. Anderson and then Alex. So so so sorry, Alex. I appreciate you bringing up that point, Nicole, and and certainly we're hearing those things. But, you know, I want to be really clear with you board members and to our community that the district conditions matter. That the dollars we've invested where so we can take some of the work away from schools and centralize some things actually is much more efficient and much more effective, saves people time. Um and the district conditions that we've created have um along with our incredible educators, together, have led to incredible results. And so, you know, for example, Nicole, to your point, you know, people may may frown upon the dollars we spend on the BVSD is the place to be showcase.

2:14:17You know, they see that oh goodness, you have $200,000 in this budget for the showcase and for marketing. Right? And if we through that event where we have 12, 1,500 people show up, bring 20 people back from private school or from other districts, right? At $15,000 a student, I mean, you could start doing the math. But, I do think that there there on occasion, especially when folks are trying to advocate for something, they'll try to highlight something, devalue it to then try to lift up what it is that they want. And so, that's the nature of of of as of being a public servant and having public budgets that you present. I like and and we're incredibly transparent, but I do I am sensitive, but I also stand firmly behind the investments that we've made because we have the results that we show that they've worked in ways that a lot of things have not necessarily worked in the ways they're working now in BVSD over the years. Um and so, I just want to make sure that, you know, you you're not going to cut your you're not going to cut your way to get whatever it is that you want. You're going to give something up every time you cut dollars.

2:15:27We're being thoughtful, we're being mindful. Um we know and understand that something that we need to do, we will do it. But, there's also things that we need to stand firm on because they're working and it it they're they're showing up on our student outcomes. Well said, Alex. Uh I just want to thank you for that. And that's part of I know I've been sometimes the critic of the transparency thing and that's exactly the kind of dialogue that I think the community that that will serve us well. Like I Fairview's rate of the percent of kids got getting college credit before they leave gone from 56% to like 94%. We have invested in grad plus. That means there's people who work in Fairview and people who work in central office whose job it is is to get more kids college credit. When we go from 56% to 94% college credit, that's a lot of individual students whose life is better and their opportunities are expanded because we made it a priority to focus on getting all the kids at Fairview a rich opportunity. That's part of our pursuit of equity. As is our differentiated investment of you know, $5.6 million in the schools that historically had the biggest achievement gaps. We picked as a huge strategic goal that we would close

2:16:37opportunity achievement gaps and you don't do that by not investing money in it. And you have to invest money in the school and you have to invest money in like a curriculum and in assessments and interventionists and people help with MTSS and a data system and all those are going on in an office with a three-person curriculum office. You know, if we were Jeffco, there'd be 12 people in that office. So, I totally respect and again, I defer to your leadership team and your expert judgment of making sense of all this that we're trying to do. So, I'm trying to protect the deference the deference to our discretion cuz that's how we do nimble things that matter. And I want us to be able to tell that story so our community understands it. And when we're we're all making trade-offs, that's what all this community engagement is about is the trade-offs and we're making painful ones, too. So, I just totally kudos to you and your team and the lean staff are doing all this and I you know, our we need to be transparent enough that we are resilient to misinterpretation and that we can you know, make the case for what we're actually caring about and valuing.

2:17:47Thank you, Bill. We will now move on board members to our next information item tonight, which is resilient schools community engagement update. Um Randy, being asked for a comfort break. Board members will take a 5-minute comfort break and resume. Welcome back everyone. Thank you for the little interlude. As I was saying, the next information item we have this evening is a Resilient Schools Community Engagement update. To give that update, we have with us Randy Barber, Chief Communications Officer, who is usually the man behind behind the curtain. Um and so we are happy to have him out here uh to present to us tonight. Thanks, Randy. Absolutely. Good evening, President Raj Paul and members of the board. Uh it's my pleasure to be here tonight. Um I'm here as you know uh in January we started the community engagement process related to how we we might best create resilient schools in a time of declining enrollment.

2:27:48At the board's request uh we are back here to give you an update in regards to those efforts to connect with our community. Our commitment as always has been to ensure that stakeholders are informed, heard, and meaningfully involved as we begin shaping the potential paths forward. Um here in BVSD we really believe in listening first before leading. So, in this phase we are creating space for thoughtful, structured input that will help to guide the development and options that for the board to decision for the board to consider as we move forward. It's also important to remind our audience that this work is really focused on our elementary and PK-8 schools in Boulder, Broomfield, Louisville, and Superior. This slide here shows us a little bit of the phases of the process. I'm going to start and end the uh the presentation today on this.

2:28:37Uh over the next 2 years uh kind of what to expect. Uh the yellow line shows where we're at at this point in April. Uh we're in the middle of our community engagement process. Um as we as we engage our community our goal has been to create deliberate, transparent, multi-step process that begins with listening and moves through thoughtful thought through move through thoughtfully through towards action. Sorry. Uh we've been very busy over the last 2 months. The this I slide uh demonstrates all the places that we've been. We've been connecting with community stakeholders uh in a number of places starting with our educators uh and our principals at at elementary schools. Um principal or superintendent Anderson and deputy superintendent Taylor Cruz uh visited with each and every one of our principals and went to each and every one of our elementary schools uh to talk to all our educators in regards to their thoughts as we lead into this process.

2:29:32Knowing that they're the closest to this uh to the student experience, we really wanted to begin with the schools as we look at what we're going to do at the district. We also engaged our district advisory committees, all 13 of them that are on the right hand side there. And what we we've been out Rob Price, our assistant superintendent of operational services has been out talking to our municipalities. We've got one more of those meetings scheduled in May in Broomfield. And then finally Superintendent Anderson will also be presenting to the Boulder Rotary Club in the next week. Additionally, we've really been working to communicate not only about these engagement efforts, but also the information so that folks are aware of what's going on. It's really important that our community is informed about what's happening, how they can take part in that process.

2:30:18And so we've been sharing our information through a number of avenues. One of the biggest ones that I want to mention is in February we launched a special edition of our newsletter. We call it declining enrollment impacts. We took a a page out of the emergency management book here. When you have a wildfire or some sort of situation like that, it can be hard. People really want a lot of information and I think in this situation that's certainly the case. We have a lot of families that are wondering what the what the impact's going to be, staff members, that kind of thing. And so by providing a regular update that's timed, that people know to expect it, they know what that's going to look like, it really helps for folks to sort of worry less about are they going to come back to us and give us more update. That newsletter is really been a good good avenue for that. Additionally, in that first first one we developed an animated video to really one of the things that we heard pretty loudly in talking to our community is that, you know, this is a lot of information. How do we distill it in a shorter period? So I actually really enjoyed what the the DAC printed in the paper. They give

2:31:16people options of, you know, depending on how much time they've got. That's the shortest one. You know, if you really just want to try to understand the situation in a basic format in two minutes, it's really the way to start. Um but on our website we have much more information. You can watch back to the board meetings here, hear that dialogue, uh you know, that takes a little bit longer, but all those options are available to you uh if you really want to dig into it. Um additionally, we've been out on social media trying to promote uh the events, uh uh you know, really make sure that people are aware that of the situation as well. Um and and make sure that uh this information is really flowing out to wherever people might be. Uh as President uh Raj Paul mentioned, we uh have been doing some television on this.

2:31:58Uh I interviewed her in the last of the three episodes that we've done for Let's Talk BVSD. Um I The idea really for this was, you know, we've got a lot of information and uh we're sending emails, you know, direct emails sometimes, we're sending these newsletters, that kind of thing. Um it's it's hard for folks to really uh ingest all that. And you know, one of the things that we know about communications that people really have a lot of different channels, there's a lot of noise in the world. Uh and they also people uh learn uh differently. Uh they have different interests in what in the way that they get their information. So, this provides us one more slice of that. Um it doesn't suit everybody, but for those that want to sit down and watch a conversation on it. And I think very importantly, you know, again back to that idea of listening, we really wanted to open up an opportunity for folks to be able to ask questions. And so, they weren't always easy questions that uh that were posed to us. Um and again, I think uh Superintendent Anderson was a champ uh up up with us for all three of the sessions, really answering uh a lot of those questions that came in from parents and from staff and that kind of

2:32:57thing. Um but the the structure of this really was to try to set set up the idea of what was going on. So, uh the challenge of the declining enrollment, we went through the graphs and really talked through the data. Uh the second time uh we talked about the impact of schools. We had two great principals join us uh to give their insights in regards to how that looks in our schools right now. And then finally, uh we talked about the next steps. And so, of course, that's when we had Board President Raj Paul with us. The next step for us is really the idea of a community engagement sessions. And so we've already started. Yesterday was the first one. We're going to go into that a little bit more. But we have five more sessions that are available for people to join us. So I really want to draw your attention to the dates that we've got on the screen there.

2:33:38One of the things that I do want to mention right up front is that for one, you don't have to go to the session that's in your neighborhood. Now obviously we know that most people will probably do that, the one that's most convenient to them, obviously with their friends and neighbors and all that kind of thing. That's cool. If you want to do that, that's awesome. But if something else works more, you know, for your your schedule, it's all challenging for us to fit things in as parents. You know, and I just want to mention that one of our smaller sessions right now is Saturday morning. So if you're if you got a little extra time on on the weekend and and want to try to fit it in, that's a perfect time to do it. But really, you know, we're going to be covering the same agenda throughout. I'm going to go into what that agenda looks like a little bit.

2:34:15Certainly in the tables, you know, you'll be able to interject the situation that you're seeing at your school. There will be that opportunity, but the sessions themselves are relatively general. So you really can attend any of them. Another important thing to know is that we do have services at each of them for for all of our families. So we've got child care, child supervision for for families that that might need that. We've got translation and interpretation. So we have folks to help if they're Spanish speaking. And then if they're of other languages, we definitely want to know that. We've got an RSVP form and we've got a place in there for us, you know, for them to let us know that so that we can make sure that interpreter on site there. But all the materials are available in Spanish.

2:34:54We really want to encourage our Spanish population to come out. Honestly, we want everybody to come out. This is really a great opportunity for folks to have a voice. And I've been checking back on the numbers. I think the word's getting out. Last night's attendance was was it was well attended last night's event. And then additionally looking forward, we've got some relatively large groups coming forward. So again, that Saturday one's probably the lowest one, but most of the other sessions are about 80, and our biggest one's probably at 120 right now. So, really excited that people are getting the word about that. Um this is a a picture of what it looks like uh while we're doing the session. And again, I just want to really affirm the idea that we are dedicated to ensuring that stakeholder stakeholders are informed, heard, and meaningfully involved as we begin shaping those potential fat paths forward. This phase is about listening first and creating space for those thoughtful those thoughtful uh conversations. And our first session at New Vista was really a good example of that.

2:35:48Uh one of the things that uh we've really tried to do is set the page for what these conversations look like. You know, typically when we have community engagement, and I can think about a couple issues that we face here as a school district um since I've been here even, uh school start times comes comes as one thing. You know, the normal thing is that we make a decision and then we go out and we socialize that decision and see what people think, and maybe we can make some small changes regard to regards to it. No decisions have been made at this point outside of the fact that we don't want to continue on the status quo. Uh we really feel like in order for us to ensure that the education of our students is as rigorous as possible, that those services are available, that we really do need to make some sort of change, and that's really come from you, the board, um in regards to that. Um but another element to this is that we really want to make sure that everybody has a voice. And in those sessions, typically what hap- what happens, as you might know, is the loudest voices take take the room. It's really hard, uh you know, once that happens uh to bring that back to to an

2:36:43opportunity for everybody get a voice. And so, we've really been diligent uh as we've designed this to try to make sure that that's the case. Uh so, we really want to make sure everybody is involved. We want to make sure everybody has that. And the format of it um really uh uh sets us up for that. So, we're doing that uh small table exercises. So, you still get to hear from the superintendent. You get to still hear about uh you know, again, the declining enrollment if you need a quick If you didn't have a chance to to listen to some of those uh materials before you get there, it's okay. We'll get you up to speed quickly, but a main part of this is really understanding what does it look like in the day in the life of a student?

2:37:19What is it you know, what are the trade-offs that you might have to take if we do these some of these different solutions that we're looking at. And so, you know, you can kind of see the flow of the meeting there on the right. Our main idea too is that we really want to make sure that whatever feedback is gathered, which again that's the key part here. We want that we want people to be able to share. We want them to feel like that's that they're being heard. And whatever feedback is coming out of that session, those sessions, we want to make sure that that comes back to you all so that as you're making your decisions, you're hearing from the community. And of course, we're going to be coming back in June to give you a a more robust update in regards to specifically what people said. Small small focus groups and a lot of reflection and discussion. I think maybe the best way for us to get a sense of what that feels like is maybe to watch a little bit of a new story that just came out last night from 9 News.

2:38:09Gives you a quick little picture of what it's like. With fewer students in Colorado schools, districts around the state are closing or consolidating school buildings. And tonight families in the Boulder Valley School District came together to talk about how they make these choices. 9 News reporter Rachel Kraus joins us now after attending a meeting put on by BVSD. Rachel, this was the first in a series of meetings. Yeah, the first in six. And people packed inside of New Vista High School tonight to hear more about the state of Boulder Valley's declining enrollment and what needs to happen soon to be able to tackle this problem. Show of hands if you don't have an idea on what we should do. Boulder Valley schools say they've lost 3,600 students over the past 10 years and are projected to drop another 1,700 in the next five. They're focusing on closure and restructuring plans in Boulder, Louisville, Superior, and Broomfield elementary schools because that's where they're seeing the biggest declines. Parents and school leaders came out to hear the district's plans.

2:39:11Some say they know closures are needed, but they hope their child's school won't be cut. Tonight, district officials walked through scenarios of how enrollment is hurting schools and where the district should focus resources like class size, supports, and opportunities for arts and language. Superintendent Rob Anderson says they're bringing parents and community members in early because this problem isn't going away and hard decisions are coming. We know that it's the responsible thing to do to have this conversation now, and regardless how tough the choices are going to have to be that we need to make those so we can preserve the experiences that we want for our kids. No decisions are being made tonight. It's just feedback and discussions about the state of the issue, but the district will be acting on this. They'll be taking their plan for closures and consolidations to the school board in August, and they're expected to vote on that plan in October. Reporting live in Boulder, Rachel Bounds, 9 News.

2:40:07Yeah, so I think I you get a a little sense of what it's like in there. Again, we hope that people will get to see this first hand. I do want to make sure that we give a shout out to the team that's behind this. We've got a lot of different teams coming together to make it a success both for this and the other elements that we're doing. So, a huge thank you, kudos to those folks. And we've just begun. One of the things that I would like to mention is again in the idea of we're trying to capture that feedback in every way that we can. So, the Let's Talk shows that we talking about is an element of how we can gather that feedback. All that all those questions will be shared. In addition to that, of course, the community engagement sessions are a huge part of that. The the feedback that's happening at tables, you know, we really want folks to know, and I think you got a sense of this with Rob's question.

2:40:51In in case you didn't couldn't quite see, no one no one raised their hand. Everybody's got an idea what the solution is. And so, you know, we wanted to make sure that people were honoring the idea that you're You walking in with some idea. We want to make sure that that that packet that we're getting at the end of that has that information in there. But we're also really hoping, I just want to kind of spend one more second on this. We're hoping that people really do look at this regionally and think about all these different options. Not be focused on that one thing that they think is going to happen at their school cuz that's it's natural. It's natural that you're automatically thinking about your own situation and that kind of thing, but that we really have a wider view.

2:41:25And so, again, one of the things that we do is we go through each and every one of those scenarios all five of them, and we give them an opportunity to reflect with their tablemates, and then be able to write down for us the feedback that they have, their fears that they're talking about, the the things that we should be thinking about. And I think all that's going to be really beneficial as we walk away from this. So, that's in April. As we move forward, we're also looking at how we might have community-focused qualitative feedback. What that really means is surveys, uh polls into the community. And then we anticipate after we we want to really make sure that everybody's involved in the sessions that we've built, but we will have a feedback form about our website for folks to give feedback as well.

2:42:02And we also intend to try to viralize these sessions as well. We have all the materials and we'll be providing them to our principals so they can take them out to their school communities as well if they have desire to share that with specific groups that weren't able to make it out. I do want to circle back onto the timeframe here because it is really important. Once we finish up with the community engagement element of this, we will come back in June and present to the board in regards to that feedback so that you get to have all that back from our from our team. We obviously over the summer we'll be working on developing what plans are up for consideration and bring that back in August for you guys to to then deliberate over the next few months into October in which then that would be when we'd make the decision. And then it's a two-year There's a two-year plan here really as we think forward into actually implementation. You know, I think a lot of the feedback that we've gotten as we've been at our roundtables and as we've started to hear parents is, okay, so when this does happen, make sure that you're considering our kids to you know, their mental health needs or these type

2:43:03of things. These are all ideas that we are you know, contemplating as we haven't made a decision yet, but when those decisions are made. And I will hand it off for questions. Thank you for that update Randy and I just want to start by saying thank you to your team for all the efforts that go into each of these elements to make sure our community stays up to date and engage and aware. It is a lift and so thank you thank you and kudos to your team for all the efforts there. I have received a lot of positive feedbacks on the monthly newsletter. People are feeling informed and appreciate that that level of information. Board members, questions or comments for Randy. Anna. Thank you so much Randy. We did have just a a little bit of a sideline conversation. I did have some folks asking me if there will be child care provided and I did just want to highlight again that Randy did say there will be child care at these sessions.

2:44:01There will be or will child supervision. I think that's what you said. So I do just want to highlight that that you can come, participate and know that your kiddos will have something to do. Yeah, our school age care folks you know, are there and they're going to got snacks for them. They've got special activities so it's it's really a fun opportunity for them. Randy, you forgot to highlight that we have dinner. Yes, that's right. Food. So Yes. We're we're really trying to do everything we can to to to accommodate a family. Um Bring your kids. We have activities for them. We'll feed them. We'll feed you and you get an opportunity to converse around a really important topic with your neighbors and uh think that it's it's going to be a valuable valuable time for you, valuable time for us to get the feedback. Really would encourage folks to come out on Saturday morning because uh Right here at the Ed Center.

2:45:04you know, we we we are I will say, you know, there is this tension, board members, that we want to certainly, obviously, open this up to our entire community and have as many folks uh but the part of the experience is having facilitators, and so RSVPing is very important, so folks will please continue to RSVP to so we can make sure that we're prepared with the number of facilitators we need. We've moved from uh libraries to gymnasiums uh because of the of the of the desire to participate, which is wonderful. We just need to know who's coming uh to make sure that we're prepared. So, we'd ask our community to It's really easy RSVP process, will take you 2 minutes on our website and uh and that way we can be prepared when you show up.

2:45:49I'll also say the benefit of RSVPing is that when you do so prior to the event, you'll get a list of suggested, if you have 2 minutes, if you have five pre-reads to like get up to speed a little bit before you show up, so I think that's also nice benefit. Uh if that's a carrot for somebody. Alex. Uh I think we'll all be saying how grateful we are to the team and the staff uh for their work on this, and all the principals for putting in all this time. It's not like it's an easy time to be a school leader right now, so we really appreciate the the overtime and the work, and I think it pays off in spades. Um I wanted to say two things to the community about it. Number one is, you don't have to be having researched this for 40 hours, and that you can show up and get briefed on the things when you're there, but anything you can do before. I do think the the community last night at New Vista was really well-informed, but I would have had really rich discussions had they just come in with opinions and real lived experience. So, lived experience is enough.

2:46:45Um I'll also say I really appreciated our international parents who were there who were able to say, "You know, where I come from this is what we do." And it's so out of the box compared to where we are and how we think in our own world. So, if you're coming from some place different, that's why you should come, not why you shouldn't. So, please come share your experience. Um I also uh I really um appreciate the exchange. I also want to tell people like it seems overwhelming when we're getting a thousand people to write down what they want on a bunch of complicated questions. And just in the world of AI like in modern technology, there are tools to summarize what a lot of people say. So, your voice will count and your input will be heard and it will be incorporated. Um it may go through a silicon chip at some point, but we as a board and as a staff will benefit from your input. It's not going into the void, it's going into uh what we're doing. So, please come. Um you don't have to do the homework, but if you do it'll be great and I'm so impressed by the experience and thoughtfulness that our parents brought.

2:47:47Oh, one other thing too, I think it's really great uh I was moved to see our communities um the quality of the civic engagement of our community last night. And one of my one of my concerns, which is really affirmed that I'll have to be so afraid of it, is that we let our stress about this affect our our children and our students. So, kids have a lot of stressors going on and not only is it good for our community to have good engagements, it's good for our families. It's good for our kids. So, if we can model how to be a good human interacting with other humans about something hard, that is so much better than getting our kids worked up about the anxiety that we feel about something that's hard. So, please don't just keep in mind our community and all its kids, keep in mind your own kids and um as we conduct ourselves in this, just celebrate the quality of the community engagement and how much that is safeguarding not only our school system, but our kids' childhood.

2:48:47Dan. Just a question, Randy. Is there uh sign language interpretation available? So, that will be again, if somebody lets us know that they are coming with that need, absolutely. We'll make sure that they have a interpreter. Thank you. Yeah. I know a lot of us addressed this in our opening remarks, but any further quick questions, board members? Comments? Thank you again. We appreciate the way in which you keep both the board and the community up to date on all of that is declining enrollment and community engagement. So, thank you again. Thank you. We will now move on to our action items consent grouping portion of tonight's agenda. 7.1 personnel item, 7.2 approval of minutes March 10th, 2026, 7.3 approval of minutes March 24th, 2026, 7.4 acceptance of donation Boulder High, 7.5 acceptance of donation Centaurus High School.

2:49:367.6 acceptance of donation Foothill Elementary, 7.7 acceptance of donation Mesa Elementary, 7.8 acceptance of donation Operational Services Department, 7.9 purchase of school buses, 7.10 resolution 26-10 non-renewal license contract, 7.11 resolution 26-11 appointment of City of Boulder Urban Renewal Authority, 7.12 grant academics climate justice classroom to climate action, 7.13 grant academics gifted and talented CDE, 7.14 grant Boulder Prep School Health Professional CDE, 7.15 grant health services substance education City of Boulder, 7.16 grant Peak to Peak School Health Professional CDE. Are there any items board members would like to pull from consent grouping? Seeing as there are none, we need a motion to approve the items. Moved by Alex, seconded by Anna. Any discussion, board members? Liliana. I would just like to offer thanks for all of the generous people here, all of the PTOs, all of the um individual community members that are donating to our schools, the corporations that are donating lawnmowers. All of those things are making our district what it is. And so, I just want to put gratefulness out there.

2:50:56Deanne. I came today worried about uh the school bus purchases because I guess I missed the first part of the bus, literally. Um I didn't get get the presentation about why would we be buying diesel and propane buses. And I was able to have a conversation about the reason for that. So, I want folks who are really interested in us pursuing sustainability uh to know that I've thought about it and I've thought about the reasons that we need to buy these particular kinds of buses. And um I think that it's a go-ahead for us. So. Jason. Yeah, thanks, Deanne. I was going to make a similar comment um but having had a presentation on this I think about a year ago, I I refrained. So, I'm just going to be heartened by the words clean diesel and hope that that is good enough for now.

2:51:50Uh but I uh I appreciate that there's, you know, propane, which I understand from the presentation is better than standard gasoline. So, thanks. Any other discussion, board members? Seeing as there are none, Laura, can you please call the roll? Broussard. Booker. Yes. Chavez. Yes. Medler. Yes. Quinlan-Woida. Yes. Rajpal. Yes. Tamulonis. Yes. Ungar. Yes. Motion passes. Board members, I just realized I forgot to do the legislative update on the information item. Do I actually have to make an amendment motion to go backwards or I think you're okay if the board members agree. I apologize. Okay. It's There's been a lot going on and you know, legislative update. Dr. Easton, do you have anything to address the board regarding to the legislative session and updates? You know, we're getting towards the end of the session, so um you know, I think that we um have our eyes on a couple of of things that could potentially emerge.

2:53:09Um I think a lot of uh a lot of the things we were initially worried about, you know, the the specific ownership tax, I think that that has kind of gone away, which was probably our number one lobbying effort. Um I was I was made aware of a bill that may be dropping uh today uh that would combine uh the Sheridan School District with other school districts, a a bill by um Senator Bridges. And so, be interested to see how that plays out if that does play out. Um you know, seems seems to me that uh um if we're going to get into the business of of merging school districts through bills, uh how does that align with local control and um and uh and just, you know, kind of who who we are are as a state. So, I'm very interested in watching that. Um I'm just trying to think um if there's anything else that's emerging that that I'm worried about at this point. I don't I I think that we're just kind of waiting to most things are we're just kind of waiting still.

2:54:18Yeah, one thing I am curious about is there's discussion as a cost-saving opportunity, since we're in the middle of CMAS testing right now, eliminating CMAS social studies for one or several grades as a cost-saving measure. I'm keeping my eye on that one because social studies is highly opted out of in a lot of school districts, and I just find that a curious a curious move forward. Questions on legislative update for members. And sorry about missing that one before. We will get back on track with the agenda and address any future agenda requests that board members would like to raise for consideration at our next prioritization meeting. Jason. Um I think this is our first meeting since our work session on AI, and I know we talked about I don't think we had a chance to offer prioritization items then, but I wanted to make sure we prioritize prioritize kind of the next steps, which I think is a follow-up on the road map and how we'll approach this as a district, our policy and kind of guidance. Uh so I you know, I'm not sure what that looks like, but I know that there was a follow-up from strong interest from others, myself included, in a follow-up.

2:55:39Alex. Yeah, I I would ditto the AI thing, and and within that I would make a friendly amendment to include the discussion of what our reluctant non-users are feeling and experiencing cuz it's pretty easy to gravitate towards what the heavy users are doing when we still have a lot of people who are not there yet. So, we got to I want to deal with the whole spectrum. Um I mentioned it earlier, but I'm interested in having a discussion about our metrics of school climate and culture that can inform our different accountability structures that can get us to better understand things about the student experience. Um so I'd love to get a to talk about that and figure out if there are ways that we can better understand school climate and culture and how we measure it and what all that should include. Um and then finally, I would and this is probably might get folded into some other topic before we get to it next semester, but I do want to follow up on the GoGuardian idea and how we make it easier for our parents to understand and interact with our technology and what what we can do as a district to make that easier for them to have insight into what's going on.

2:56:45Diane. I've had some feedback from a a lot of high school teachers that it's time for us to review the grading policy and as also to look at what happens with this creation of the partial absences that can come in infinite campus that are creating they're creating permission for students to be very late and still be counted there. So it may be creating some inequities. So I'd like to see that brought up and um I wonder if we can't talk about this student safety and accountability process in a way that meets the law. Um maybe not totally externally as Alex so well addressed the fact that there's all these legal problems with having an outsider, but maybe this is something we need to have a process for when people are unsatisfied with their with the what's going on with their students because we do want them to be safe. So I'd like to put that as a topic.

2:57:53And um last semester I had introduced the idea that we review what's happening with our neurodivergent policy and I still think we need to talk about that. Can I ask a clarifying question? Mhm. So we started a first conversation about our grading policy. It will be coming back to us this semester, but you mentioned attendance and we have a separate attendance policy that talks about absences, partial absences, and how assignments can be like how much can be taken off if a student was absent. And so I was just clarifying No, this is this is really the um this is really about more about absences. So, our attendance policy. attendance how our attendance is working in Infinite Campus, um if a teacher tells the computer that is someone is absent, it notifies a parent right away and then later it tells them that they're partially absent. And so parents are getting a lot of messages and it's creating a lot of confusion and students have learned to abuse that system. So, I just think we need to find out if that if that uh is really working. If we were trying to avoid punishing students for being late, this is might not be actually helping them come to class. No, that makes sense. You said grading policy and I just cuz there are two separate and the

2:59:19attendance does have a a little bit of a grading implication, so I just wanted to be clear which one we were documenting. is the grading policy already on the We're in the middle of the grading policy right now. We've had one meeting on it. DAC is providing feedback. It'll come back to us again this Okay, good. So, just let's just stick with the attendance then. Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Anna. Just a clarifying question, things that we've added previously before um January because this is what we have added after January 20th is still on the prioritization list. So, I don't need to re-add our raptor response around um immigration enforcement at schools. No? Okay. Thank you. Anything else board members? Seeing as there are no additional items to add to our future agenda requests, that concludes our business for this evening. Good night and I hope before we convene again, a lot of members from our community show up at these engagement sessions. Good night, everyone.