This meeting is now called to order. Roll call, please, Vice President Payne. Excuse me. The meeting is now called to order. Thank you. Roll call, please. Vice President Payne. Here. Director Tripp. Here. Director Wilburn. Here. Director Waldrep. Here. President Shandy. Here. The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Eli Eddings and Sophia Wilson from Challenger Middle School. Please join us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it
it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you both so much. All right. Welcome to our Board of Education meeting this evening. We're excited to start this evening, this gathering by celebrating the outstanding faculty, staff and students of D20. Their hard work deserves our recognition, so we encourage applause during this celebration and just want to thank you all for your patience and letting us start a few minutes late. And it's been a long day a good day, but very long. So I appreciate your patience with that.
So let's get the celebration started tonight. Tonight we have Challenger Middle School and Liberty High School with us. We'll start out with Challenger Middle School. Principal Debbie Holt is the. Let me just slow down and start again. Debbie Holt is our wonderful principal at Challenger Middle School. Challenger Middle School started it turns 60 this year. They started off the school year with birthday hats for the the staff. They ranked #61 on the best Colorado Middle Schools by the US News and World Report. Wonderful. Their
Their presentation tonight is completely student driven. The students asked to learn how to be good storytellers asked to practice telling the stories, and then created the video about telling stories. So come on up. Thank you, Mrs. Holt. So that it comes truly from the kids They wanted to learn about storytelling. They're the ones that created a plan, and then they saw the plan through all the way to this video this evening. Now I'd like to introduce to you, Mrs White. She's our Talented and Gifted Coordinator at Challenger. She
works with the entire staff at Challenger to support student learning and teaches several classes including advanced math and and gifted enrichment classes. Mrs. White. Thank you. Good evening, President Shandy, Members of the Board. Thank you all, everyone for being here. Thank you for this opportunity to showcase our school and more importantly our students in the first quarter of this enrichment class, I asked the students to brainstorm what they would like to do and this is entirely from their brainstorm and what they wanted to do. They asked if they could read to the students at Mountain View Elementary our
neighboring school, many of them having attended Mountain View. I was merely the facilitator for this opportunity. And helps guide them as they provide their stories But really, the best way for you to hear about what they did was to listen to them. So please enjoy the video created by the students in this class and also with the help of students from our Cheetah TV class. Thank you. So we read a story and then we had them put the characters in the chronological order that they appeared in the story. Like 1, 2, 3, 4. We tried doing the activity ourselves. We
read the book and we reviewed our coloring sheet. I did enjoy this experience and I would do it again. We wrote our own story called "The Spider and the Butterfly." We mainly taught them about the settings and we did a little activity where they drew settings for the land and the sea. Are we prepared for this by like first getting a rough idea of what we wanted and then making it more like simplified so that the kindergarteners could better understand it? Yes, I really enjoyed it and I would do it again. However, I would just need to make some adjustments. I learned how to teach. I learned how to make lessons for the kids. It was really fun to watch them learning how to do different things
that we taught them. We read that old story, "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten." They had those like characters. If it was a cat, then his name was Christopher or something like the C and the C. So we told them to draw pictures. After the lesson. We told them to draw like a cat and we have it named. It would be the the same letter. So we had a lot of like unicorns and cats and things. So we just like, we've paired our lesson. We read the story a couple times. We decided who would read which party decided like what we would teach them, what we would do. We would say like this is what you're gonna do here. This is what you're gonna do here. And then we decide the
drawing things. I really enjoyed the experience. It was fun to see the kids doing the different things and it really makes you appreciate what teachers teachers do for us. They prepare different lessons to make each day fun. We read a story called "Room on the Broom" and we made them. Have an activity to do afterwards where they put the characters. Is in the chronological order that they came in. We prepared by rereading this story multiple times and trying
out the activity for ourselves. They like, definitely had a like, a blast like, they were smiling a lot and I also had quite a fun time. Gardners, I wrote a story to tell a kindergarteners It was an inactive story, so they had the choice of what to do while we read read the story. At first we didn't think it mattered when our friend first disappeared till we could not find him. So we've decided to gather you all up to go on an adventure to find our friend. Come on, I think I see something in the distance. We should go check
check it out. It's a large maze. We should go see if her friend has gone in there. Oh no, we found a stop. Should we go right or left? We need you guys to help make the decision. If you think we should go right, then go to this side of the room. Think we should go left? Go to this side of the room. We read "1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish" and then we would have the kids try to make their own rhymes and then draw a picture. I strengthened my storytelling and grammar skills by writing our story. Our story was a parody of the well known book "The Hungry Caterpillar." Making the Caterpillar into a butterfly and instead of eating fruits it ate fast food. We had a
lot of fun making it and we worked very hard on it. Me and my partner created a a choose your own adventure story for kindergarteners. I learned many different new ways to. get a point across in the not so complicated manner. We taught sequence of events and learned pacing. You have to make the story interactive and fun, I learned how to write a story and engage readers. Interact and communicate with kids younger than me. We used the different elements of storytelling to keep the kindergarteners attention the entire time...to make a lesson, how to read a book, and create an activity to
activity. To use things other than your voice to elevate your story...write for a younger audience, add a lot of inflection into into my voice. How to create a workable lesson that would fit into a specified timeline. Being able to understand how kindergarten kids think and the ability to be patient. To read to kids who might not know as much as you. How important it is to have a good ending in a story. Importance of leadership in setting a good example for those who are younger than me to be more creative, to be a strong storyteller...represent to the
the younger kids how to create interactive experiences to check their comprehension. We learn pace...how to properly properly tell a story, how to make it enthusiastic, how to to speak and write in a way where little kids could understand me. That speaking in front of an audience can be hard sometimes. Advanced storytelling techniques, how to properly communicate with children younger than me, to make it interesting for little kids...helped me with my speaking skills, Was really great to connect with another age. It was a lot of improvisation
when they asked random questions such as when they got to go outside. It was fun to see the kindergartners interested in what we were saying, we need need to be more creative, we need to be innovative and that's something that we can learn from the younger kids. This was a very fun project project and having a partner made it all the better. That was wonderful. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing that with us and for all you do. You guys are wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Director Tripp, will you now introduce Liberty High School? OK, but I just have to say to Challenger
I've done, I am a storyteller and I've gone to various storytelling functions and there are, there are youth storytellers that compete across the nation. So if you ever want to like push this into the the next level, there's amazing and fantastic opportunities to continue to do storytelling. In many ways, so anyway. Super cool. I am super excited to introduce Liberty High School. I'm a big fan of the school and we'll start with Principal Matt. He is so great
He has a really great connection with the kids in his school and also he's shown a lot of leadership at DAC meetings and being a great voice there. The school itself has a really unique CTE program, including construction and auto programs that are heading to the State Skills USA competition. I understand we placed regionals 3 students in construction with first and second places and five qualifying in auto mechanics. And it's just a
tremendous opportunity there. The boys basketball team made the Sweet 16 this year. I went to one of those basketball games and loved the level of play. And the student support there, it was really impressive They've also got a DECA group with 100 students that compete in state and 21 of them made the finals, five of them qualifying for nationals in a in April in Georgia. And I would just say for DECA, my daughter was in that, and it's a Direct Line from DECA to her getting
into the business program at BYU and from that program. On to working at SpaceX. So you can really like draw that line. It's a tremendous program and that they have such a robust one is just really great. So love having you here. Can't wait to hear from you. Come on. OK. Good evening, members of the Board Superintendent Haberer, thank you so much for having us this evening. We're super excited to be here when I I stepped into Liberty four years ago, This is a program that really needed A rebirth, and I was fortunate enough to find two amazing instructors that have stepped in and
what they will share with you has now become the largest chapter in the Pikes Peak region. This program has grown leaps and bounds in such a short amount of time and I will tell you that as you will hear from a student here in a second how much it impacts their opportunities, but the nice thing is that this program really reaches out to. The larger aspect of our CTSO's within CTE with our kids working in the auto shop and with construction they're picking up experience with business and marketing so that they can step into the business world ready to take on their own programs and
and their own. Companies and so without further ado, I'd like to let my team introduce themselves and share their highlights of what they've been working on. Thank you. Hello, I'm Maddie Dahl. I'm a junior at Liberty High School and I've been in Liberty DECA for three years now and been a DECA officer for two years and then. So DECA has kind of given me a lot of opportunities. It has made me able to get a job. It has given me leadership opportunities, collaboration skills, and then also the chances for international
competition and then something when all of our DECA officers got together this year. Our main motto was to lead the way or clear the path was kind of what we went based off of for this year, so kind of to get the competition out. But yes. So now I will turn you over to Mrs. Moore, one of our advisors. Hello I'm one of the Co advisors at Liberty High School. My name is Catherine Moore. We're gonna start our presentation do Do we do the slides or no? You do. Is it a green button? Look at that
Alright cool, so we have 368 student members within our chapter We are the second largest chapter within the state of Colorado. A 136 of those students qualified for state. We went about two weeks ago to the Broadmoor for those 136 students to compete and they did a fantastic job. We were really proud of them. Something we're really proud of is our student run enterprise that we call the Lancer Lounge. It's where our students, I'll get a little more into it, but they run. Our coffee shop, snack shop, whatever you want to call it
and they really enjoy that our program offers those leadership skills that they can take into the real world and follows that career pathway. OK, CTE in action. So we offer hands on project based learning, they're learning marketing, finance all all the things within our classes and then they're able to actually implement those within that competition aspect and they're getting those industry feedback professional skills they're presenting to those that are actually in industry when they go to the Broadmoor and even
at the district level, sorry, not just at the state level. And it's cool to see. They love seeing the outcome from that and what they're learning is actually being put to use. And then entrepreneurship through school, enterprise, so literally and And how to sell products, how to create menu items, how to promote those items. These are just some pictures from our Lancer Lounge at Liberty and getting them workforce ready for graduation. Thank you. I'm Becky Dougherty. I'm also one of the DECA teachers, business and marketing teachers. I just wanted to show you guys some of our amazing numbers over the last three years
It's been amazing to see the growth in our program, not just numbers, but also you can tell from competition so as was said before, we are the second largest DECA chapter in Colorado and I believe we are that I put this on there a manifested that we were the largest student organization at Liberty. But we went from 135 students in our program to 370 this year. We had 30 state qualifiers my first year and we had 136 this year. For state finalists, we went from 2 to 18
and it says one to seven, but we actually have 13 international competitors that'll be in Atlanta and next month. So it's very exciting. But even with all that we've done so far, we do have some things that we want to do in the future because we want to make sure we keep growing. And excelling. So our future we feel like is really bright. We are turning our Lancer Lounge into a true work based learning class. Our upper level students that have had at least three semesters in our program will manage the store they'll
help manage younger students obviously with under our supervision, but they will manage that store they'll work on on inventory things that give them real life, real-world experience. We also are opening our first student run merchandise store next year which will be exciting they will do the designing designing, the marketing and the Invoicing our initial target is smaller organizations at Liberty and then Timberview which is next to us, but we we hope to expand. We also are in the process of not next year, but the year after, hopefully we'll get dual enrollment
credit for some of our upper level classes we're working on more certifications for for our kids, internships, guest speakers, mentors Basically we just want to prepare students for life, for college, for careers for leadership and beyond. That is our goal. At liberty. Both in CTE and in DECA. So we really want to thank you guys. Thank you for allowing us to share about our program allowing us to support our students through your support of us and giving them a place to stand. We appreciate you
Thank you. Yes, Director Payne, Vice President Payne I just want to say thank you. That is incredible to see and as a mom and this is one of the things just taking us back our daughters were DECA partners and if you think think about it, they are the class of 2020, so their national win was taken away in some ways right, But also the opportunities I had to go to the Broadmoor as a parent and observe this because you're like, what is you're gonna go stay at the Broadmoor wait, I live here. I never get to stay at the Broadmoor and what an
an opportunity and actually seeing the students that come out of this so much better prepared to understand what they might want to do in their own education at the higher level or what they want to do in a career. So I just want to say thank you. This is so inspiring. And I just want to know how we can support you so that we are the largest program in the state of Colorado because I'm very competitive. Who are we second to because we're coming for you. All right. Thank you so much you guys are doing doing amazing things. Thank you. And if you'll stay around after the Superintendent update
we'll do pictures. Thank you. All right, Mrs. Hatfield, are there any updates to the agenda? Yes, and the Board has been made aware aware. Members of the Board, are there any items you wish to move from the consent agenda? Are there any discussion items to be added to the agenda? May we have a motion to approve the agenda? I move move that we approve the agenda as presented. Second Roll call please. Vice President Payne. Aye. Director Tripp. Aye. Director Wilburn. Aye. Director Waldrep. Aye. President Shandy All right. I'm going to start off board comments tonight by announcing that we will
be moving our April board meeting from April 9th to April 23rd. We had some conflicts that we had to move, so April 9th to April 23rd. Yeah. Anyone else have any board comments they would like to make Yeah, I'd like to. I just mentioned I went got to attend the Colorado Leaders for Academic Success conference. It was a really well done. It was nice to be able to see a different perspective when I thought had a lot of the things that we really care about is as far as kind of focus on academic outcomes, how to best achieve those things and I also want want to give a shout out though to AJ Longhenry, who we just I think
highlighted last meeting as well. So a lot of the students from Air Academy were there too with their media team, they're filming it and recording it and they did really an outstanding job. They're very professional. And I think their manner and behavior was kind of really accredited upon themselves as well as their teacher, and D20. So it's really great to see that. Yeah, I think that there's a lot of things I would love for more of the members to. Maybe I actually brought some books. I'll share that they were giving out free books. I'll hand those out to people. I think we could really, yeah benefit from checking out a little bit more what they have to offer as well So just wanted to mention that, especially how great the students were doing
OK, maybe we can put that on the future study session or something and I don't know, we'll talk about about it. Thank you. Director Tripp. Thank you. I mentioned I was a storyteller. I've been doing that for over a decade now in schools across the city and working with students and teachers and in in that role I have the delightful yet very serious opportunity to shape young listeners perceptions of people and events. For example, I can depict Goldilocks as an innocent and curious child or as a greedy, entitled twit.
Or as an abandoned and starving waif. I can tell this story from the perspective of. Alarmed Papa Bear or a very fussy Mama bear, or a baby bear who is not traumatized but secretly delighted at the disruption because he hates porridge and he's outgrown that freaking bed and chair a long time ago. You see? They are all this story of Goldilocks and the three bears. But the way what you think and feel about that story and those characters is really shaped by the way I tell it.
That's the power in the shaping and the choosing. I can then guide my audience to an understanding of a larger narrative about themselves and about others. Because the best stories invite us to remember our humanity and our responsibility to care for one another and ourselves. Now that's true for fairy tales. It's even more true for the stories we tell about real events and real people. In a little while, we're going to be discussing a particular kind
of story history via textbooks. Now, some think of that word as his story, and it is true, much of history has been written by the hisses of our culture. I also think of it as his story, perspectives, people and ideas that whisper or hiss to us from the past, now with a plethora of dates and names that make our students eyes glaze over we sometimes imagine that textbooks are removed from the
shaping hand of a storyteller. I assure you they are not now, not in the the past, not in the future. The storyteller is there, shaping, directing, leading But for what end? What purpose? And that's the idea I want to leave us with. We often say we live in complex and troubled times, but with rare exception, every time has complexities and troubles. And figuring out how to tell those stories is never simple. When we tell stories about events and
people to our students and to ourselves to our families. We shape how those stories are understood So what are we leading them to believe about themselves? About their neighbors, about their community, about our country? And how can we tell this story of our own time in a way that leads us to care for each other and ourselves and and draws our community closer together? Thank you. Thank you, Vice President Payne. I'm not going to be as eloquent, I was just going to say from my board comments one we all got to
to go to the military ball at the Polaris on the Air Force Academy. And I just want to say thank you, Colonel and to everybody that played part in that because it was absolutely an incredible evening and I I almost missed it, but luckily President Shandy called me in route and I was able to quickly go Don a dress and tell my husband to go Stop working on the car and we were going to go and it was an amazing event, but it was also just amazing to say where we are
globally and where we are as a country and seeing the young people there that are working so diligently with advisors and adults advising them because they desire to be a a part of our military forces and get a college college scholarship, whether it's ROTC, because the reality is only maybe 1% will ever make it to the Air Force Academy. Where maybe that would be their highest dream, but I just wanted to say thank you for. To that and then the other thing has got to attend some opportunities with Jinger around the state, but also we all went to the state capitol and that was also an
opportunity to kind of hear where from some of our legislators are and where we are on the budget and then just bringing bringing it back to home because the success of this district can be measured in a number of ways and as we continue to learn how to tell stories or how to talk talk about it has been nothing but impressive on those school visits to see all. All of the different mechanisms come together to the support for those in the classroom, to those that are working so hard. So we gotta go to Antelope Trails. So a
shout out there and just I continue to be impressed our work session today. So I don't want to go on, but I just wanted wanted to say it's been a huge opportunity to kind of see it first hand how this district is working and I And all the changes in the preparedness to make transitions in this district. Because everybody cares the future of this district and that we keep it sustainable. Yeah. Thank you, Director Wilburn. Thank you, President Shandy. I just want to take a minute to. Do a better job of saying this month what I attempted to say last month, I think
everybody knows. If you don't know, I've suffered a very. Significant tragedy and. When you're living where I am right now, a month is a long time So trying to say this last month, it just didn't come out very well, but But everybody up here on the dais, everybody at the EAC, everyone have just been the support I've gotten has been overwhelming and. It's when people see me, they say Mr Wilburn and Derrick Derrick, whatever, you know, how you doing? Which is a natural question. And I just want everyone to know that I'm doing OK, not easy tough
Road, but I'm doing all right and the overflow of support and calls and emails emails and stopovers and it it's been happening all the time. It's been 3 months and I just just want you to know that I feel your love and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Superintendent Haberer. Yes, so great happens here in D20 and I'm excited to share some updates with you. I ask all of our staff members if they have a celebration to send it to me and so we
we have a great collection of all the wonderful things that happened here in D20. And I'm there it goes so. So 1st celebration Village Middle School has moved into Mountain View Elementary and our Mountain Ridge. Excuse me, Mountain Ridge Middle School and the facility is amazing and I'd love to set a time to have you come over. They I had a chance to go on a tour as you you can see students still do online learning, but he has over 100 students that come
come every day to do in person classes as well. So it's really a hybrid type model. And what was really fun is those lower 2 classrooms, they literally have a culinary arts program going on there at their facility. They've got stoves. The gentlemen there. That's a math teacher. He teaches culinary arts along with another teacher who actually owned her own pastry shop. And he said that if we want to coordinate a time to invite the board over, they would love to. Cook some treats for us, or better yet, have
us learn and cook alongside students too and also see their facilities. So I'll have Brittny reach out and I would love to have you guys and I was was just getting really hungry hearing about all the wonderful things that they're making. So we have these teachers here with us tonight I believe they won a very important awarad. The 2026 Alette Cox Award. So it's a huge congratulations to Jodi Champagne and whose a literacy teacher and Kim Fitzpatrick, who's a
dyslexia teacher. They have been selected as the the 2026 recipients of the Alette R Cox Educator Award by the Academic Language Therapy Therapy Association, or ALTA, for their exceptional works. Supporting students with dyslexia in the public school system and and that's something I'm very proud of here in D20. Not all districts have specially trained teachers in dyslexia. Although the award is typically given to an individual, Alta chose to honor them as a team because of their joint significant impact.
The award will be presented to the Alta National Conference in New Orleans on February April or Friday, April 17th. Established in 2006, this national award recognizes educators who demonstrate outstanding commitment, leadership, and mentorship in evidence-based dyslexia instruction continuing the legacy of pioneer Aylett Royal Cox. Would these teachers please come forward? And we'd love to hear. A brief description. Of your award and the work that you do together as
a team. Thanks. Thanks for inviting us to speak. I think so. Focus. OK, So I'm Jodi Champagne and this is my teammate, friend and amazing colleague, Kim Fitzpatrick. We don't we don't plan to dress the leg This was actually anyone who works with us knows that this probably happens way too way too much but we sure we talked about ABB going home and changing but then we but then we decided it was more of a testament to our teamwork and how closely we work together so.
It's so anyway, just really quick. We just want to share our role. We are from literacy department learning services. We work with the Dyslexia Support Center, which was established in 2021 based on initiative by Doctor Field and in a simple view We provide district professional learning. We support schools we support families, we see students and and we run a professional learning community of dyslexia specialists across the the district. And we are so honored that so many of them came. Raise your hand.
So honestly, the award should go to them like they're amazing. They're amazing, so. We're really blessed, so Kim's gonna talk a little bit about the do we? So what do we push this? OK, a Superintendent Haberer already mentioned this award is given by the Academic Language Therapy Association, and it's called the Aylett Cox Award because she was a pioneer in our field for teaching children with dyslexia. She established different curriculum and wrote many texts on those
those teaching methods. She as part of, was part of the. Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, where she did a lot of her therapy. She's a pioneer in this field, but one thing that mattered to her was providing these services to students in public schools because it can be so expensive for families to have this therapy outside of schools. It can cost anywhere from around $11,000 and up depending on if you're seeing one child or what the therapist is charging, and it's a two year process
process. And so we have a rough estimate on the conservative side that about 500 students in this district have received these services. So that equates to around $5.5 million our families were saved having this done during the day in the in schools. Let's see here. Think we covered that part so. Yes, we were nominated by an executive board member from the Alta Language Therapy Association, and then they voted on it in the Executive committee. And as mentioned, this is the first time it's been given to a team, so
that's pretty a big honor for Can I say something real quick? Absolutely so So probably about 10 years ago it was Jodi was teaching at both of you were teaching at Academy Endeavor or you you was at Wolford, You were at Wolford. That's right. Jodi was at Endeavor, Endeavor and Jodi and I know each other outside of work and she called me and she's like, we gotta go eat lunch. So I have to talk to to you. So we went and had lunch, remember. Yeah. And she convinced
me that we needed to have therapists in our schools that supported students that had characteristics of dyslexia. So it's actually part of the whole Encompass Heights journey too. And someday we, excuse me, we can tell you that story, but it really started with Jodi. And her advocacy. Thanks. I'm sorry, this so the Alta Associate or Therapy Association, it's an international professional organization of over 5000 members and it is a credentialing organization that
looks at different programs and it has a high rigor for training and and it is an international the certification is recognized internationally. It requires over 200 coursework hours to complete this training and members have to meet. Rigorous training requirements. It's a grueling 2 years for them. They have to complete a 700 hour practicum and pass a national exam and then maintain high ethical standards and then there's ongoing continuing education credits they
they have to get every single year to maintain their credentials. So just to kind of piggyback on that most most pre service schools and even masters programs, they don't include this specialized training and it's not anyone's fault that that we came into education without this training, but it's definitely was a vacuum and avoid so our training Necessarily unique nationally, but it's truly unique and that it happens within the public schools we're the only school district in the state of Colorado that provides
this training to our employees in the district The training itself if you if they were to pursue it outside of of District 20, it could be upward of $12,000 or more per trainee. We've also partnered with the university so that they they can apply their credits towards a masters if they if they would like to earn a master's as well. So we've really, we really have come a long way. Other districts in Colorado, they outsource some of it our training, similar training programs across across the country are typically found at a university or at a hospital and
and we're doing it right here in District 20. Thanks to the leadership of Doctor Field and thanks to the support we've had with our administrators from Wolford, Endeavor, Encompass at anywhere that we worked in all this all the all the therapists behind us and the supports that they get from their administrators as well. So where we've been, you can see very few people have been was. Were trained very limited awareness and even the hesitation to say the word dyslexia, which we know we can say that and talk about it and where we are
now. We have 58 specialists that are currently working in district District 20. 26 of our schools have somebody on staff just an increased understanding and awareness we continue continue to provide professional learning and and we have open conversations about it for students needs. And we feel like our work isn't done. We want to continue with our professional. Learning community and you can see we've got several eager learners still behind us and we always say the smartest person in the room is the room. So our professional learning community is really valuable for for us, but all of our brains together.
Other things coming down the pipe, we have a Senate bill for dyslexia screening that CDE passed that we'll be looking into and we just want to continue to create resources and make our training better. We're excited we're going going to have some training on dysgraphia coming up and then we are really excited that our 8th cohort of trainees will begin June 1st of of this year. So anyway, thank you to I just the train, the training is back here they are in various roles in the district. We have their therapists, but they're also also classroom teachers. We even have trained administrators.
Resource teachers so it's covered a wide wide spectrum within the district. Yeah. Thank you Would you all stand? Yeah, I was just gonna say please stand up Stand up. Please stand up, stand up. Let's give them an applause. So thank you for letting us share and inviting us to share what we do. And you're always welcome to learn more. Well ladies, we are so proud of you and just couldn't be happier that you're on our team and making the differences that you're making and being led by Doctor Field. So thank you so much. We say every day we love our job. We talk about it all the time, how lucky we are and
and it shows. It shows they love it so much much. They share a cube. Yeah. So we also we have and thank you that is really really amazing. And when we say we're at the peak of excellence in D20 really are so appreciative of the training that you do and the fact that that we have 58 specialists in our district in our schools and I've had the opportunity to see some of some of you in action and it truly is amazing to be able as a district to provide that level of support for our learners. So thank you so much for
for your service. So we have a student, Tanya Prabhu is a sophomore at Pine Creek High School and she delivered an exceptional performance at the recent Colorado State Chess Championship. She emerged as the top performing girl in the entire state state, earning the honor of representing Colorado at the Ruth Herring National Girls Invitational. And this marks Tanya's 4th consecutive year. Qualifying for that elite competition. Check your hands. That's listen. And Pine Creek High School, the hockey
team, they were state champs this year. Let's give that a hand. Was the first state hockey championship with a win of 6/3 over Steamboat Springs. Air Academy High School engineering students, they attended a technology student association TSA State conference at the Gaylord in Aurora and and students competed in various events, including biotechnology, design, manufacturing prototype and robotics and. Congratulations to to Liam Nichols, Miles Kunkle and Moses Novembre, who
earned first place in control systems technology and and qualified for the national conference this June. In Washington DC. So let's give them a hand. And a thank you, one of our parents. One of our parents from the parent council shared with me the celebration. I said send me the information. And so now we're able to celebrate it. Chinook Trail Middle School 7th grade Brain Bowl team came in 3rd place at the state championship. So congratulations to this team. Then we have our special education
Spotlight Explorer Elementary school is maintains its status as a model school for its SSN program for yet another year now now its second in a row. It is the only model school in the region and the only model school in Academy Academy District 20. Model schools must meet a stringent process as outlined by the Colorado Department of Education as they became, as they become a model school. Once they achieve model school status, other schools in the
region may look to them as a good example and they are set as other districts and schools come out and actually to visit them to see some of those best practices So huge shout out to this amazing team. All right, I'm clapping and turning the page at the same time, OK? So next as I go to these various schools and just thank you so much, each of you have had an opportunity to go with me to schools and it it really makes a difference and I know that principals and teachers
teachers just love the opportunity when we're asked those. Great questions and really celebrate the good work that we're seeing in our schools. So an example at Antelope Trails, I was there recently, I had a chance to watch their multi tier system of support team in action. They were talking about students that sometimes. A struggle with behavior and how could we meet there but the need for them to become more regulated as as well as how does that link to their academic achievement It was truly amazing to watch this
process. And then in the library, the librarian was doing a wonderful job of a geography game where students were rolling the dice and they if they landed on a certain culture, they learned all about that region and they're they were having a wonderful time doing that. Director Payne and I were at Endeavor Elementary School and we had a wonderful, great lesson, hands on lesson where students were looking at the world and talking about the equator and the prime Meridian and they're really eager, as you could see, to tell us all about what they were learning.
Eagleview Middle School thank you to Director Wilburn for joining us as you can see that a lot of staff members, including the principal, were wanted because this is their annual fundraiser fundraiser for Cancer Research and Director Wilburn and I also saw this amazing math classroom where you can see the tiles that are on the students desk and they were using the tiles to build. Mathematical equations and I went up to a couple students and they're like, well, yes, this represents.
It's a negative and this represents a positive and could explain explain the whole thing, the whole equation using the tiles So that was really impressive to see. And then this is just going deeper with Eagleview. This is their eagleview Saint Patrick's Bald for Bucks where students they they had over 80 students and staff members willing to shave their heads in support of children battling cancer and this year they they set a fundraising goal of $10,000 for
the Saint Baldrick's Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization that that funds childhood Cancer Research and those wanted wanted posters and all that. That must have made a huge difference because they surpassed it by raising $16,577 So I think we need to. Yeah, and Mr yeah, And Mr Lester, who you saw has a full, nice, full head of hair and a beard, had said that if they raise $10,000 or more, not only would he shave shave his head. Stand up, you need to show everybody thank you.
Thank you and thank you, Principal Lester, you are wonderful role model for your students. And the Air Academy High school broadcast journalism as you mentioned, Director Waldrep, they did a wonderful job. Supporting and really doing all the filming at Flying Horse for the class. Conference that they had and I'm just so thankful that they had a wonderful opportunity to apply their learning in an authentic way. So and thank you for doing that shout out earlier too. So beginning of last year, I had a wonderful conversation with Dianna Fricke, who leads a lot of the
AI efforts in our district. And what I was hearing is that English teachers, some of them were telling their students that I learned this from my student Advisory Council, were telling their students you can't use AI at all. But yet some of the students, math teachers were saying yes, use AI And so students were not quite, you know, understanding understanding why some teachers were OK, some weren't. So I asked Dianna what she would think about bringing high school and middle school English teachers together to look at the use of AI in English classrooms. What
would the bumpers be, and how could you? How could they use AI as a thought partner instead of just saying having AI write their papers for them? So this is the wonderful group I love love the futuristic picture as well that got together after school. To investigate this whole topic and I had a chance to hear their last class. And I was really impressed with what they learned from each other, and they emphasized just learning what each teacher was doing. They read articles together. They
really went deep. And one of the examples that they gave was giving having students do their own handwriting to handwrite like an know an essay, have their peers give them feedback on it, and then purposely put it in AI to ask it to make it more clear or make it better. Even if you just put that in. And then they had to print what AI did and compare it to what they wrote, and they had to see what was the difference and what did you like what it did. Would you think about doing that
And what did you learn about the kind of verbs of vocabulary that was put in? And then they had to take that and kind of do a written compare and contrast. And afterwards they had a chance to write it again without the help of AI. But the takeaway that the teachers found with this is that it it was really helping students. All students, but especially students who are already proficient with writing and really showing them how to extend and expand their writing, which we know that we always need to and continue to work on. How do we give
students those enrichment opportunities? So I think there's real promise with AI and they all look pretty happy in that picture. So that's a good, that's a good sign. We also had a chance. We're developing our strong partnership with UCCS and so Principal Korina Bierman, Director of College and Careers Kendra Tate and I, we had a wonderful opportunity to tour the UC UCCS sports medicine facility and there may be some opportunities as we developed this partnership partnership for schools like Village or even Aspen Valley maybe
to access that facility. And so we're looking into that, but but it's pretty exciting. They are looking at building a health Sciences Building right behind, I think it's Keebler and so we we saw the plans for that. And we met with these amazing administrators and we're going to start a roundtable where we're going to start meeting with them regularly to see how Pine Creek High School because Principal Bierman has a wonderful vision vision for sports medicine. How can we Continue to explore those ideas along with doctors who
want to be a part of this facility and really build this dream together. And I just feel so honored and privileged that we were. I think I told you I was just on a tour with the overall UCC campus and they mentioned how D11 has a cybersecurity program that where they come on campus. So I said, well, D20 would love to have an opportunity like that. What do you have coming up? And they mentioned the health Sciences. And of course I said look no further like we've because I I knew that Principal Bierman already had an idea of wanting to
do this. So it was really fun to connect everyone together and so so we'll keep you updated on that. It's gonna be a really exciting opportunity for the school and for our students I also really enjoyed visiting our wonderful PTA volunteers, which you can can say up there in the right hand corner. During that El Paso PTA it's called. The El Paso County PTA Founders Day celebration and President Jackie Lesh we had a a great time visiting with each other and with the volunteers
and I love this celebration. It's a nice way to to honor our amazing parent volunteers who just put in multiple hours to create that positive culture in in our schools. And I would love to bring some board members with me the next time as well. Hi. Cameron, Cameron Tacy, and Susan, I we we went to the CASE conference, which is the administrator conference for administrators across the region. Always a a really good opportunity for us to network with other colleagues and they had a special
emphasis on AI too. So I know I learned a lot from our colleagues and a huge huge shout out to Doctor Field. And Tacy Kilnser Killinger because because you guys also did a presentation. Along with UCCS right on our leadership cohort, we have over 20 teachers right now in that are learning how to all the leadership skills necessary to become successful principals and And I'm so thankful to you doctor field and the whole team and learning services I had the opportunity to
to Co lead a class with Doctor field and. Professor Domangue on vision leadership leadership vision and I think. So many of the folks in learning services I know and Cabinet have been a part of that and and I'm excited that now we're going to have 20 / 20 teachers trained up to give us a nice pool even internally for leadership here in D20. But it wouldn't have happened without Doctor Field taking that lead in all of Learning Services being involved. Wait, if I could just add the and I wanted to
That was kind of an awkward clap, sorry, but I did want to say that as you have kind of shared with us and along along this journey, it has been part of the secret sauce of something very special to District 20 is the intentional effort of learning services and And I anyway, I'm just glad to bring attention to that and I'm glad you are because I really do think this is something that across America, it needs to be done better and it's an honor to be part of a district that does it. So. Yep, thank you. So Academy
Academy District 20, we had our job fair. I think it was last Saturday or a couple Saturday Saturdays 8 days ago but we welcomed 488 candidates came in to talk to to various folks about careers here in D20 and it's our second highest job fair attendance in the past five years, which tells me that D20 has that reputation of excellence in our community and people want to come here. To work. And so huge a shout out. And Cameron's not here, but huge shout out to his leadership and
the whole HR team for putting on and all of the principals. I know we have principals here too, and learning services, all the departments for being there on a Saturday and hosting this great job fair. So that was really a huge celebration. And then we just had our board linkages. And this is Director Payne and myself talking with our classified staff and the the topic was. On school finance and Deputy Becky Allan, just amazing even
with her recent foot surgery went through 6 separate. Facilitation. She talked to everybody about finance and then we asked them questions that were related to what other streams of revenue would our stakeholders be willing to brainstorm and possibly implement even the idea of putting in some type of initiative on the ballot. And so that was really wonderful and appreciated I know, Director Wilburn
and Shandy, I appreciate you being able to attend as well. And as we talked about the ball, there we are It really was a wonderful time. A huge shout out to Colonel Huber, the junior Air Force ROTC military ball. They do this every year. And thank you, Colonel Herndon, I know you were there was wonderful to to see you there. And just really, really appreciate our partnership with USAFA and just the wonderful leadership skills that our students learn as a
part of this program. And we also have the. The. Honor and tradition of honoring our new principals as they come in our finalists and our executive director, Becky Harris, our new principal finalist, Jaleesa Steward and Stefani Vickery for Pioneer Elementary and I believe they're here tonight as well. So we'll get to honor them again. But it really is such a wonderful opportunity for for us to get to know them in a more informal setting.
So I appreciate us coming together to do that. It's a wonderful tradition. That I hope that we just are able to continue. And the best news of all? The last day of school. Here's the official announcement Seniors last day we're pretty confident would be Friday, May 8th, unless we have a major Blizzard somewhere along the line but that doesn't look very likely. Pre K through 11 Last day Thursday May 21st, 2026 and teachers last day would be Friday May 22nd so.
Will end the with that great exciting Thank you Superintendent Haberer. Tonight we have 6 new administrators to to approve. Miss Allan, you have the pleasure of the honor to do those introductions tonight it It is an honor, but you know my jokes aren't as good as I can't compete, but it is an honor for me for for sure. So the first candidate that I would love to introduce is Erica Patino. She is being being recommended as the Assistant Principal at Eagleview
Middle School. Erica holds a bachelor of Arts in English education from Fort Lewis College in Durango and a Master of Arts and Educational Leadership from UCCS through one of our District 20 leadership cohorts. So I got to be her professor during that time and could certainly see what a shining light she is, Erica began her career in District 49 as a high school English teacher, and then she came to teach language arts at
Eagleview Middle School and she is currently the Dean of Students at Eagleview and we are pleased to recommend Erica to you tonight for the position of Assistant Principal at at Eagleview Middle School. Erica, is there anything you'd like to share? First up, I'd like to thank the board of of Education, our Superintendent and all of the district leaders in the building that have helped to shape me on my path into leadership. I'm a proud member of the cohort and felt that it was a great way to learn the job of being an
an administration. I'd like to thank Mr Lester, Mrs Hamilton and Mrs White, who could not be here tonight. The Eagle View staff, community, families students. Eagleview really is a special place. We are a family and I just feel so blessed and honored to be able to continue working at Eagleview as an Assistant Principal. So thank you so much much. Congratulations. Now I'm pleased to introduce Kita Grinberg, who is is being recommended as the principal of Aspen Valley
High School and Kita holds a Bachelor of Arts in Arts in History from Brown University in Providence, RI and a Master of Education in Teaching from Mills College in Oakland, CA. Kita began her career in San Francisco as a youth Treatment and Education Center teacher. Then in Oakland, she served as an English social studies teacher and department. Department leader and then in Ukiah CA she taught at the college level level as an ESL instructor. She served as an
adult school teacher and also started as a lead teacher and advisor at Big Picture South Valley High School where she eventually became the principal principal. And so we're so pleased to recommend Kitty Kita to you this evening for the position of Principal at Aspen Valley High School. Kita, do you have anything you'd like to share? Yes, thank you, Superintendent Haberer. President Shandy Board of Directors, it's an honor to to be here and I really just am so grateful for the opportunity to step into leadership at Aspen
Valley and putting some faith in me coming from another state. I'm so excited to serve our young people, support Aspen Valley and its development, and to join this community and And I'm sorry I missed the luncheon. I was on a plane coming here. It's been amazing spending a little time at Aspen Valley, the staff staff, many of whom are here, have been so supportive already. And everyone I've met in Academy District 20 has been extremely helpful and I'm just really excited on the theme of of storytelling to get to be part of writing this next chapter for Aspen Valley. So thank you so much for the opportunity. Congratulations.
I am now pleased to introduce Stefani Vickery who who is being recommended as the principal for Pioneer Elementary School. Stefani is joined this evening by her husband husband, Randy. Stefani holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Texas at Arlington and also a Master of Education from Tarleton State University in Texas as well. Many of her experiences Stefani is in Texas and started at Arlington Crowley Independently Independent School District as an elementary classroom
teacher and then at Crowley School District she went on to serve serve unbelievably at every level. She was a high school assistant principal, A principal at elementary then then middle high, both a director and executive director in that school district than in Lake Travis also in the Austin. Area she served as the senior executive director for curriculum and instruction and then assistant Superintendent for CNI as well. So Stefani currently serves as the
interim principal at Pioneer Elementary School and were so pleased to recommend Stefani this evening as the non interim principal at Pioneer Elementary School. Stefani, do you have anything to share? I do. Hi y'all, thank you so much for this opportunity. I really appreciate the board and the Superintendent giving me this opportunity to join such a fabulous team. I've had the opportunity to be at Pioneer Elementary since January and the educators there are just top notch
The kids are amazing and the families are very supportive. So I'm so thankful to be a part of this team. So thank you. Great job. Thank you. Congratulations. Now I'm pleased to introduce Jaleesa Steward who's being recommended as the principal of Mountain View Elementary School. Jaleesa is joined this evening by her husband, Devante and her children, Eli and Ava. Jaleesa holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies with a minor in early childhood education from Howard
University in Washington, DC. She holds a Master of Educational Leadership in Educational Administration from Argosy University and she's a doctoral student, right now, hoping to get her doctorate in early early childhood education, Jaleesa began her educational career not far from Doctor Field in Prince William County in Virginia as a special education preschool teacher in in North Carolina she served as a special education compliance compliance facilitator a little closer to here at Fountain
at Fountain Fort Carson at Jordahl Elementary, a special education teacher. And then also a special education administrator here in District 20, where she currently serves as the Director for Special Education Compliance. We are pleased to recommend Jaleesa this evening for the position of Principal at Mountain View Elementary School. Jaleesa, would you you like to share anything? Yes, thank you. I just want to say good evening and thank you to Superintendent Haberer and the Board of Education for this opportunity. I really appreciate it. Also, I want to thank Tacy Tacy for
entrusting me in this position and opportunity to grow myself as a leader within Academy District 20. I'm especially grateful for my family, my husband Devante, and my children Eli and Ava, as they will be coming with me along this journey as well. I want to thank my team and my colleagues for their support along the way as as well, who are here tonight and my future team as well. While special education will always hold a special place in my heart, I am so excited for this new journey ahead. I'm excited to build relationships, build on the strengths that Mountain View has, and
really work alongside the team there with the staff, students and community communities. So thank you again for the opportunity. Great, congratulations. I am now pleased to introduce Doctor Michael Brom, Who is being recommended as the director for assessment and Michael is joined this evening by his wife Jessica a fellow mathematician. Here Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the West TX and A&M University in Canyon, TX He has a Master of Science in educational administration
from Emporia State. University in Kansas and he holds a doctorate as well in education. Educational leadership from Liberty University in Lynchburg VA Michael began his career as a math teacher. He has served as a math teacher in Texas, Kansas and Colorado he has also also served as an assessment and math curriculum coordinator and and director for Learning Services in district thirty-eight, where he currently serves as the Director for Curriculum
Instruction and Assessment. We are pleased to recommend Michael for the position of Director for Assessment. And Michael, is there anything you'd like to share? Yes, thank you and good evening. The first group of people that I'd like to appreciate and extend my gratitude to is our preliminary and final interview teams. Thank you for your time and your commitment in investing in all of us candidates and thank you for having the faith in me and the trust to give me this opportunity. I have been considering opportunities for the last two years
and I had just visited with my wife earlier this evening 2 two years ago. She said is there one place if you were were to finish your career? Be in a different position. Is there one job that you would really be interested in? And I said I would like to be part of the D20 family and And so this opportunity came at a wonderful time for me. I'm really looking forward to building connections with my teammates and on the in the assessment division and also in learning services and with the staff across the district and doing great work together and learning from one another. Thank you for this opportunity. Congratulations.
Finally, this evening it is my pleasure to introduce Doctor Becky Harris, who is being recommended as the assistant Superintendent for Learning Services, now Becky's husband Tommy and sons, Declan and Porter are under the weather, but they are watching from home, cheering you on. Becky holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Secondary education from Colorado State University in Pueblo a Master of Arts in Teaching from Colorado College here in the Springs, and she holds a Doctorate of Education in K12
Leadership from Jones International University in Centennial, Co. Becky began her career in Widefield as a high school English English teacher, a student Achievement support specialist and assistant principal. She eventually took over at Talbott Elementary school and then was the principal at Ventucci Elementary School. She joined District 20 as the principal of Prairie Hills Elementary School and served as the director for curriculum and instruction specifically in
in special education and Becky currently serves as an executive director for Learning services right here in in District 20. And we are pleased to recommend Becky this evening for the position of Assistant Superintendent for Learning Services. Becky, do you have anything to share? Thank you. This one on. OK. I want to thank the board for this opportunity and specifically Superintendent Haberer. I was just thinking it's going to be a little different. I will be joining you on Thursday nights next year, so
that'll be a little different position I want to to thank Doctor Field for all of her support leading up to this role and my colleagues that I work with. I couldn't ask for a better team and And so I am thrilled just to continue in learning services. Such an amazing team of people and I just I look forward to the leadership opportunity I will thank my husband and my sons also for all of their support. I remember the last time I was up here, I didn't thank my husband and that was
was like, you don't do that. You have to say thank you. So thank you to Tom as well. So I'm looking forward to this opportunity. Thank you, Miss Allan, and thank you to the new administrators and everything very exciting. What a great addition to to our team. We need a motion to approve the consent agenda as posted. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as posted. Second. Roll call please. Vice Vice President Payne. Aye. Director Tripp. Aye. Director Wilburn. Aye. Director Waldrep. Aye. President Shandy.
Aye. We have 16 people viewing the live stream. Three of which are Becky Harris. All right, we're going to take a 10 minute break for pictures and we'll be back Thank you. Oh, you're sick. And you're a Steve Scott too. Yes. Yeah, they Congratulations Congratulations. Hello, Amy, you out there? Yes. Can you hear me? I can hear you. OK, if I can hear you in the **** room, it's s really loud in here. Talk a little bit more, please. OK, Can you hear me now? Testing.
Can you hear me? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can hear you. OK. That's sense. OK. All right. Thanks. That's it right now. OK, thanks. We're so glad that you're moving on so glad that you're moving on. Hey, Cortana. Amy, are you still out there again? Yes, I'm here. Let's get another mic check. It's a little quieter in here, OK? OK, can you still hear me? Testing. Can you hear me? Testing. Testing. Testing. Can you hear me? Yeah, just keep talking for it, OK
testing. Testing, testing, testing. Testing. Vinny, are you hearing her? Testing 1-2 three OK I I heard that. OK. Alright, one more Amy. OK, testing 1 123. Testing. Yeah, we'll have to. We'll boast it as high as we can go. OK, thanks. Names of faces, yeah. So Cabinet, this is Cabinet. Yeah, Becky will be in my place. OK Cameron's not here tonight. So Michael, one of the the directors is sitting there and then Zach on the end there
there, He's it. OK. And then, you know, Mark Hey, how you doing? That's the way it's supposed to go. Derek says a lot of questions. Thank you. I'm excited. It's big big transition. I All right, I'm picking up their folders I haven't got Yeah. Is it going to be over? We're so proud of you. Thank you. No, that's me See tomorrow. Alright, I'll see you tomorrow. Take care.
All right, let's wrap it up and find our seats, please. All right. Thank you so much. It's always incredibly inspiring to begin our meeting by celebrating the hard work and achievements of our D20 students, faculty, and staff. Now we transition into our business portion of our meeting a time for thoughtful discussion and decision-making out Out of respect for this focus, we ask that applause be held during this part of the session as we shift our attention to the important work ahead. Thank you so much. Consent Agenda. There are no items pulled from the consent agenda. So that takes us right
into written reports. First up is legislative updates. I know we have our amazing superwoman, Mrs. Attwood. Online and I believe you can hear us this month. Yes, and we can meet you OK. Yes, wonderful. All right, so does anyone have any question or comments and I'll give Amy the floor here in a second, but any specific questions or comments for for legislative updates? No. Amy, do you have anything for us? Yes I do. So we are halfway
through session now. Out of the 120 days, we're halfway there are a 471 bills have been introduced introduced out of about 700 to 750 We have a very low bill count for K12 education and that is likely due to the budget The budget shortfall still hovers between 800 to a billion dollars. Next Thursday week, today we get the quarterly revenue forecast But that revenue forecast, those are the numbers by which the
Joint Budget Committee will finalize the state bill. The, I'm sorry, the state budget, which is called the long bill. So then they will spend the following week touring up their numbers and we will likely see the budget bill introduced. On March 30th or 31st? So it will run that week in the house and then it'll run the following week the week of the 6th in the Senate. So as you are planning planning your budget, I think like we talked about last month.
I think planning for flat. So the same amount of dollars that you have this year for next year, I don't think we will see any increases. For next year, we may see a cut. I would say. 2 to 3 percent, 5% would be really drastic, but we won't know that until next week. And so as you're planning, like I said, plan on flat there are a few ways that the Legislature can
put education while still keeping us flat and and that would be pausing the implementation of the new school finance formula. So that is, that is a that is a straight flat. Then rolling out the new finance formula, but putting in a budget stabilization factor that would claw back the extra dollars that are needed to continue that rollout. So it basically washes out the rollout. And another option would be? Moving specific ownership tax into.
The state share that is the least popular out of all of the options and I would say legislators are leaning away from that but the governor has not given up that as an option. So remember, the legislature is the one that passes the budget, the governor. Informs that process, but. He is not. He's not the final, he's not the decision maker when it comes to the final decision maker when it comes to the state budget, he still has to sign
it. But really, this is the Legislature's job. So that is that's where we are look for report at the the end of next week, maybe over the weekend depending on how detailed and complicated the revenue forecast comes comes in. And so you should see that the 20th or the 21st, 22nd. Are there any questions? No, they're not. We appreciate you, Amy, and keeping us in the loop. OK, thank you. Thank you. Have a good rest of your night. All right, overview of Academy District 20 choice process, does anyone have any questions or comments?
Director Tripp Thanks. So you had mentioned in the presentation that Discovery Canyon Campus Elementary Grade 2 Ranch Creek Creek Elementary Grade 5 and then Pine Creek grades 10 to 12 are closed for enrollment and I know we've had some. Concerns from community members that feel like well, my school is too crowded. Put it or other things. So I wondered if we have other schools that are really so close to capacity that we should in essence close them as well
or kind of move preemptively if we're three or five or ten seats away, is that close enough to full that we should really just do that? Thank you for the question. So we leave that decision up. Central registry works with principals and principals can decide if they if they're close enough, some for example like a Chinook Chinook Trail elementary school, that's one of our schools that certainly has the higher end of capacity and but I will tell you you up until this point, the principal has left the grade
levels open just I think as a way of ensuring that there's not something. Unexpected that happens and the you have withdrawals or something but that principal is not required to take those students But so some principals do decide for a comfort level that they would rather stay on the books, but certainly I would say there's a few schools that are certainly more on that borderline than others. But we don't force the closure.
If they have a reason that they would want to just have a comfort level, for example at Chinook Trail Elementary. It was open, but he cannot accept choice at all grade levels. There's only a specific area that he'll be able to accept applications so so that list isn't necessarily. Comprehensive of what may or may not be available. In the sense that they can't always predict what's going to happen in terms of the withdrawals and they have to make that decision really back in December
because January is when the choice window opens so some some choose to leave it available for folks to to apply, but those folks may not make the lottery if there's not enough seats available at this time. I see. And so because of the advance notice if the if the decision could be made today. You'd have more closures. But again, principals want to keep their students, their enrollment and those types of things to keep their staffing steady. And so when it's back in December really where you're crafting that decision, some just
tend to be more conservative knowing that some families, they're not going to be able to reach them on that choice prioritization. The good news is to while not required required, we do ask families to give two choices, so they have a backup choice and we are able to go to them. They're not required to, but many do provide that. Anyone else? Anyone else have questions? Nope. OK. Board of Education, Thank you. We'll move on from from that one. Board of Education proposed discretionary budget for fiscal year 2026-2027
Does anyone have any questions or comments? Director Tripp. So just wanted to kind of help my fellow board members know where we landed on this. We did opt to pull off election fees since we don't have an election this year. I felt it was kind of misleading to have a huge budget amount sitting in there that wasn't even applicable, so we did that also. Our board secretary that position is being changed somewhat and so that line, line 2 and three just doesn't apply anymore as well
The biggest thing I wanted to point 2 things I wanted to point out we have not had really monies in on item 4, training and professional learning for the board itself. That really hasn't been in there for a period of time. So I I went and went ahead and put some money back in there. That is a very conservative. Narrative figure if we bring in an an outside voice, it's likely that would be more that could could look like more like 7 to 10,000, but that would at least get us a little ways down the
the road for at least one training and if we wanted do something a little bit more that may have to go up but I but I wanted to put that on there because this board is really trying to be intentional about our training and about. Leveling up our board skills. To do good things and so so if we don't fund something, we claim to care about, then we're kind of speaking out of two sides of our mouth so wanted to make make sure we threw some money in there and intend to use it.
The other one, the non capital equipment, I was looking at that and going wow, there's that seems to be kind of of a bigger area we did talk to to our tech people and just say, are there things coming up like the microphones that we had to replace? Are there things coming up that we should be aware of And so that line item that's a little bit higher than it has been is a reflective of needs that are projected that we're going to need. So that's where that's coming.
From and just thank, thank Becky and Kathy for. Working this out and we worked on this together and it was a great collaborative process and I feel really good about where we landed. We trimmed quite a few things to make our own budget lean. I mean, we're trying to trim stuff out of our school budget and the board is no different because it it's all one pot of money in the end. So we trimmed out a few things and then tried to make sure we aligned our spending with our priorities. So. Excellent. Thank you for that report.
Director or Vice President Payne just just a quick question just for clarity. The training and professional learning is that where you put the money and that amount is 2000 dollars, 5000 this is 2. Wait, am I wrong here? Oh, it's mullet, so you put it in different categories, So what you're looking at maybe is over time. So this sheet that you have reflects like I see several years just to give some perspective Nope, that's helpful. That's my mistake. I was just realizing and really
that's not a lot of money for training, but I do think that like today I really wanna say I appreciate the opportunity we had for training and the the fact that we were able to do that really for $0.00 I mean, and that is the collaboration and partnership piece and the importance of really being strategic in our thinking, but I think think we all benefited from it and just. Another day of that. So anyway, thank you I'm sorry I needed to. I had it way blown up so I wasn't seeing the headers and I did want to point out I had the the I had Kara pull out the line item for legal expenses
just 'cause we we've been trying to track that as a separate thing so So we just pulled that out so we could see sort of a subtotal before legal and then see where legal fits in with that just felt like that added some clarity for us. Awesome. Any? Do you have something else? No, I was just trying to process through that. So we don't have a line item for legal any longer, that's what you're saying we do or we do. OK. I just want to make sure I heard that correctly. All right, moving on, shared rights and responsibilities for families, staff and our community. Questions and comments. Yeah, Superintendent Haberer, so this was a document that
our board member, I think it was Director Wilburn asked for. A earlier last year and so we started working on it and we got some really good feedback. We asked for feedback from all of our stakeholder groups. We started with a draft of what that could look like and worked on it and had stakeholder feedback and we brought it to our last full board and the feedback that we received from. Board members at that time because it it was rights and responsibility for parents was
to say it's really about our whole community. And so that's the title is what we landed on with our last board, but we really felt like it was important for our our new board to take a look at that as well and the intent. Of this document is to have it in the handbook. The parent handbooks that they go through at the beginning of the year, just so it's clear on where we stand and are supportive parents and the different areas as well as
you know what we would like to see as as responsibilities on their part too, to really create a partnership between the schools and parents so So that was the intent with this document. Mark, would you add anything else that 'cause I know your team worked on this quite a bit, Sure. So I think the only thing I would add to that is we came up with some language around shared community commitments and the intentionality behind that was we see how quickly things and rumors can spin out of control and really the
the gut check there for the community is, hey, let's go back to what should we be grounded in and hold ourselves accountable to. Did you follow the right processes? Did you follow the right right steps? Did you communicate in the right ways? And so while we certainly could take that piece out or we certainly could take the community piece out, there was just a little thought in there that we wanted to make sure we shared. OK, questions Director Waldrep. Yes, thank you. President Shandy. Yeah, I was wondering about this if if there's any problem with having a yes and yeah, like is
there any kind of difficulty with having a stand alone parental rights kind of section and then also add that that to this so that way we're able to have something that's dedicated directly directly to the parents. So it's very clear because it could look like it's getting lost, it's getting kind of ambiguous in these things as if we're trying to push something back on the community versus just I think one of the things a lot of our constituents and a lot lot of people would like to would appreciate is just knowing what are the rights of parents. So maybe we'd have a yes and we'd have a separate standalone. Parental rights and then just add that to the packet. Would there be any challenges with that or would there be?
And things that I'm not perceiving. Mr. Belcher, I think my question would be, what's that look like in an ideal state? I think we started there and we got a lot of great feedback around what can we do as parents to contribute at the same time. So we thought about what can you bring to the table, like what is the give and take and what is the best end state for the document. I think that's where we landed, but we'd be happy to work with you on is there there a next level? Director Wilburn. I'm with you, Eddie. I see. I know where you're going with that. And that's kind of the
genesis of this was. Putting together a parental Bill of Rights and more than anything, I I'm a headline guy and I just don't like this title I, I'm I realize I may be being a little bit petty on this and and Mr Belcher and I have talked about it, but the parental bill of Rights was simple, easy to understand. Boom, now we get it. What we have now it's gone from parental Bill of Rights to to the shared rights and responsibilities for family, staff, and our community. It's a big headline and I'm not in a big I'm not big on collectivism. When it turns comes
to rights and responsibilities. So in other words, a community can't have rights. A community can't have responsibilities, individuals can how does people say, you know, Walmart is hateful? Walmart can't be hateful. There can be people that work at Walmart that are so the community can't be assigned rights and responsibilities If I'm a parent first night of school I get this thing and I read shared rights and responsibilities for family staff in our our community. I'm confused if I see parental Bill of Rights I'm not. Maybe parental Bill of Rights is a little bit too simplistic but I think
we're shooting one of our toes off with this with with this title. Director, I mean Superintendent have her so it in the revision because I and maybe our our current board feels differently. So I think if we were to change and drop the responsibilities part, I'd like to hear you I don't know that you're saying to drop that part of it. I remember we had a really good conversation around its parents rights, but also we need to have
have those shared responsibilities. Just to designate that we value partnership with parents. So would you guys if we go back and we look at that that, would you be agreeable to shared rights and responsibility for parents? And then if we have a staff or community staff are responsibilities piece having that separate but leaving the parent right and responsibility together. I'm just sharing that that's where the board was at last time and
I realized we have a new board so. So give it, give the capstone. Can I? Can I jump in? So one of the things we want to do align to was our student rights and responsibilities piece of our handbook. So if if we want to get punchy and if we want to get simple, I'd suggest we just call it parental rights and responsibilities and leave it at that. And I personally did want it to be aligned with the student handbook because I think that's like a consistent language it It makes sense. It's all like these shared roles and responsibilities that we have in this commitment to one another. And even when I read that
our shared commitment, like, I love that. But that paragraph if you look at it's broken to two paragraphs. So I think there could be some. Opportunities, but where I would even take it back is when we look at the various stakeholders identified that participate in. This district or have a voice in this district even if we separate it, I do think that there has to be. I don't mind separating it and making that more specific the The responsibilities is an important thing to me that this is unique and customized for
District 20, but I do think that even separate from that, we might have a responsibility and commitment when we look at people that that serve on committees in this district or serve as community members in this district. And that maybe we explored doing something like that allows us to have some continuity across the district and consistency with shared values and commitments because they all have a role. And what I just think is let's just I take Eddie's and I'm just trying to look at a solution, but maybe we
make this two different documents and. I don't know how people feel about it, but I do think that we should have those responsibility and shared community commitments somewhere. Director Tripp. So I'm just going to reflect what I'm hearing and you all tell me if I'm hearing it right. So what I'm hearing is we want the community piece of rights and responsibilities We want parental rights and responsibilities and we want it tied in with a similar format to student rights and responsibilities. So I'm hearing
hearing almost three different pieces. That can be in the handbook and on the website that really are pulling all this stuff, maybe that you have, but kind of pulling it out so when I'm wearing whatever hat I'm wearing wearing, I'm not wading through a whole thing. I'm like, oh, I'm the student student. I'm gonna read that. Oh, I'm the parent this belongs to me. Oh, I'm now on this committee or whatever this This is what I'm held to it. So that's what I'm kind of hearing. So tell me if I'm hearing that right.
Yes, that mouse you want to add that Director Will. Oh yeah, I'm not sure I'm hearing definitely the two pieces. I'm not sure about the third about the community. I kind of of agree with Derrick saying I'm not a big fan of kind of collectivism kind of ideas or philosophically how can we really compel non individual for something. But I do like for example a lot of things I do in my work is things like a certainness training and the the first step of that is to be able to identify individual rights. What are your rights rights so you can understand those. And then how do we apply that, you know, to other So that's why I can think about this as being separate. It's just
one. If there's parents, I wanna know what are my rights? They can go and say, all right, these are parental rights. And then right next to that, it fuses into how does that that relate and how does that transmit into the overall community of the school? So I think 2 would probably be sufficient I imagine I, I'm not sure about 3 necessarily, but we we can have more discussion. Yeah, I think I I'm hearing too just pull off the parents bills of right and make that one very clear and then make one for. Everything else. So just generally speaking
yes or no on that? Yeah, man, because what are the community's rights? Well, they're the students and the parents rights. The parents and the students make up the community, so it it's redundant and unnecessary and I sure don't want to send Mr Belcher and his his team back to the drawing board. So I think that's, you know, we've been at this for a long time. So I think that final component is is probably. A thumbs up. OK, Director Tripp. Yep, that thumbs up. I just Here's where I'm going to say I don't think it should be the parent Bill of Rights, though. I think unique. I do think if the title is shrunk down, I
do like that responsibility piece because that's personalized. Yes, parents bills are right in response parents rights and responsibilities. Yes, parents rights rights and responsibilities. Yeah, like that's good Mr. Miller did you have something? I thought no. Yes, no. OK all All right. Mr Belcher, are we clear as mud? No, we're very clear on the path forward. There's minor clean up to do. We're gonna shorten the title to parental rights and responsibilities, and then I do have a couple ideas that I'd love to bring to you in the future in regards to community, shared community commitments. I think there are some really good things we
could bring to our committees, like play, you know, come from a place of positive intent, etcetera. But that's a future conversation. We'll do some minor clean up and we'll move forward. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on to draft student fee schedule for 26-27. Any questions or comments? A Director Tripp. So I had a couple questions about the flights so I sent sent in my questions and I started asking about honors advance flight. And then I was like, wait, we've got aviation courses and principles of flight and work based learning in aviation and all of them
them it's the same question, which is did students have flights that were covered before this? What was the cost to the student for those? Why are we including them now does this this cost cover the charge for the flights entirely? What's our path forward? Cause I am aware of how expensive it is to learn to fly. And so that's one batch and the and the other one is this really fantasticly titled course English Linguistics and Academic Language, which has relative to other courses,
courses, a pretty high fee. So I'm wondering what that is. And that covers. Perfect. So let's start to to ground ourselves in that. It was not a pun ground Ground ourselves in the aviation courses. OK, so first of all, this is the third year of aviation at Air Academy So when you look at the courses, the first one so think of it like the freshman course is introduction to Aviation and Aerospace, OK, that one is
$150.00 fee for one glider fight flight for principles of flight that comes second and that's consider that a 10th grade class. That's $250 for two glider flights. Then you have this junior level class which is the honors Advanced Flight and they have all three courses running right now. That ones 400 for four glider flights. Then the work based learning is is going to be in its inaugural. That's a tough word inaugural year next year that
work based learning in aviation because that's year 4 and that'll be the the first class that gets there and that's one glider and one powered flight. So your question is? Have they had flights before? No. So the only flight experience that has occurred not with the 9th or 10th grade level this year it was a recreational flight as part of a a field trip. So not an instructional flight flight. And the organization that did that, they went ahead and donated that recreational flight and the school took care of
transportation. So there were no other fees associated But again, it did not contribute. It wouldn't be counting as an instructional flight. But what Amy and Shane has done a wonderful job and what they are working on is really trying to set students up to get some of their soloing requirements met so that during those four year periods now they're having instructional flights to get them closer to that solo. And remember, the FAA does not say
you need 26 hours. It's skill-based, so some students maybe they have some advanced work that. That they've done maybe by the time of going through through all four years, maybe they only have a few hours left maybe others have a lot more time left, but. When you look at the pricing, as you said just in the area, it's far more expensive than this is based on a memo of understanding with two different flight organizations to get these less expensive rates and
also be able to serve the parents who want to buy their children additional hours at a reduced rate as well. So that's the big picture around that. Shane, I would invite you to please. I'm glad you're here to add. Anything that you think you would like to? I think Becky did an amazing job of summarizing it really at at the end of the day, we want our kids to be able to have the experience in flight to make sure that they a do you got the the stomach for it and B does this really your passion before parent commits suspending 10 to
to 15 thousand $20,000 to get their kid to solo When we develop this program when I say we it's really Air Academy staff and our college and career career services staff. Talked a lot to. Folks from the Air Force Academy in their flight program and as you guys see those gliders flying around every single day, the cost of entry to a glider is significantly lower than power flight. And what our fire fighter flight, what our fighter pilots or former fighter pilots are telling us is that time in the glider is far
superior to time in a powered flight because they learn the aerodynamics of the plane. And it prepares them better for powered flight later on, so. A lower cost of entry, lower cost to develop the skill sets necessary to be successful, and it develops their skills to a much higher degree. So that's the intent behind this. Does that answer your questions? I think that's good I I have a pilot in my family, so I'm aware of all these little things. So you $100 for a flight is very, very inexpensive
right? That is part a partnering partnership with some former retired Air Force Academy grads and a commercial pilot trainers that are donating at a very reduced cost this experience and then aero labs labs, Falcon Aero labs. Providing the powered flight at a very reduced cost so So this is a huge benefit to our kids that's in addition to their their simulator time, yeah. And then that English class, yes, so that class, if you look on the fee schedule there is
also a take flight and it's exactly what the great presentation we had earlier about the dyslexia programming so So we have take flight at elementary middle and and high and that's dyslexia programming and it's $80.00 for the consumable materials this particular class is is a second class addressing those same needs. So linguistics and academic language it It looks at dyslexia very explicit. Instruction around reading, writing, and spelling So that $80 is for the consumable materials.
Director Waldrep. I was just having a thought about the flights it seems like like that's a outstanding opportunity to look for external funding for those. So we have, it's great we have reduced flights, but it seems like I can't remember, it's been a long day already we were having having a conversation earlier that there's might be a future shortage forecasting for pilots and think with us being you Air Academy or know District 20 it it might be an excellent opportunity to really kind of maximize our location location and the opportunities with some kind of. Southwest or United Airlines or someone else that might be really willing to invest in potentially you
future pilots. Jinger's got a strong commitment to developing those partnerships with industry to To develop those industry partnerships, United Airlines has their training facility up at DIA and it would be phenomenal if if board members had connections to United Airlines that could help advocate for industry. Industry support of industry prep Think about a auto tech if you have folks in the auto auto industry and we know that auto tech is a this is going turn into sales pitch for college and career services, but to
to your point, we have a responsibility A a community responsibility to train the workforce. In my opinion, this is not D20s opinion, but I think it's aligned with what you're talking about. Eddie is that if if we can get industry partners to help fund the programs that are funding and educating their future workforce that that would be phenomenal. And this is great work for a board to do is make those community connections, help support the superintendent's initiative and Drive toward this and
get auto dealership name here sponsoring the the Liberty auto tech program. To get United Airlines pilot training at Air Academy, that's the work that I would love to see you guys do to help support the funding of these essential programs that benefit not just our students not just our district, but the nation as a whole. Can I? Vice President Payne, Thank you for that. And I would just say as a nonprofit director in my past life. Might I suggest that when we are doing something in
collaboration and partnership with the nonprofit that we put that in highlight in that box to say that this reduction of fees is due to this collaboration and partnership and with that organization named because I do think we would have those those connections with. The training the virtual simulators up up at the well, I'm gonna I'm committing the Air Force Academy I met met United or other places, but I just personally think that we should always acknowledge those that work in collaboration and partnership to make these things as an opportunity and my last
last selfish thing is could we as board board members take advantage of being the student ourselves and go do that so So it'd be it's a incredible opportunity in a a testament to the work to make that happen, but I do. I think we should acknowledge it in that box that it's a collaboration Becky did mention that we have an MOU with Falcon Aero Labs and I forget the name, Soaring Eagles and Soaring Eagles is a nonprofit that provides the glider flights and and they did offer us not free flights. We gotta pay for it, but they do take up specifically veterans. That's their mission is
to support veterans into the flight arena. And I'm sure that we would be happy to make those connections. I'd like to take my Air Force veteran father-in-law up in the flight. He would enjoy that. All right. Thank you all. Great conversation. All right moving on monthly financial report through January 2026, does anyone have any questions or comments? Sorry, getting organized here. Wait, I do have a comment. Oh Vice President, I have to add just a comment because we had a work session and that's not always live stream, but I just want to thank the incredible work of the people that work on this
budget with the detail and the diligence and the fact that it's a tribute to you how it's been managed all the years up to now that we can manage this time, which really is a time of crisis to say where are we with the deficits at the state level and what does that that mean for funding across Colorado school? So I just wanted to say thank you for that hard work in that wonderful presentation. Yes, thank you, Vice President Payne. That's why we're a team. All right, moving on to Director Tripp. Sorry, I just want you to know I do read those. Just so I think sometimes you just like feel like you're
throwing things in the ether, but we're looking at em and so so, yes, thank you to Director Payne for those comments Seconded. All right, moving on to policy governance Update I will start the comments by saying this proposed revision to our Board Superintendent relationship policy would create a narrow and specific mechanism to invite collaborative board input and language proposals for certain administrative policies. This slight revision will provide the Board with a way to ensure that community voice will be integrated into this governance
framework in a meaningful way. We are strongly strongly aligned after a deep discussions at today's retreat in affirming that this this will allow for continued. Strong partnership with district administration on our policy governance model and so so anybody else have questions or comments before I go into a little bit of language change to the proposed language? Nope. OK, so Mrs. Hatfield. I would propose in the red line that it instead of it saying however board members that it says however the board president.
And then towards the last of that red line to say at. At such a study session will be presented for board adoption at the next meeting of the board. And those are the changes that we had proposed, OK. All right, moving on to administrative policy updates for the month of February 2026, Questions or comments? Director Tripp. Sorry I don't want to spend a lot of time here but but can you just clarify when there's a when
there's problematic behavior This the J JKD-JKE R 2 and we're talking about student suspension and students with disabilities. Students with disabilities are held to the same standard or they're held to a different standard for as far as suspension, like what triggers suspensions and things. Can you just clarify that really quick for me, Doctor Field Yes Doctor Lujan-Lindsey to write me a can you guys hear me OK? OK, write me a explanation about that SO
So I'm just gonna read what she wrote. OK 'cause she couldn't be here tonight It says the monitoring referenced in JKD- JKE R 2 is individualized, not aggregate The purpose is to track the frequency and nature of suspensions for a specific student with a disability to determine whether a manifestation determination review or what we call an MDR is required not to assess behavior trends across the student population. And MDR is student specific and
focuses on the most recent disciplinary incident that may change and a change of placement. The review is conducted by the entire IEP team and parents are required participants during the MDR the team team reviews the behavior incident, the characteristics of the student's disability, and whether the conduct was caused by or had a direct and substantial relationship to the disability or resulted from a failure to implement the IEP. While prior removals may be considered to determine
whether a pattern exists, that analysis remains individualized to the student. OK, Director Wilburn. Good. Thank you for that clarification. I had virtually the exact same question, which leads me to believe that perhaps the red lined version probably could use a little more redlining. So my my question. Was very similar. JKD-JKE, R 2. The way it reads in the middle of that second paragraph. Second first sentence is dot dot dot special education department who shall monitor the frequency and
nature of behavior causing the suspension So that wasn't clear to me that we were talking about the suspended student, right? It could be. Are we seeing a rise in? Spitting incidents? Are we seeing? It could be could be the student population or it could be the individual. There probably is the insertion of a single word that would make that clear, but I wasn't clear on that either. FYI. Vice President Payne. And I'm glad we're having this conversation and that you just read that, Doctor Field, because when I look at number six, one of the things that calls out to
me probably is that if a crime of violence is committed by a student with disabilities, the student shall not be expelled from school unless a properly constituted multidisciplinary team has determined that the students conduct was was not a manifestation of the students disability. Is violence or a crime of violence a manifesto manifestation? I mean, I'm just and maybe this is a question for later which which is totally fine. And is this a new thing because in in all of my years and working with the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
and working on these things when I read read that, I was wondering if the average person understands what that means because I had questions questions about that. And so I'm glad that everybody's just having this dialogue to just say, is there something we could make clearer about that? Or you guys could explain it to me that. Because I have AI have a real heartburn with if someone goes to the level of a crime of violence that includes Claire Davis act. And because they're a student with disabilities
and the multidisciplinary team and looking upon that, how does that also route to the threat assessment team and And where are we when we're we're having this very intentional dialogue about behavior and how that disrupts academic learning. But I also just want to be really mindful of. Seeking to understand this, so maybe this would be something we do at the end because I don't want to disrupt the whole meeting with this, but I'm m thinking more that we should have more dialogue about this in the future if we're. Or Brad, do you, are you here? Were you comfortable with clearing
that up for me? But here I am. We'll see if I can clear it up. I don't think that I can completely, but under IDEA ECA, the protections in place for students with needs who have individualized education plans are very different in nature than. Than students that don't have those and so we have to we through this MDR manifestation determination if the behavior is a manifestation manifestation or in her better language it is resulting from.
Either. Their underlying condition or the way that we've performed their IEP, then we have to go different route. That doesn't mean we can't protect other students, we can't take other measures to maybe find a different placement, but the process is just very different. It's a different Rd. that we have to take to do that. And that doesn't preclude necessarily police intervention on certain types of things that are criminal but are disciplinary process internal is routed differently. So based on that, I think that would be a
good work study session because part of that would be where are we with that and what does it look like with our new efforts related to behavioral threat assessment and tying these things together. And I'll just bring it back to make it really real, real is like post Oxford, we did the first school safety trainings around the country and a big part of that was the special Ed and the idea. And how that impacted that. So this is just an observation for growth like to say, hey, maybe we
could just even take it to a subcommittee, Jinger is maybe we could just have a different, I don't know, Amy's point and she might want to say something, but I was just thinking maybe we could just have an off opportunity. Just I'm just seeking for my own understanding to make sure that we have. But this is already strong, but could we strengthen it anyway that That would be all. So Susan or Doctor? Director Payne, what I am hearing you say I I think is we already, we kinda discussed having a subcommittee around the, you know, going a little bit deeper with behavior and what would those disciplinary reports look
like for next year. I think that would be also a good opportunity at that that same time 'cause I think what I'm m hearing is that it's like how are we connecting? What happens with the threat assessment to what happens and what the manifestation of it and of a student on IEP is and then then, you know, then how does that mix or connect or not connect? Connect with consequences and then also how do those three things even connect with when police are No, that's a great summary, and I think that this just ties into our
conversation we had earlier today. So I'm glad the questions came up because when I was reading this, I don't think I was thinking along those lines. But now after our conversation today, I do think it'd be a great idea. OK Director Tripp. And then just to put the finishing point on it, the reason for all of this is because whether or not a student has a disability, I still don't want a teacher to have a violent incident on them and I I don't want other students in their classroom. To experience violence against them so
So regardless of the of why it's happening we still wanna make sure we're handling that it happens and not they just have a disability So I guess we're gonna leave them in there and let them wreak havoc like we just don't want want that, which I doubt that's happening, but that that's part of that conversation. Yeah. And many of these students right away are put on a behavior plan and we put all of those different supports in place. And so we're always looking at how do we put the supports in place. It's not always possible to remove them from the classroom right away, so
we say what are all the different supports we can put in place to manage that behavior until we have the data we need to have an need to have an evaluation or a next step. So I appreciate your saying that. OK, secondary question under 10 Director Wilburn. Let's go back to this one first. I would assume what happens when we do that a violent incident can be attributed to stemming from a disability would be an individual whose disabilities are more mental in nature than physical
Is that fair? I mean, I can't think of a physical disability that would. Be attributable, but this isn't my wheelhouse, it's yours. Generally I would say yes, but I know they have professionals that look at those things and probably be able to respond better. But generally OK OK, Becky, go ahead, Doctor Harris. I think again we go back to we can't say always that would be the case. I mean, I think think generally, but we never want to say always because Doctor Field read everything is individualized. So we
always have to look at the individual case. Yeah, I get it. I'm just trying to think of a physical disability to which a violent attack or crime could be attributed, and I can't think of 1. So the IEP team would consider it I think I mean mean I can give you an example. We have a student with an an intellectual disability that student may not not understand the harm that they're inflicting on someone. That's a mental disability, not physical. Oh I see what you're saying. The IEP team outside of a very
specific kind of like a lesion in a brain that would impair kind of control, impulse control, outside of that it would would be very, yeah, I mean, even a Tourette's type situation, it would be a physical manifestation but the disability would be mental in nature, OK and could add something to that just because we do have boces here the the Pikes Peak area BOCES where many districts that that have students that do revert to violence that are determined to go there because they have the full supports. I think that at least in my time serving with those districts and that specific program, they
had the highest number of workman's comp claims in the state based on injuries to staff and yet they were very well equipped to deal with them. So the risk is known to be very high. So like insurance assessment is very high. But it is worth further conversation to say how are we managing this as a district, especially like where we are today and the different questions. We're having about MTSS and behavior and those supports for our teachers for for our classrooms, but even our principals. So I think we can tie it all into saying this all ties together with the need
for that sub working group that Jinger suggested, OK and we've got it it on study session, so we'll talk about that then. Derek, did you have a second part of this? Yes, and KFA which I cannot find to save my life. I know it's here. But there's some rewording in KFA. Under deadly weapons. So the deadly weapon definition. The change wording in that section is, I think, this is part E "a knife, bludgeon or or any other weapon dot dot dot." There might be a reason for a carve out there for baseball bats
softball bats, hockey sticks, any of those could be considered a bludgeon. But. Students do have a legitimate reason to bring them on campus or into the building. The definition of deadly weapon was It's a statutory definition. It's not an educational definition And so the policy aligns with the statute Now, if someone were to use that water bottle to you you know, bludgeon you to death. That water bottle, which is an innocuous thing, would become a deadly weapon and that would be assault. So these that
that's the policies aligned with statute and is really not to our discretion, OK. Alright. Moving on to presentations tracking graduates. Superintendent Haberer. Doctor Field. Sorry about that. Yes, this evening Shane Knight is going to give our presentation on tracking graduates. This evening I'm looking for a Holly Tripp to just go ahead and say we did a great job and move on. It's like the calendar. Alright, tracking graduates so So this is probably the coolest and hardest report to share with you because the information I want to provide
you is just not publicly available. I would like to be able to tell you where every single child that graduates from ASD does in their life, unfortunately. Or fortunately, as a country, we do not track human beings everywhere they go after they leave high school. So that's a good thing, bad thing. I can't give you the data that I would like to What we can give you is the data that's available and that's s through the what, College Board or not college College Board, but the National, the NC
yeah, the National Clearing House. And that is just where do kids go? So if they're enrolled in a post secondary education program that is participating in the national clearinghouse, which is about 90%, 98 of the post secondary education places so. I cannot tell you the number of kids that go to the military because we don't publicly report that. I cannot tell you the number of kids that go to a trade school because a private trade school 'cause they don't participate. I can't tell you that where kids go into the workforce. So while I would love to tell you where every kid goes, I just can't do that for
good reason. All right, so the percent of students who are enrolled in College in the fall immediately after high school for our district is 65%. I hate the slides. All right, 65%, I'm very honest here. All right. We appreciate your honesty, Sir. All right percent of students enrolled in college anytime during their first first year after high school is 69%. So some kids take a gap semester and then join their spring semester. The percent of students enrolled in college during the first two years after high
school is 69%. And stop me if you guys want any comparison data it's up there on the chart. You guys are smart people. You can read the charts All right. And then percent of students who returned for a second year after freshman year is 86%. I appreciate that. Teamwork right there. All right, so. A significant portion of our students are going to post secondary education, which is a true testament to our commitment to academic excellence. Any questions about that? OK. I'm a little competitive, so I have a question please, but
we all know I worked at Cheyenne Mountain and I'm just wondering wondering we so you're telling me in this 86% it's not going to include my son or Derrick's they're pilots in the Air Force or that went went to the Air Force Academy if they went to the Air Force Force Academy, they're probably in the national clearinghouse. But if they are are they though. OK, Yeah, 'cause we can't even. I can't even text my son anymore. I have to use signal or something, but. No, I'm just curious is that? I so that is you think they are? I have no idea. I don't know who subscribes to this. You said there was an exception
to those that went off to the military and maybe I enlisted if they enlisted if they enlist in the military. That's not that's not reported in this. OK, if they go to an Academy, I don't know if the academy's report to the national clearinghouse. I have no idea. OK, thank you. I could lie to you and tell you something. No, I appreciate it. I just it just was I was just curious if if that was. Yeah, I have no idea. All right, the most commonly attended institutions, Pikes Peak State College UCCS Colorado State State Boulder UNC School of Mines Mesa Mesa and then GCU, BYU and University of Wyoming are the
top 10 most. Attended universities by our graduates. All right, how well are our students doing and persisting through college is an important piece. It's not just that we get kids to college, but we want to see how do our kids do as they progress through college. So. Graduates from the class of 2027 or 20 2017, you can see that. I didn't write the numbers down here, you can see that. Chart and I'm a little colorblind. I'm sorry guys The bottom darkest colors that pink. Yep, pink is looks like 58% of
of the kids graduated have graduated college, that finished or that graduated from high school in 2017. 50, 58% of those kids graduated by last school year. For the class of 2018 52% have graduated from college. For the class of 2019, 40 6, so just about 50% of our kids have graduated college. Now we're getting within the. The realm here by 2020, 43% of our kids had graduated from college and by 2021
2021 we've got 31%. And then we want to expect our 22 and 23 graduates high high school graduates, to have graduated college, although we did have 5 1/2 percent of our kids graduate from college. In a couple years. And but at the 2022 class the the 2023 class, one kid or 1% of the kids And then obviously for two years ago, no kids have graduated yet. All right, So that's the fun of it. Any questions? It's excellent. Thank you. Any questions Let's say no. All right, you're done. I just want you
to know that I love your graphs and I'm sorry that you're a little color blind because they're brilliant. They they're fantastic And I also want to say I don't think we can can hold responsibility for a kid graduating You know, life happens to those kids and in their lives and they make choices and at a certain point, they gotta own it, right? In that so that we have that, we have that and we we have that information is great and I appreciate it. So now I'm gonna push back and say, OK, we can't track the kids that
aren't doing college right, so how are we evaluating our ROI on our CTE courses and on all of these things that you know we take take people to and it's so amazing, you know, you could walk through Liberty and and you see those CTE courses and you're like, sign me up, can I go to high school and do this right? They're fantastic. So how do we track our ROI on the significant time and money that we spend on those programs if If we're not finding out, Oh well, then that kid went and worked in that industry or whatever. That's a really good question and
and important question. This is my first year in the role and this is Kendra Kendra, who's the Director for College and Career Services. It's her first year and this is a primary question that we we consistently ask in that department and so. What we look at is. What's the industry certification that's earned out of that? Not only is there financial benefit to the district when we when our kids earn an industry certification, we get a small reimbursement from the state for that. It's a huge benefit to the kids, but we want to make sure that the industry certs that our kids are the ones that
the ones that the industries actually desire. So it doesn't make sense for us to give kids a an industry certification in Microsoft Access if nobody nobody's asking for. Microsoft Access to be used for auto tech. We partner with industry to make sure that industry certifications that we're getting kids certified in make them employable and and takes the cost of ramping a kid up over at the auto dealership out of the picture because they're not having to train and the kids not having to go privately trained. So industry certifications is
one thing we look at and then we also look at the percentage percentage of completion of the programs. That kids engage in. So if you start junior year. Do you complete and persist through the end of the program and have you earned the certifications on track as we would would expect, there is one program that we've invested a significant amount of money to cosmetology and we just have not seen the return on investment for that the number of kids who've graduated that program without earning the full certification that that we'd expect given the amount of money and time that we've invested and
they've invested hasn't demonstrated a good return on investment for us, more importantly for the kids. So that program is being phased out and we're going to seek other options to use that money more wisely and provide opportunities that kids actually want and would benefit from. So that's just one example. And again, if you ask me that question in four years and I don't give you a better answer, then shame on me, but I want to tell you, I can guarantee that that's the question that Kendra and her team is looking at is to maximize the
value that we're getting out of each program and ensuring that what we provide. And to be honest, CTE requires us to partner with industries for that, and Jinger's been really good at nurturing those relationships. Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time. All right, moving on to mid year assessment update map growth and the Read act data. Doctor Field and Director Patterson Hi. Good evening, everybody. We have Jolynn Patterson, the Director for Assessment and Pitch hitting for Andie Ruskin
who's with her daughter in a sectional swim meet We have Miss Kelly Laurila, who is a TOSA in our Literacy department and she's also a member of our current admin cohort. So this is our big night. And Mrs Ruskins, on the phone, she's like we're ready. She wants to hear us, so she is paying attention tonight So Kelly and I are gonna be sharing data and information with you regarding map growth and our Dibels data around read act. So we're gonna go ahead and get started I started. I want you to know I left on your counters. Oh
good job you didn't read ahead right in front of your computer screens screens are blue folders for each of you. Wait, Like wait, Sorry, yes way in front of you. You're an app to have long arms. Sorry, it's been an exciting evening. All right, so in your happy packets if you stay on on pace with me and don't read ahead too far, your packet will align with tonight's presentation. So don't read ahead too far. So the first page in your packet is just a overview of our assessment
update tonight. We had talked about helping have talking points available for you all, so I prepared just to like an executive summary of tonight's presentation. The next slide that you will see is Bernhardt s key principles. So this is something that we use. It's actually part of a book that we teach in the cohort when we teach it around continuous school improvement. And so when we think about basics principles around assessment and data analysis, these are key factors that we're looking at. One, we want to make sure that we're using all types of
data, that we're not just focusing on one data set or one type of data. Two, that we're focusing on student learning and that we are assuming that all students. Students can learn and succeed. Three, we look at our balanced assessment system and I'm going to share with you our District 20 balance assessment system to ensure that our assessment practices and our assessments are varied and reliable, that we have a collaborative culture and that's where our PLC practices come into play for our data analysis piece piece specifically that we'll be looking at tonight, we think about
systemic change that we want to move from reactive to proactive practices and processes. And then using data so that we can make informed decisions and have actionable strategies for continuous school improvement. The next page. So now you can turn your page with me is. I believe I've shared with you in the past, but it's just always a good reference. So about five years ago through our program evaluation for the assessment processes and department in District 20, we had a large stakeholder
group that worked together. One of the pieces that came from from that is our District 20 balanced assessment system, which is highlighted here. We define our balance assessment system. As a network of Fair varied. In reliable assessment tools. Assessment practices, and assessment data systems that provide information for the common purpose of improving student learning so we we could spend a lot of time looking at this document, but a couple things I want to point out to you is on the far left side are the
columns that describe when we would give an assessment who would provide the assessment tonight we are are focusing on the green column and we're really looking at summative data that would happen a few times a year. And so in both cases I just want to know we use different data at at different times of the school year and so that you're familiar with that piece. Next, I just wanted you to be aware that part of our balanced assessment system is our assessment calendar. So we have a cadence or a
cycle throughout the year when we're assessing kids whether that that would be a state assessment or a local assessment So for us currently map growth is allowed local assessment that that we are utilizing and we've begun to utilize IXL more and more since our purchase last year. So I just just wanted you to see that we're very intentional. And how we are assessing kids and what time of year many of these things are happening. So we're getting ready for C mass, our Colorado measures of academic success, our state assessments are coming up in April. So we are
prepped and ready to go. The next piece that I just want to keep at the forefront of everything we do is a visualization that we use for our PLC practices. It highlights the cycle of a PLC as well as the four questions tonight, we're really focusing on what if students learned so So question #2 how do we know what they learned? We're assessing them, but then the bigger part that happens in our classrooms and with our teachers is what do we do with students who've already learned the content or what do do we do with students who might need more practice and.
More time to learn the content, so I just want you to have all this background information to kind of build on looking at our assessment data together. So in prepping for tonight my friend AI and I worked on coming up with some clear definitions to just help you understand some of the data that we're going to be looking at. So tonight we're going to look at achievement data and growth data for map growth when we think about achievement achievement, it's about where our students right now. So when we think about C-mas
always say how did the kids do that day in the classroom and so so it tells us about all those students. There's also a second measure that we're looking at that we call growth and it looks at how fast our students improving compared to other students in the same place from where they started. So tonight we're going to be looking at those two different pieces of data. What I really like, so you're still on your one handout, but I made several slides that we could see. It is some questions that we might ask or that we might want to consider, for example, like how
are we doing overwhelm? What kind of data might we look at? For that, we would look at our achievement percentile Is the instruction working? We would look at a growth percentile. So these are examples and questions that we we can look at to help us look at our data and help us refine so that we have data-driven decisions to know how to support our students best. So tonight we are going to be looking at a median achievement percentile. So when we think about median, you line up
all the kids and you find the student in the middle. So map growth now has moved to a median percentile for achievement and a median for growth, which is not like CMAS. So when we talk about CMAS, when I share with you achievement data, how did kids do that day in the classroom the The state of Colorado uses an average score, so they're taking all the kids, totaling their scores and dividing that out. Tonight we're looking at medians because map growth the
the vendor that we use, the vendors NWEA. A that we use for this assessment has moved to using a median percentile for achievement and a median for growth. So I just wanted you to have a little background so the first slide or section on your handout looks at that that median achievement percentile. So they gave some examples I liked it like how tall are we compared to other kids of the the same age and it's looking at different pieces. And it also. So what we want to think about with the median percentile is it does not tell us how much kids improve, remember? So it's looking at.
How they did that day when we think about the growth piece, the median growth percentile, we're looking looking at how kids did over time compared to their peers. And so that's that growth measure does not mean that students, it doesn't always mean that students are high achieving. It just means that I'm making that year s growth. So your next handout that's green or has columns on it looks at a at some practices around what we call catch up. Keep up
and move up. So we really want to we look at at data here. When we sit here, we're looking at summative data as a district but our schools and our teachers are looking at students individually. Jolynn Jolynn doesn't have a lot of time to look at all 26,000 students as individuals. I do when I sit with the school or I sit with a teacher, but we're looking at the big data pieces. But when we start to look at that individual, we know that we have to be able to move that student forward so we have students students that are on individual education plans. We would
anticipate because they're on that plan that they are not working at grade level. So we might need to catch them up a year, 2 years, three years, depending on where they're performing. So when we think of catch up, we're thinking that we want to move them more than a year's worth of work so that we will eventually catch them up and so. That's why growth becomes an important piece to look at, too I might be a fourth grader working at a second grade level, but if I can get myself this year to 1/3
third grade second month, then I'm going to be closer to catching up to my grade level peers. So we think about that as catch up, keep up and move up. And so I just wanted to provide you with some background and some information about some of our assessment practices and the work that we've done in the assessment department in my 10 years of service. I was thinking this might be my last, I don't know. I'm hoping it's no. I was thinking that it's my last board. I was thinking this might be your last one too. No love being here all right so tonight we
we are gonna look at map growth specifically this is This is an interim assessment. We definitely it is a part of our balanced assessment system and framework. It's computer adaptive. It's nationally normed because we want to know how we're doing across the country. It utilizes A RIT score, so in just a second I'm going to to tell you a little bit more about what a writ score is. It's aligned to the Colorado Academic Standards and it provides students with an instructional level. So instead of saying Jolynn's working at 3rd grade, second month
it will tell. It'll tell the teacher what I'm ready to learn next based on what I've practiced. So that RIT score is a Rasch unit scale. It's an interval, it shows growth over time and it's independent of grade level. So five years ago when we adopted MAP growth, my thing was don't get hung up on what a RIT score because it's a complicated mathematical equation that probably I'm not even that good at explaining, but that that's the unit that they're using when they create norms and cut points for our
our students to work on. So a couple of things that I wanna share with you about map growth this year before we move forward. So this year map growth made a lot of changes to their system. First of all, they created new norms which we would anticipate and want so that our last set of norms was in 2020 and so they just did 2025 norms so So that means we will not have comparable data because it's new norming they change their algorithm so that the the way that they're monitoring the assessment in applying the math
math to it. Looks different and their approach to how the test questions are framed for students it used to push push students more above grade level and before below grade level and they've moved it so that their algorithm focuses focuses more on grade level skills. So what we know is our data sets look very different this year than than they did in the past and so they are not comparable to our old data. So this next slide looks at. Where the 2020 norms were So when you think nationally and.
The country, there are students in every state participating in this assessment. Those norms were were much higher. Sorry, Kelly. Almost wiped you out. Much higher into the right of the 2025 2025 norms. What we know about District 20 is our students are still performing at that 2020 2020 standard. We did not have students fall off the curve. We did not lose a lot of ground with our students. So nationally we are performing even
even higher than we did before COVID. So you will see when you look at our scores that they appear elevated, but that's because we are performing so high nationally compared to students across the country. So the next piece when that happens in the new norms came along our students who are performing in the highest levels. May qualify additionally for maybe gifted programs 'cause because we're going to see high students qualify more than they had in the past and we're going to see some of our lower students who we might be using looking at intervention programs.
Not being as identified as they were before. So I just want you to have some of that background and the parameters of how this data looks different than it has in the past Now in your folder we are now going to look specifically at our map. I'm going to say map growth math skills, no data. But what I want you to know is in your handouts you have data by school so that if you wanted to be be able to look at individual schools, I've provided you with that background information tonight for our summative data and our
our summative presentation, we are going to look at district level data. So when we look at these two graphs on the left hand side, we have our beginning of the year data and we have the the bands where students performed. And on the right hand side we have the middle middle of the year, so we test about August and July. July. Geez Louise, Jolynn. January, we call that at the middle of the school year. So when you think about the 50th percentile, right, so the 50th percentile if you drew an
imaginary arrow through the yellow box or the the middle band. That's where we would expect our students perform or hire, so you can see by the middle of the school year we had a lot less students below below that line. We also moved 500 students out of those lower bands into the higher bands from the beginning of the year year to the middle of the year. So when we see those percentages change those are the students that we are moving to a higher level.
So these are our math scores and then we're going going to look at reading. So same thing in your oh, in your notebook, you also have there's a fancy fancy one that looks more like an Excel spreadsheet that's for you so that you can look at grade levels across the district and so on. This one you have 3 scores. The first band looks at our our growth score. Then the next two look at fall and winter achievement or beginning of the year.
Middle of the year and where students fell. You have a lot of data to absorb right now, so we probably won't be able to study all that right this minute, but I wanted to make sure you had access this and also earlier this this year I had sent you all a link to the OneNote where we share the data, so tomorrow I did not upload any of this yet, but I will put put all these documents in there so that you have access to current data as well as all of our previous data that we've shared with you in the last about five years. So then looking at reading.
We're going to look at the same pieces beginning of the year data data, middle of the year data, and again drawing attention to where that if we drew an imaginary line in that middle of of the year yellow band where students are meeting that expectation, you can see that we have have a lot of students, specifically 1200 twelve, 1175 students performing above that 50th percentile and we we moved 479 students from the.
Beginning of the year to the middle of the year, and that's what we're looking for. We're looking for improvement. That means that classroom instruction instruction is working, students are getting what they need and we're moving moving kids forward and that's where teachers are using that PLC process. So our second date set of data that we're going to look at is specifically around our growth data. So in this chart, these are both the same chart I just just made them in two different fashions for you so on the the left side, we have our reading growth scores. So again.
We are looking for that 50 percentile or higher, so you can see where we are performing well above that and then then the graph on the right, I just made a line graph for you and the blue arrow going across the middle represents the 50th percentile, which is would be an A place that we would want to be be there or higher and that we can see then that every every grade level and content area is performing above that level. So when we think about taking action with this a lot lot of the pieces I've shared with you, we do support for our support to
schools process and our learning services team that works together to support our schools. We do continuous data cycle work over Over the last month, my team has been at every leveled meeting sharing this data, helping them work through protocols and looking at it. And then parents also receive this information. So they would have already received that from their school there's s a family report that goes home with it. So I put an orange sticky note in your folder cause in a a second that's gonna indicate where Kelly's coming in. But the other piece that I inserted in your folder just in front
front of that orange sticky note is. I know, Missus Allan earlier today started to speak to as a district, we are going to move forward with IXL now now. So we adopted IXL 2 years ago, the power power of the tool and the things that it's capable of doing are way beyond a benchmark. So map growth is a benchmark we get get one score. Proud of it, but that's all it does. I Excel becomes an instructional tool after we've given that benchmark and it allows the teacher to give either the student
activities to do. It lets them. We did a demonstration for Missus Haber this week around it will look at a Colorado academic standard and say you have these ten kids who have mastered this standard you have 8 students that need to work on this standard and six who haven't even started working on this standard so you So you think about time savings and helping the teachers. Have even a greater understanding of their students So again, my friend AI and I prepared you based a basic executive summary around
IXL and I know we'll spend more time whether whether it be myself or Doctor Brom who's coming in to be the new Jolynn in the future but but continuing to share information around IXL and how positive of an experience it's been for us and our teachers working with it. OK, now I'm gonna let Kelly share some of these. Take over the clicking. Thank you. Oh, yes, you even can click. Alright, so yes, my name is Kelly Laurila and I'm a literacy TOSA and I'm gonna chat with you about our read act
data, which is specifically for our students who are in Kinder through third grade. So I wanted to start off by linking this to our strategic plan goal under that academic excellence for all. So our goal is that 75% of students in 3rd grade will achieve on or above grade level benchmark status utilizing this 88 assessment and that's looking at the composite scores. So the reason we have this goal specifically is because it does align when we look at the CD ES guidance as far as we want all students to be proficient
readers by the time they get to 3rd. So that in a sense is where we're developing this goal. By third grade, we want at least 75% of our students being able to read not only. They're not only just learning to decode, but they're now learning in able to comprehend as well. So why focus on kinder through 3rd grade? Research shows that students in 3rd grade who lack a proficiency in reading are four times more likely to drop out of high school, and so we we know that early prevention is going to be best.
When it comes to if students are in kinder, second grade, they're we're able to intervene early because they're just starting their school years. So we have a lot of opportunity to fill those foundational gaps before the gap widens and students, when we do respond early, show that they're able to pick up those skills a lot quicker and then then also identifying students in 3rd grade allows us still two additional years while they're in the elementary years. To intervene before they would then move on to
middle school where again, those gaps are getting larger and in middle school we're not focused necessarily on those foundational foundational reading skills they're expecting them to be able to use their reading skills to comprehend especially more complex text to the higher the they go in the grades. So this is your orange sticky note Was like, is that for me? Yep, marked in your folders So this is just understanding. Dibels 8. So dibels 8 is a universal Screener and this is what we give
to all students in kinder through 3rd grade to to identify. Initially it's given 3 times a year at beginning of year, middle and end. And it's to identify just universally our students, proficient readers. But the what we want you to know about it is just a one minute time assessment. It's given to students to see if they can decode quickly, automatically and gleam a very basic understanding from a text. And so if students are showing that they're not meeting the benchmark
that is the Dibles 8 that they're reading proficiently, we know know as educators we need to go in and take a deeper look So what that can look like is are they maybe not reading with automaticity into the. Level of fluency we expect, but they're still very accurate readers. That happens quite often with our kiddos and if if that's the case, then we know OK, we just need to to work on some of their fluency, but they're able to comprehend right or read accurately if you look at the
iceberg image, reading rate is at the very top, but underneath are all the components that components that comprise A skilled reader. So we look at language comprehension and word recognition. And these are all the areas that teachers know that they can dive deeper to really hone in on what specifically is it foundationally that students are needing maybe extra support in. So just know this is kind of a one day, one minute, 1 snapshot in time Although a little bit different from map, Dibels does allow the
progress monitor feature in there. So that's something that our teachers have progress monitor schedules where they can see OK, if my student is not a fluent reader, we can go in. Give different subtests to dig a little bit deeper. So this is going to be our key for the upcoming graphs you You guys have some data in your packets, I know that is very school specific and grade level specific but just for the presentation, we're going to just keep it a little broad. So the MOY stands for middle of year when you
you look at the color bands that are coming up, the red will be for students who are performing well below grade level. So our students who have the most intensive reading needs and then yellow is for performing below grade level. Green would be on grade level and blue is above. So this is our middle of year snapshot of our third graders against looking at that specifically as it's tied to our strategic plan goal. So the green band is students performing on level or at on benchmark and that's 34% of our third graders
were green and 40% of our students were scoring above grade level in 3rd grade, so at middle of year we're already at 74% of our students that are are scoring in that at or above. Grade level according to our middle of your testing, meaning we only have one more percentage point to go to meet our goal by the end of the year and I'm we might surpass it. We'll see. So this is a sub test that comprises those composite scores so we can dig a little bit deeper into looking looking at that reading accuracy and we always try to really
really emphasize accuracy over speed because if our students are speed reading, right and same with all of us us when reading something, you're not really able to comprehend it as well well. So we always try to emphasize accuracy first and when we look at those same kiddos for middle of year testing, even though. We had 74% of students. That were at or above grade level 85 of them are accurate and so that would be the piece that we could say OK they're accurate so they're still comprehending even though
though they're not as quick of a reader. So this graph is showing us our national numbers when we're looking at the district numbers compared to national numbers. And this is showing kinder through third grade You'll notice the district members are in blue and we just did that intentionally so it it stood out compared to the national. So we're aiming to have smaller numbers in the well well below and below categories because those are our students who are performing below grade level.
And so you'll see if we look at kindergarten for students scoring well below nationally, 31% of kindergartners are scoring well below while in District 20 only only 13% of our students are in that category. And if we look look at that opposite end taking our third grade for example, we have 26% of our students or sorry of of students nationally that are scoring in that well above category. And district wide, we have 40% of our students in that above category. So we're obviously aiming to have higher numbers
in those at and above categories and we do And we did look at this graph from last year and our numbers are higher all around than they were last year in these categories. But we also realized that every year is a different cohort of kids. So next year when we look at this graph, each grade level is going to be a different group of kids, so we know that can always vary. Can I ask a quick question there just to because it's relevant is do you all in your brilliant presentation and your wonderful
articulation, you teach us so much? Thank you first of all. But second, do you notice with the cohorts specific to COVID children that were born during COVID or impacted impacted at certain age levels, are you noticing any trends there as? As they get older and they're more involved in school, I mean, are you seeing any trends that are of note? I can't say that something that we've looked at specifically since COVID we have changed from Dibels next to Dibels 8. So some of that data isn't necessarily comparative
but I mean we every every year there's going to be fluctuations and we've noticed some foundational gaps, but again, I haven't looked at any specific data that we've noticed trends trends. Thank you. I think in tracking grade levels like what I was thinking through when you asked that question is when we look at grade levels, we don't see great great discrepancies like wow, what happened to the second graders right? Or what happened to right and I was even even sitting here doing data analysis with because when Kelly was looking at the third grade data for Dibels, I was like, Oh well, let me compare that 'cause
cause I spend a lot more time in map growth and CMOs and all those those other areas. And there it looked very comparable so So those are activities that we're doing all the time is looking. At that data and how does it relate to each other but I wouldn't say we've identified a pocket you like math and reading to be more be more evident. So quick questions as well. I know we talked about data and info, data, nested models, things like that. Are we able to take a look at kind of how much attrition we have from each grade and each cohort
to say if the, you know, there's a subset, this cohort has been consistent through there, do we see kind of a linear growth or hopefully exceeding overgrowth, so for growth for both MAP MAP growth and for CMAS, they do follow the exact student because you would have had to take in the test before to have comparable data and data. And that's why we talk about though with achievement it would be just. Every student who was in that classroom that day, so do we have student data that tracks absolutely individually but it would depend like looking at those growth scores would be more
meaningful because we'd be able to see have we moved those kids to a better place than where they started over time regardless of of where they started, have we shown growth and are we holding the kids back if we got to, you know, the end of third grade and they're still not a third grade proficiency are are we holding those students back or? So I'm going to until they reach that proficiency. So that way we don't have that I'm going going to go with no. But I'm gonna I'm deferring to Doctor Field because that is not my OK, my lane, but that I don't think we have a protocol for that particular. Right. That we're doing intervention and we're like.
When I think of when I was a child, did you fail 3rd grade? That's aging me for all. And I can, yeah, I'm a 30 scorer too, so OK, I can share kind of specifically so that Dibels 8 universal Screener is definitely given to students in grades K3 many of of our 4th and 5th grade students will still take that assessment if they're not yet performing at grade level so that our teachers can can continue to track that cohort of kids. But something else that we do with the literacy department is if for students who haven't. Met that goal as being proficient readers
by the time they get to 3rd grade, we do track that third third grade cohort from year to year. I think this is actually our first year that we've entered. Now we have a cohort of kids that are in 6th 6th grade now, so we're making sure that we are tracking what interventions and supports that they're getting what teachers that they're working with and we we have certain goals that we're looking at specifically one of those is that if they're they're able to read with 95% accurately, then we're showing we don't need need need to continue. To track that when it comes to the foundational reading skills.
Since we're on this slide. So when I'm looking at this and it's grade K, 1, 2, 3, this isn't like. Kids that started at K and then now they're first grade and now they're second grade. So these are different cohorts, each number is different This is this year's kinder, first, second, third. Yep. OK and so so I guess following up on. Director Waldrep's question. It would be cool to see. OK how did grade K or third and then go backwards or whatever. How How did that little group do? Did we stay with 13
below or did it diminish over time as we look at this? Yeah, and we do have these graphs that I'm happy to share with you guys from last year, so we could almost look at those cohort of kids and give you that information. That would be cool to see. Yep, and by the way, congratulations I mean, this is phenomenal that you like the work that our teachers are doing, the work that it's happening in the PLCS that this is reflecting is just tremendous. So very cool, very cool to see.
And I can say that 'cause I'm not teaching. No I'm m not a teacher, I'm not contributing to that, right? I'm just looking at the data and and absolutely, it represents the hard work going on in the district. So yes, this is the Colorado graph, and you'll notice there's just one number that's not blue, it's black just because we tied with the state of Colorado tied. But in all other areas, again, we're outperforming we're still keeping those lower numbers in the well below and below categories and the exceeding really when it comes to those at above.
So again, we're always focused on that continuous improvement. So no matter where students are landing in these categories, what are we doing to support students and one which has been brought up multiple multiple times tonight is through our professional learning communities So teachers during their collaborative planning times are often looking at the data like what you have in front of you, but definitely at much more of a class and student specific level. So they're identifying kids by name and need and what specific, whether it's interventions or extensions to support them in their reading develop.
Many of our schools have developed a target or win time, So what I need time where students are shifting to different teachers and classes in the building to get the specific support that they need and then as always always through our MTSS process, we're looking at what all all tiers of instruction are looking like for our students And then we have our principal collaboration opportunities. So when our principals get together during their monthly meetings, there's opportunities for them again to look at data data very much like this.
Where they're able to see different schools, how they're performing and they have those opportunities to ask their colleagues what structures and systems do they have in place that are working well. How did you you get that data? So they definitely have those opportunities. And then last is we just are always communicating and partnering with our families. So making sure that they also stay updated on their students reading development in the the middle of your scores. And that opportunity is coming up here next week during parent teacher conferences. So our teachers will be communicating with
families about this middle of your data and specifically for our students who are on read plans who have been identified as having a significant reading deficiency, they will update them on their read plans, what their goals are and what their progress is looking like like and provide them with again those strategies and ways that they can support at home. Questions. Any other questions or comments? No, thank you so very much. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Can I make a comment? Sorry, I too late. Item is closed. I just. I know tonight is a really special night because as a person, that's
retired and I think like this was really the first public announcement for Doctor Field, Susan and Jolynn Jolynn and just exceptional women, professional women. Thank you so much for your service to this district. It will continue for years to to come. And just setting the standards and carrying this work forward. It's just, I know it's an emotional night. When that happens and it's like, wow, is this really happening? I just wanted to say this was exceptional. Thank you so much and thank you for all the work in the contributions to to the future of the children here in District 20.
Yes, thank you. Good job Miss Kelly, too. All right, moving on, supporting K through 12 pre K success with National Geographic learning. Gibbs Gibbs Smith Education. Questions. Comments. So it's a book we had pulled. From the curriculum from last time. My concerns were about the political bias apparent throughout the book and. President Shandy, what book is there we're going to look at? Yeah, we do. We have one more. District replenishment. Oh, there's ISIS. OK. Reboot of the devices, Zach. All right.
All right. Thank you. So got a presentation here for you on it goes to a approval later that we're asking you for to purchase devices for next year and it represents kind of a significant change for some of the stuff we're doing in the district. So I'll kind of walk through that I I know there were some previous questions related to it. I'll try to answer those as I go. And then then certainly answer any others that come up. So we'll talk kind of about some of our strategic objectives our initial phase, which is specific to high schools different
pieces around that, some of the financial impact and Becky mentioned mentioned that earlier. We'll talk about phase two, which involves our technicians and then we'll talk about kind of the future going forward. So really the big thing that we're talking about here is that is we're going to move the district towards Chromebooks for student devices and there's a couple of things things here. 1 is especially this year we've seen a large increase in slowness, the performance issues, battery issues and various other things. And this has been talked about across the
district and it's been pretty widely discussed. Becky Allan and several others on Cabinet other. Leaders, teachers and stuff have said hey, even our kids are seeing this. My daughter see this as as well. So we really tried to be intentional and try to address this. So going with Chromebooks, one of the one of the objectives here is they boot within 10 to 15 seconds and which reduces the impact to instruction significantly versus a couple of minutes in cases that we were seeing some of the other benefits here here is some fiscal help.
We all we talked earlier about the financial financial aspect of where things are at. But Chromebooks are a little bit cheaper, so right now the devices we're getting are less than $500 that That includes additional warranties that we don't currently get and the if we were to continue on the same trajectory we were on on, the last quote we got from Dell was over 6 $600.00. So we're saving on average over $100 per device going forward with this and getting additional support, which is always a good thing. And then kind of the last thing is that and that does lead up into some
savings and what we're doing with that savings is reinvesting it into some of our staff. To provide a better support structure for our schools and that was alluded to earlier, kind of going to I guess the zone defense is one way you could look at it, which gives us some flexibility to support support our schools in a much better way. And we'll talk a little bit about that shortly. All right, so high school beginning this upcoming school year. So our plan is that all high school students will get a Chromebook. This upcoming year. That's the purchase we're asking you to approve tonight the newest devices that that the high schoolers currently have are gonna be then cycled into our middle and
elementary schools to replace the aging fleet that we take out. So we're gonna take still replace the devices that are 5 plus years old that are aging out and we're just gonna cycle them through it a little bit better Make sure that those middle and elementary students get good devices. We're also investigating at the middle middle and elementary. One of the savings we'll get, but also one of the causes of our issues is around MS Defender, Microsoft Defender and And so we're looking to replace that with something else that's gonna provide better performance, but also make sure we're keeping our devices secure from students we
We also think that having high schoolers on Chromebooks, we reduce somewhat of our attack vector. So that's going to be helping as well. So we're currently in the process of investigating that, but that's also another another significant savings we're seeing as kind of this whole project going forward. So middle and elementary schools, we'll keep the Windows devices for now. We'll talk about that as further phases. But we're we're still working on increasing their performance. So some of the strengths and weaknesses we show into this one. I already kinda talked about the readiness time, classroom boot time, the elementary
schools, middle and high schools. One of the biggest issues is student comes in tries tries to turn on their device. Teachers starting to go on, they're trying to go through an instruction and if that takes 5, 10 minutes, but you by know, by the time the teachers or the students ready to go, the teachers teachers halfway done with the lesson or they're down ready to go, you've got students all over the the different place. Maybe some booted faster. So it's really been a disruptive so So that's one huge benefit there. The other thing is most if not all of our tools, there's a few exceptions are online now curriculum IXL, all these things are
online and web based and so it's very popular, it's very easy to get to there. Our assessment systems are supported on Chrome, Chromebooks in in particular. Device performance has significantly improved in all of our testing the devices devices perform. Kids can open stuff and get to things in addition to the battery life. I've had several conversations with students. We also got information. Through detect students were saying I can't go a class period without having having to charge my device. You know, I gotta charge it in between and that's really frustrating for students, especially at the high school level, right? You're dragging a backpack a
a device, a charger. You gotta find a place to plug it in. We know classrooms aren't necessarily wired with electricity everywhere right? So that that's a huge problem. And then Chromebooks in general offer some simplifications for tech support. There's not as as many installable options there. In fact, you can't really install software which has a good and a bad thing The thing. The good. Thing there is some malicious software can't be installed right? It's prevented. There we also see drivers and those other things which are tech spend a lot of time trying to fix things that get get corrupted in whatnot Chromebooks don't really have
those issues they're it's a whole different paradigm shift now. Speaking of software one of the weaknesses we have although this does currently exist today is some some of our what we call more intensive software applications. So think project lead the way AutoCAD the Adobe Photoshop Suite. Those programs require a lot of horsepower on a device. Our current student devices don't provide that either so we have labs in a lot of places for those for those options as well. Chromebooks aren't gonna necessarily fix that either. They don't have that option as well. They don't have the horsepower and they and they just don't run those applications. So that's kind of
a pre-existing thing there. In terms of difference between teachers and students, this we put this as a weakness only because teachers are still going to continue continue to run Windows devices. So there are students environments gonna be a little bit different. I can tell you though, when all the conversations we've had with other other districts and in my previous experience in other districts that that difference really isn't that big if you have a a Windows device or even let's say a Mac device, if you open up the Chrome browser, that's pretty much the environment. A Chromebook is it kind of works there. So as long as you don't venture outside of that browser, that's
that's going to be the experience. But we're working on training and professional learning plans to help teachers understand that so they know when a student has an issue or whatever. This is what it looks like. These are the things you can do. Another benefit of Chromebooks is there there's very little things that can technically break from a software standpoint. There's physical places and we'll, you know, that's a different thing, but it should be a little easier for a teacher to help the student continue on and And then I'm also mentioned here student casting. So what that is the ability to wirelessly display to a TV or maybe a projector.
And a lot of our projectors and our TV's have some older casting technology they do typically Miracast, which is more of a Windows based product, Chromebooks in general use kinda Google Cast as their default connection protocol protocol. And so currently we don't have a ton of Google Cast capable devices in the district. However, after talking to to principals, in particular high school principals, that's not really a thing that happens all that much, especially at that higher level at the younger grades grades, it happens a little bit more. They want to have people show work and do different things.
So we're working and looking at other technologies to support that ability going forward and make that casting much more a lot, a lot easier. Excuse me for students to have that collaboration piece, but currently there is some some limitation there just with the existing technology we have. All right. Continuing on some opportunities, we already talked a little bit about professional learning, right, giving teachers an ability to understand what that looks like. I can tell you though, a large portion of our teachers use a lot of the Google Workspace apps already with their students. Things like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Slides, that's
pretty common. And so that it's just kind of necessitates that. The other thing though, is these Chromebooks still support Word Excel, PowerPoint, even Teams. It's just the web version of it. It's not the downloaded. So we still have compatibility across the district. With all the systems that we currently run. Excuse me. Another opportunity is Chromebooks are really designed intentionally to be focused on digital work. So things like printing, we we've been able to make that work and we can solve that. But they're kind of designed to maybe get away from that to have students turn in
homework or do work there via Schoology or through the other applications that we have and use it that way as opposed to I'm going to put put something together and print it. And then again, we talked a little bit and I'll talk a little bit more about reinvesting some of that savings that we're getting back back from doing this. Because it's not just the devices, but it's some of the software that runs And then threats. The biggest thing here has changed Change is hard. We've been Windows since kind of the beginning, and this is a pretty significant kind of shift in terms of how students are using devices
But the team and even based on the feedback we have from our our DTAC, feels very confident that this is the right thing to do. It's the way to go And then just from a support standpoint, you know, having multiple platforms in the district can be little. Burdensome on the tech team, but I have full confidence in them and I think the wins are gonna are gonna outweigh any potential complications for that team in general. All right. So some of the finances I'll kind of hit a little bit this. As Becky said, even in these numbers, there's a lot of numbers below it, right, various different spreadsheets and so on and
so forth. So generally speaking, we we project to spend close to about $3,000,000 this year on device replacement Defender costs article and various other things around just student devices overall. What we're looking for with the shift, not only to reduce defender Arctic Wolf and change the device that's. The little less expensive is just over 2.3 million, which gives you, as you can see, a little over $600,000 in savings. So that's kind of just just to start out, right. And then that 600,000 is what we work on
to then reinvest into our tech staff kind of move them to a more centralized model we'll We'll talk about that in just a second. And then from there you can see going forward. It's our projected cost with about A 5% increase in devices annually. Where we now keep some savings continually going forward, which is kind of a nice benefit. We don't have to have as much Devices aren't cheap and we can't, you know, predict in two to three years what that looks like. But I can tell you at least for this year there's an expected
20 to 30% increase in devices between now and the summer you've You've probably, you know, AI boom is happening, things like RAM, CPU all significantly going up so one of the the benefits is not only getting in it now but also looking to take take advantage of. A lower cost device when a year from now? We don't know, but it could be even a little bit more. All right, so the DTTs, so we kind of talked a little bit about this. We're taking some of those savings, we're reinvesting in it. And what that means is right now about half of our technicians are kind of Co owned between the schools and the IT department. So
it's a fractional TE where we own a fraction of that and the school owns a fraction of that and what that means means is those techs are then kind of joined to one particular building and. For some schools, some of our high schools, there's two techs there. One in or you that's year round and one that maybe is not year round, but they have some coverage there. At our middle schools, that's not the case So in a middle school, tech is out for whatever reason they typically have to to then go for a sub at the elementary level they're centralized under
under IT and they support three schools on average when they're out we provide a sub, but those are still additional costs and dollars that that somebody is incurring, whether it's the school or the department. Moving to this model, effectively what we're doing is we're buying that FTE. That FTE from the schools and investing it in the team and now building this more zone support model or zone defense if you will, where loosely based on feeder strands We have teams of techs that support that group of schools So imagine right now we have elementary techs that support up to three schools so
So it's not much different than that, but they're going to be joined with 1-2 or three other techs to support a middle school and on high school so when somebody somebody's out, they can help each other. We don't have to worry about Subs as much We can also then work on implementations. Together when a school goes and brings in in something new, we have a team that can support that we have have some built in knowledge transfer as well, which is one of those things we're re looking at ways to make it more of a professional ladder there, so we see a lot of turnover because it's an entry level tech job and being, you know, being a tech is not easy
and IT in K12 is not the most lucrative you can can be like most K12. So we're trying to build in some incentive there as well. And so then we talked about redundancy, professional growth, the other thing is consistency, one of the things we have is two ways of consistency between our techs. Not all of them work year round summer Summer is really a busy time for us. It's when we can go through devices clean clean them up, reimage them, push out new software make some changes so that everything's ready before school and ready to go. We can do some heavy lifting that doesn't impact what's going on
daily, right, the daily instruction. So not having all of our. Our resources available to us over the summer has caused issues. In the past where schools weren't maybe totally ready because that tech in particular didn't start till the week before the teachers got back. And they're trying to bring everything up. So that's really gonna help in addition to consistency then is instead of having kind of text siloed between themselves, they'll work as a team. So that group that zone is gonna have a lot of consistency built in. So now in addition to the teachers, the students are gonna have similar experience in terms of how things are done, how things are supported and
and what works as they move through the system. Where right now it can't be very different because everybody does things a little bit different. We certainly have standards, but it there's still individual differences there. All right, so future phases, this is not the end. Moving forward, we want to move the middle schools to Chromebooks, ideally as soon as possible. It could be within two to three years. We have some ideas that might make it sooner than that, but that's still being worked on. And then the next phase would be elementary schools followed behind that. We're trying to to be very intentional, do it in phases that way. We don't
we have, we don't have any equity issues, we don't have issues in schools where maybe one grade has something and another grade doesn't and there's confusion with people. So we're really working on that, but the long term goal or rather short short term goal. Is to move all students over to the Chromebook ecosystem again for better performing device A and a little better cost. All right, then some just kind of overview logistics here again. We're going to move the high schools over the DPDs to Chromebooks all high school school students. We're looking to save the district over half a million annually going forward. We're going to
use those savings to reinvest in our tech support structure, our own staff to provide better support for the district and our schools schools. We're going to use that in kind of a zone deployment models. What we what we've been calling it. So the benefits these devices are far more reliable and usable for students and teachers. Kind of 1 little fact about 70 to 75% of the state all runs Chromebooks. We're one of the few outliers that exist there. So this puts us in line with things talking to our DIS team they go to an EDCO every year, which is a conference for Ed tech folks and now
he's felt like know we can't go to half the sessions because people talk about using Chromebooks to different things than it doesn't apply to us. So they're kind of excited to be involved in that, improve battery life a lot lot of the devices that we've already been testing, these devices don't need to be to be plugged in. Except maybe once every other day. I mean, that's what we're talking between. I gotta plug it in between class periods. Do I gotta plug it in maybe every other day So pretty significant there. Much better student experience I think think students are gonna really like this. I, at least in my own kids, have seen how frustrating frustrating it is to work on a device when you're just trying to get in
check your homework or do one thing and it takes 10/15/20 minutes. You're at the dining room table kids get distracted I've I'm really excited about improving our tech support. This is something that's been talked about for years. How do we get our techs more centralized? How do we get them under control so they don't have this kind of weird relationship and we can provide better support to the schools? We'll, we kind of figured out a way to do it and And then again, also the other thing is it eliminates some of that single points of failure for tech like we talked in middle school right now now has one tech. It's maybe not even year round that tech is out
for whatever reason. Sick family, doesn't matter, somebody's got to pay for a sub. We got to do that there. We also have a food service tech that through the foods food service. Contract only really supports food service devices, so when they go into a building they can't really support anything else, so we're trying to make that a lot more effective in general, so that way we've got a team that can support anybody and everybody when they need it. All right with that. Any other questions, Director Waldrep? Great presentation. I think it's good move making those things I also share that pain. My daughter is a senior and
trying to do anything like oh I gotta get the computer so that different things could move move up. One of the questions I have is about user, kind of more of a user user question 'cause my understanding is the Chromebook uses like lot of like OneDrive, a different drive kind of things. Is that accurate? Yes and no. I mean keep with your question that may help me answer that better. So one of the things is wonder if they have some kind of drive that they use where they store their assignments and things like that. Nonsense. It doesn't have a separate kind of thing. What's that? Google Drive? Yeah. Google Drive. Yeah. Is that something they're able to follow on with? You know, is that can that follow them from when they
leave District 20 till they get to college? Are they able to trans, you know, transfer that? So great question. So with the Chromebook the default is is Google Drive, right? It's part of the Google ecosystem. They still have access to OneDrive, which is what some of our students also use and a lot of us here in cabinet and teachers and stuff use. They have access to all of that for both of those those, that's online storage, right? There's no storage on the device and students can effectively download that when they leave the system and then take them, take that with them to college. There is a period of time because their account gets
deactivated. We don't keep accounts for Long, but it's a couple months after a senior Graduates and then they have an opportunity to download that and then upload it maybe if they're college or their work of of choice uses Google Drive, they can just upload it right in there if they have to use OneDrive OneDrive, it's similar process. Alright, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you so much. Appreciate your. Presentation. All right, Mr. Belcher, how many people have we signed up for speaking speaking during public comment Section 1? We have two speakers. The Board welcomes public comment on issues related to operation and conduct of district schools in accordance with Board and Governance policy GP
4.4 for members of the public who have registered to comment at tonight's meeting. The Board has reserved 2 public comment sections. The first public comment section is for individuals who are speaking on a specific agenda agenda items. Items and ASD 20 students. ASD 20 students will be called first in which individuals will be called in the order that they appear on on the sign up sheet. The second public comment section is for individuals who wish to speak in a general topic not on the agenda. Individuals will be called in the order that they appear on a sign up sheet. Each individual speaker will be limited to two minutes of comment individual
Individual speakers may not see their time to other speakers. Please keep in mind that students often attend board meetings. Speakers remarks therefore therefore, should be suitable for an audience that includes kindergarten through 12th grade students. Out of respect for all speakers, please refrain from cheering, clapping, snapping, speaking at a public out of out during public comment. The Board President will recognize recognize each speaker and may interrupt, warrant, or terminate speaker statement, that is unrelated to the Operations or conduct of the school district or disruptive to an orderly, civil, and productive meeting examples of comments that may
may be disruptive to an orderly, civil, and productive meeting include obscenities or profanities, comments that constitute harassment on the basis of one or or more protected classes, and or personal attacks against any any individual that exceed permissible criticism of school operations or personnel in their professional capacity. Finally, as a reminder to all present, the board and staff generally do not respond to public comment this This is our opportunity to hear from students, parents, and patrons. The Board Board may discuss public. Comments later in the agenda or on future agendas. Our first speaker is Liz Wilcox, followed by Katherine Czukas. The song No.
Is it OK? Very good my My name's Liz Wilcox. And by way of just a little bit of background here, I've got 3 kids that all graduated from District 20 schools. I have two grandchildren that currently attend district 20 schools. And we live in District 20. By way of personal personal background, I hold Master of Science in Management and a Master of of Education in Special Education. I wanted to cover. For just a little bit briefly
about the topic that was listed as policy governance. For whatever it's worth, it may be nothing that. Little bit of policy governance governance. We as public people saw that you were probably a lotting around 45 minutes for discussion of that during your meeting at the Broadmoor today and I think that got a lot of us thinking, great, we're going to go back to August of last
year and you're going to try and trash the whole process again. Which we were very much against you doing so I was very heartened. To read the little edition in the agenda that was there because it wasn't that big of a deal it was really pretty well thought out and so forth. But this evening, as I listened to President Shandy saying, no, we're going to take the word, however out and gonna put in the board President
President can do this. That kind of struck me as being very similar to just. Putting everything in your hands for you to be in charge of instead of having agreement from the rest of the folks that are on the board of Education. And the thing it really reminded me of was the half million dollar check that you signed to get rid of the previous legal representation. Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is Katherine Czukas. This is our final speaker for this section.
OK, my name is Katherine Czukas. I'm the SAC Co-chair at Air Academy. It's my 13th year of having kids in the neighborhood zone public schools and I encourage the board to listen for introductions like this to understand they're the perspective you are getting from people who text you or call you or meet with you with 95 95,000 voters in the district, you have not met every voter and many military families are not on the voter list that you are door knocking so you you haven't met every parent meeting people at their door when campaigning is giving you a minority perspective of issues.
That is not a story to tell about what's important to district adults or district parents when it comes to this National Geographic decision. I'm not sure what minority perspective is encouraging the board to do this. It is not well researched, even by the board members. I want to raise 2 points. 1, 1 board member clearly showed last meeting that they had not read read all 235 pages of the textbook binder before bringing up this motion because if they had, they would have seen that there were personal finance textbooks reviewed. That person wouldn't have needed to ask a question at
the last board meeting about what are going to be the personal finance textbooks. It's in the binder 2. You all know that the CEO of National Geographic has ties to Colorado Springs, just like the CEO of United Airlines does, I've run into the National Geographic CEO several times just randomly, and I bet many parents in this district have interacted with this CEO as well. Have any of you? Instead of board members bringing up this publisher every text. A textbook review cycle. Not well researched and impacting staff research and causing staff rework. Why
not have a public meeting with the National Geographic CEO to understand the storyteller's perspective better rather than making assumptions the admin of the EAC knows knows everyone who came in for comments in the past two years, and they can be especially invited to the session again. This is one way to stop extra step time by staff and at board meetings about textbook review. Please meet with the CEO. Please defer these two votes. Thanks. All right, we need a motion to approve resolution 171-26, approval of primary textbooks for Social Studies by National Geographic Learning grades
grades K through 12 and pre-K materials. Sorry I have so many papers up here so I. I'm going to make a motion to approve Resolution 171-26 the approval of primary textbooks for social studies by National Geographic Learning, grades K12 and pre-K materials. Is that what you're asking me from? Sorry, I just wanted to read it
specifically. Second. All right, discussion. Director Waldrep. Yeah, as I was going through these things, I did have a lot of concerns about some of the bias. I saw political bias as well, some of the information that was inaccurate as well, so I'm sure other people have similar comments. I'll just open it up there. I agree that was political bias throughout. I just think our books can be better. Higher standard. Vice President Payne, Thank you, President Sandy you know, here's the thing. I think that it is our
responsibility to ensure that the materials used in classrooms are academically rigorous, historically accurate. And as politically nonpartisan as possible. And honestly I've been a little surprised in the review of these books. Students should be learning from credible sources that evidence based learning and historical that are historically accurate. So. I was just disappointed in the review. The pictures are amazing. Very. Nope. All right, roll call please. Vice President Payne. No. Director Tripp No. Director Wilburn, No
no. Director Waldrep? No. President Shandy? No. All right, we need a motion to approve Resolution 172- 26, Approval of primary textbooks for social studies by Gibbs Smith Education grades K through 12 and pre K materials So moved. Second. Discussion please. Oh, I'm Director Tripp. So this goes back to kind of the storytelling element that I was talking about. I reviewed these and then I actually pulled them and went through them very carefully again and And for me, they meet so many things in
a textbook that I love that the questions are are actually great, the layout's great, so there's so much about them that's terrific What I found, though, is that. We're we're flipping one story for another. So we've done a bad job in the past, right of of acknowledging the ramifications of slavery or the. Sort of the historical way that that's filtered in, we've left a lot of women out and we've left a lot of marginalized groups out and we haven't done a good job of telling that and we've maybe
maybe set up this kind of caricature of the brilliant white man right as the primary driver of of everything in our community and in our country. And And that was a distorted story and not a full correct story to tell. That dishonored many people and didn't allow for. Complex behaviors, however I feel like we're it's these books in particular have really just flipped it. Woo, really just flipped it and now all the all
white men are basically violent evil and greedy. All of the Native Americans are in tune with Earth and each other and the story, really should be understood from the framework of all the minority groups. And that was true both for the Colorado piece and for the US history piece and And when I'm looking at Colorado history, we start out with a whole bunch of Irish immigrants, then we move
into English immigrants, specifically from Cornwall, then we pull in a whole bunch of German and Austrians. We get into Slavic countries and then we have a whole Mexico influx that's happening and those are those are their cultures that that Colorado is built on. And I didn't find those cultures in that book when we're pulling out a a special look at Japan. Well, that's not in there. I mean, love Japan, nothing
against Japan, but that's not the foundation of Colorado. And so it's like the publisher is like. I want to tell this story and I'm gonna layer it over Colorado history. History in a way that doesn't tell the true story. And that happened in the US history book too. And I I we have a lot of some diversity in our school district but we also have a whole lot of fantastic young white boys. And when they read this book, all they see
is that white boys who grew into men. Did bad things. And if we want role models for our all of our children? We can't leave the story of really brilliant, incredible, caring white men out of it. We can't vilify all of them. And suggest that everything that happened from a white guy OK, maybe we'll make a little carve out for George Washington. We can't say that that's the picture. That we should be telling, because what are we leading
those white males to believe about themselves So there's so much great. Instructional. Tools in those books, but the broader story that they're telling I don't feel like is one that we we should be telling our students. OK, Director Wilburn, did you have something? No. Oh, sorry, Director Waldrep. Yeah I agree with this. And the some of these were this book I'm looking at right here, exploring time and place in
Colorado. I found that the bias to be so overtly. Was that just absolutely ridiculous? For example, it talks about Western European societies and it has a word alert or highlighted words having to do with Western European societies and those those words are conquer, social class and hierarchy. That's just blatantly political bias. I mean that's like, when you think about it in terms of like the portrait of a graduate we want want to have, you know, good citizens. We're teaching here that anything about Western society is inherently negative and
And another example along the same lines is like Sally is talking about there's a graphic graphic in the book talks about, you know, different demographics here in Colorado The biggest demographic highlighted here is white and then the following following pages. You have descriptions of Native Americans, Latino people, African Americans, Asian Americans. Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders and then LGBTQ but but not one that even addresses what just identified as the largest demographic just completely left out. So I really I not only questioned the book but also how do we go through a process working with
would think that this would be an appropriate thing for our kids so. It's a good question, Vice President Payne and and I just want to go back to all of your comments but also when we're assessing these things that we are doing it with a level of fidelity and quality to assess. These very things and that that's brought forward to us in a way like when we're considering this like like what are the pros, what are the cons, what are we looking at And that we're just very intentional about
does is this appropriate for our district for our students? So I really appreciate the dialogue, but. That's really my comment I think. It's disappointing to say the least. Director Wilburn. Agreed, and although I disagree with the way you frame it, Eddie, it's actually not even political bias. It isn't promoting a political party system or structure over another. It's racial bias, which. Director Tripp wonderfully laid out and you
don't solve one form of racism or bias by by installing another. You're just moving from right to left and left to right again. So doing that I think is a mistake. It's a disservice to to the community and certainly to Young. Caucasian. Child of middle class. Upper middle class parents living in Briargate There is absolutely nothing wrong with that existence. There's a lot, right with it and it's a mistake to even plant something that resembles a seed that says you, your parents, and your
grandparents are associated with the problem. It doesn't solve the problem it perpetuates it. So I think you said that very well. OK, roll call, please. Vice President Payne. Nay, Director Tripp. No. Director Director Wilburn. Nay Director Waldrep. Nay President Shandy Nay. Alright, we need a motion to approve resolution 173- 26, approval of personal financial literacy graduation requirement. So moved. Second. Discussion please. Director Waldrep, as far as I can see, I'm going to support a button of my
daughter's going through it now. I think it's just being implemented. She's a senior. I really enjoyed the class with her so far. It's she's actually taking through UCCS and she's going through and of course being a good financial, he had a very cheap books he could look at for for investing and budgeting and things like that. So I hope this is something we can can implement and it does well for our students. Vice President Payne. So I have strong approval for this as being part of our graduation requirement. I think it's an important skill that everyone needs to have. I'm always learning from Becky
over there and I think that some of the stories and laying laying it out and how it meets from the board room to the classroom, it's an important aspect for of those life skills and incorporating that that into graduation requirements I think is a strong effort by our district. And I'll just second that with the caveat let's do try to make sure that the bulk of that information happens towards the end of a child's high school where it becomes imminently applicable because potentially they're moving out on their own fairly quickly. We know
that is a 86% of our students are headed to to college. So let's make sure that we. Move it just as close as possible to when they're going to actually be using that stuff. Yeah, I love it. Director Wilburn. Big fan and and some of the things that are included in it are just so important life skills that most of us in this room didn't start figuring out too too close to 30. You know, you spend your 20s digging yourself into debt. You spend your 30s getting yourself out of debt and then then presumably you spend the rest of your life making responsible decisions pushing that
that downstream as far as possible concerning a lot of the things that are that are mentioned in this. How credit history affects your borrowing power and just managing credit period. I mean we're in a day and age now where a 48,000 car is of value. I mean 50,000 bucks, right And these poor 19 year olds. So I'm a fan. I think it is is definitely something that benefits our student population and I like the idea of pushing it later in my high school career as possible, but. No red flags. All right, roll call, please. Vice President Payne. Aye.
Director Tripp. Aye. Director Wilburn. Aye. Director Waldrep. Aye. President Shandy. Aye. We need a motion to approve Resolution 174-26 approval of purchase over a million for district replenishment of devices and the one-to-one district provided device program for fiscal year 25-26 and fiscal year 26-27 So moved. Second. Discussion. Director Wilburn. We've we've gotten the answer to this in a number of ways, but. The biggest question of all is can we afford it
Sounds like it's saving US money, not costing No real fiscal reason not to in the the absence of that, if we're improving the capability of our students and we've got people. Can't get through one class with on battery power and we can replace that device without spending more money than we are spending or money that we don't have. I can't think of a reason to vote that down personally. Vice President Payne. No. And just to add on to that, I remember being part of the first BYOB. Bring your wait
wait, no, gosh, my goodness, I was at that too. Wait, what was it? OK, that was I just blacked out, but it was B when your own device to school and that is a lot when you have three kids or I don't know where that that Oh my gosh, I'm just gonna stop anyway. I'm just I think it's not It's awesome that we can manage that and that we can afford it in the crisis that we face and it's in the best interest Students to each have that and for every family that's facing their own cutback. So Yep, thank you for the excellent
presentation too. Sorry BYOD, I think it was was yes, very good. All right, roll call, please. Vice President Payne. Aye. Director Tripp. Aye. Director Wilburn. Aye. Director Waldrep. Aye. President Shandy. Aye. Mr Belcher, how many people have signed up to speak during public comment comment Section 2? We have 4 speakers. A board president will recognize each speaker and consistent with GP 4.4, comments will be curtailed if remarks or behavior becomes inappropriate inappropriate, the Board President may interrupt, Warn, or Terminate A speaker's statement that is unrelated to the
business of the school district, inappropriate for K through 12 students or or disruptive to an orderly, civil and productive meeting. Thank you for your cooperation. Our first speaker is William Sawvel, who intends to read from a book housed within District 20 school libraries. The book is titled "This Book is Gay" and is located in the libraries at Pine Creek and Rampart High Schools. It's rated as young adult and the speaker did follow the process outlined in GP 4.4 in the public comment sign up form. Before this comment begins, we want to allow for students or those who do not wish to hear potentially adult or sensitive
content the opportunity to turn off the live stream or leave the room. I'll give you a signal when we've waited for approximately 30 seconds for those wishing to leave. As a note, while we're waiting, on deck is Daniel Kulp. You can begin. So before I begin with "This Book is Gay," I want to make a little bit of modification here. There was a student in the foyer before I came in here who wanted to speak, but she didn't sign up because she was afraid there were were protests against the PCHS Turning Point Club. And she was afraid that there was going to be a decision
to not allow that club to take place as some of that actually happened to my kids when they were going to CTMS. They tried to start a Christian club. And they were prevented from promoting it and then were intimid intimidated by the principal for trying to do that. We contacted Alliance Defending Freedom and sent a letter to the district and said this is not OK. When that didn't work out with CTMS principal, the moderator was targeted by the moderator of the LGBTQ club and
then put on leave. Administrative leave, the lawyer was called again. And then that person was taken off administrative leave and and then all of a sudden, magically, the script was flipped were somehow my kids were the ones that were anti LGBTQ 'cause they wanted to start a Christian club. So my point in all of that is to say this has happened before with my daughters. This happened with Chase Window Bank at PCHS, this happened with the Christian club moderator at Rampart High School and most recently with Sophia Shoemaker at Rampart High. I guarantee
you I won't allow this to happen again. I will reach out to Alliance Defending Freedom if the district tries to stop this club from happening. So go into "This Book is Gay" really quick reading some of the stuff that's in there so. Handies perhaps most of the important most important skill you will master as a gay or bi man blowies Blowies popping another dude's peen in your mouth, bumming, sticking their their willies inside things, douching, washing out the back passage. Lady guarding prior to sex glory hole, a hole in which Walter
Walter. Thank you. Our next speaker is Daniel Kulp with Brett Dayberry on on deck. I am AD 20 resident, a parent of 2 D20 students and I'm reading a prepared statement from my daughter daughter. Good evening Superintendent Haberer and board members. My name is Katherine Kulp and I'm a junior at Pine Creek High School and the president of the newly formed Club America Chapter at Pine Creek Due to a prior engagement, I am able to attend tonight so this statement is being read on my behalf. Over the past few days Club America has faced significant controversy and backlash. Some have claimed that the club
promotes transphobia, neo-Nazi ideas, fascism. Or that it is a hate group. These are extremely serious accusations. Unfortunately, these unfortunately these unfounded claims have escalated into bullying and personal attacks directed at all the student officers who helped start the club and including included statements such as these kids should be Kirked this has happened happened simply because students created a club that some people disagreed with a petition. A petition was also also circulated calling for the club to be disbanded based on
misconceptions about its mission. Which has further fueled harassment towards the officer team. Yesterday, March 11th, Club America held its very first meeting. About 40 students attending and it was a great success students were introduced to the club's real mission, which which focuses on civic engagement, constitutional principles, and learning about opportunities that exist in America for the next generation of leaders, expectations for civilly and respect were clearly set for all attendees. The meeting itself was calm calm, respectful, and positive. Students participated in a short debate.
Activity and engage in thoughtful conversation with one another. Club America is not something any student is required to attend is simply a student organization that students are free to join or not to join however, no student should be bullied or targeted or for stating or participating in any club schools should be placed schools should should be places where students feel safe starting organizations exploring ideas and engaging respectfully, even when when there is disagreement. I ask that District 20 continue to support a variety of student clubs.
Your time is appreciated. Our next commenter is Brett Dayberry, who will read from a book labeled as Young Adult content. He has followed the process outlined in GP 4.4 and the public comment sign up form and we will give just a few moments for those who are not wishing to hear potentially adult or sensitive content to leave the room. The book is titled "A Court of Frost and Starlight" and is located in the the libraries at Liberty and Rampart High Schools. Given we've already waited 30 seconds and given a warning for those who may not wish to hear this comment this comment may begin as soon as our speaker is ready. I remind the board that it's now been nine months
and counting since Susan Payne was appointed to this board, still without a change to the text of the ACA to require parental approval before the district changes a student's name. Later tonight, I recommend each of you read and meditate on Matthew 7:15 through 20. I recently reviewed the Mailer regarding school choice that states D20 would quote build the knowledge skills skills, and character children need to succeed. By contrast, I will read from "A Court of
Frost and Starlight" found in Rampart's Library. As I read ask yourself, how does this this book build the knowledge, skills and character character children need to succeed? Page 205. Can you **** me in here too? It would be my pleasure. He gave me everything I wanted the the unleashed pounding of him inside my body the unrelenting thrust and filling and skin slap of skin on skin. I opened my eyes long enough to peer down to
where I could see him joined with me. Moving so achingly slow, slowly in and out of me. Do you like watching he He breathed. Watch me move in you, he purred. Look at me, **** you. But he slowly, so slowly. Pushed into me so I felt every inch of him, every place where we were joined. I clinched my teeth panted through my nose. He worked his way in thrusting in small movements, letting me adjust
to each thick inch of him. He hardened again a heartbeat later then then plunged deep into me. With the grow growling, your time is up. Thank you Our next commenter is Bernadette Guthrie and that is our final comment. Believe Bernadette left the room with her yeah student and is probably on her way back in can wait. Bernadette, you're our final commenter. Evening. Tonight I brought my child with me to the meeting. So when Mr Belcher announced that a graphic book excerpt
excerpt was about to be read, I was given a choice. I was told the material was mature and I was given the option to remove my child from the room. So I did no one forced the entire meeting to stop. No one demanded the book be banned from the building. No one insisted that every every other adult in the room be prevented from hearing it. I was trusted as a parent to make a decision for my own child. That is exactly what the district's current library policy does. Parents have full rights over what their own children read Parents can restrict access. Parents can opt
out. Parents can opt into mature titles. The system already respects parental authority. Removing books from the library doesn't protect parental rights, it replaces parental choice with government control. Tonight I demonstrated the solution in real time when I didn't want my child to expose to something I I simply made a decision for my child. And that's what parental rights looks like. So the question before this board isn't about protecting children. It isn't about whether you trust parents to make decisions for their own families It's whether you believe the board should make those decisions for everyone
else's. Thank you. Superintendent Haberer, do you have any clarifications or next steps? I do I have a clarification related to one of the public comments and Director Director Shandy, you and I are both with Principal Bierman at Pine Creek yesterday and any students that want to start a club have to there are guidelines that we asked them to follow and my understanding with the club that was referred to tonight is the students did a great job of of following all of those guidelines and there's never was an
intent to. Shut down this club. So I'm sad that that's the misinformation, that's out there the district has never considered not having having that club. What we do always have to do with every student group that wants to have a club, as we just have to make sure that they're following the guidelines and And Director Shandy and I had a good conversation with Principal Bierman and she is doing an active investigation right now. Into the accusations of
being bullied, so we're following through. Through with that whole situation. Thank you. Alright team, tonight was our business this evening focused on activities that promote and honor our mission statement, our belief statements and our global end statement statement that remind us that all students will have the knowledge, skills, and character necessary for successful transition to the next level level and upon graduation will be fully prepared for success. Did the board hear information tonight that would require the review or revision of a policy? The 3.0 we yeah, that we that will come up again for we have to vote on it, right?
Did the board hear information tonight that would require a new policy? That the board hear information tonight that the board would like to include on a future agenda. I think we had some study session items but but Miss Hatfield has those. OK. All right, there are 30 20 people watching and this meeting is adjourned.