This meeting is now called to order. Roll call, please. Mrs. Konz, here. Mr. Wilburn, here. Mrs. Yanez, here, Mrs. Shandy, here. Mrs. Ruckman, are there any updates to the agenda? No, there are no updates to the agenda. Are there any items to be added? May we have a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. Second. Roll call, please, Mrs. Konze, aye. Mr. Wilburn, aye. Mrs Yanez, aye. Mrs. Shandy, aye . Sorry. All right
so just direction for us. We're gonna go round robin throughout the the question list. We'll start to my right with Director Konz, then Director Yanez, then Director Wilburn, and back to me, and on and on through our list so you know what question you will have each time. That brings us to to our first finalist, Mrs. Susan Payne. Please come to the mic. And make sure your mic works, sure. Is that good? Can you hear me? Yep. And if you want to pull it closer make it comfortable for you.
Okey dokey, all right Mrs. Konz, whenever you're ready. All right. Welcome, Ms Payne. Why are you interested in being a D20 board member and what experiences do you have that would make you the best candidate for a board member position? My interest is primarily because I've had the opportunity one to live here my whole life in Colorado. I've been in Colorado Springs since I was one years old. So this is my community, my greatest
desire in life was always to be a mom, to be a parent, and I have three children of my own that went through District 20 schools K through graduation and went on to very successful lives after that so I have always been involved My background is in 28 years in law enforcement, I was with the Colorado Springs Police Department. I was a detective. Public information officer. Team leader for hostage crisis negotiation. But I always had a passion for the schools here we did a
a lot of fundraisers, a lot of work, and we did a lot of safety work in this community with the 17 school districts and the many law enforcement agencies. And a lot of people know this, but after Columbine, I was brought up to the state to assist with the Columbine Commission and to work to understand what might have prevented that or what we could do better moving forward. I became the 1st Special Agent Charger school School Safety for the State of Colorado. I went on to be the executive director for the Colorado Attorney General's Office of Safe Community Safe Schools, but I also founded a non-profit called Safe2Tell
which was the ability for young people to speak up and have have a voice or adults to recognize warning signs. But in that role I had the opportunity to serve on many boards. I was the chair of the school safety committee for District 20 during my children's reign here. That resulted in hiring a security director and bringing an armed security. And that was many years ago. I have to start speaking in decades, but I've also been through the CEO training with El Pamar So chief executive training. I ran my own non-profit I've
served on boards like Kid Power, but I also was the president of the Homeland Security board for White Collar Investigative Network. And so I do have #1 Besides all of that, I just have a passion for children, and I know that schools the safer our schools are and the higher achieving that our children are, it's the better our community will be. So we want to see them be successful. I want to see them learn at their highest level. And I just want to kind of get back to my community and thought this might be a way that I could provide some opportunity to help lead District 20 into
the next few years. OK. How would you describe the ideal relationship between the board and the Superintendent. Well, I would say that number one, it has to be transparent. They have to work in collaboration and partnership. There's so many hours of so many days that go into leading school district. I've seen it first-hand. I've worked at the Cabinet level in a school district after I retired from law enforcement and I think it's so important that there is trust and confidence in who who leads that district. But also that school board provides the opportunity
to really set the vision with the Superintendent and bring the feedback from the community in which they serve. In our current world, that school board also can put on guardrails like what is our current culture and climate? What are the things that are happening at the national level, at the state level? And how do we do things through things like policy? How do we develop those things that are strategic so that it helps us to anticipate what our vulnerabilities might be but also to highlight our strengths? And how do we prepare the district for the future based on
those things? I have a very multidisciplined approach by nature. I think it's really important that we're multidisciplined in bringing together people from a board of directors that can kind of represent different walks of life, different viewpoints and that we can provide that vision for our Superintendent so the other and I would also say it's important to understand our community values and expectations because that also is what we want to do, we want to be the highest achieving district. Here we want to set
those expectations high and I think that really served my kids well and I hope that continues long into the future. OK. Thank you. Mrs. Payne. Third question is a hypothetical, A hypothetical scenario: A parent sees you in a grocery store tells you about an incident where their their child was bullied at school. What would your response or action be? I have a little bit of experience with that because I kind of have this thing on my forehead that says it's Safe2Tell me, but I with all sincerity, that does
happen often and it happens all over the country. So I think it's something that anybody that's a leader in a district has to be prepared to answer and understand because we take bullying very seriously, but also we have to do that with a lot of sincerity, with the ability to understand that they're talking to you in a confidential nature and provide them really strategic guidance. About how they might voice those concerns back at their local level, right there back at their teacher level, if necessary to the principal level to really encourage them to
advocate for their child at that level and if they needed to go to a higher level, provide them guidance on how they might have to do that at the the district level if they don't feel like they're getting the response they need. And often it might not even be something that was reported at their school because there's a lot of lot of concerns with reporting bullying. And that's where I would also provide them the opportunity like to understand that there is a protected means of reporting through safe to tell if they felt that they needed to do it in confidence or in a protected way to get the information
to their right, to their local level and how that would work. So that's kind of how I would look at that because operationally that really falls under district leadership to manage bullying and to manage those. Concerns that are happening in the classroom level and it really doesn't need to come to the board level. Unless it's not. Unless there's something that they're not being there. They feel very dissatisfied that it was happened through all of the levels of the chain of command that they could have approached. Thank you. Tell us about a time when you were on a high functioning team and how you
contributed to their success as a member on this team. Sure. I'd say I've had the opportunity to work on SO many teams. I love being part of a team. I think that's one of the best parts of being in a career in law enforcement or schools. You get to work with team members and you get to have common objectives and goals and people like have your back. But most recently, I'd say in the last five years, there was a team of us that worked on a specialized training for school resource officers in particular.
We took the best practice findings of the last 20 years since the Columbine tragedy and we put together a very high level training. That's a 2-day training for the Nazra organization and that's called Project Unite but it really teaches them the fundamentals of keeping school safe and how that involves culture and climate and how it involves early reporting and identification and how it works to advocate for victims and then lastly out of that. A team of us Authored the law enforcement preliminary investigative
Checklist, which meant that officers in the field now have just released December of 2024 a checklist for when they get a report about a concern of someone's safety or someone that's making any type of a malicious threat towards a school or towards towards another student and it helps guide them in the questions and the information they they have to obtain in the field and how they would. Then take that information and get it to their local schools. Or their multidisciplined team if they have a behavioral threat threat assessment team, so that they are sharing that information in a way
to protect children and to protect our schools. Thank you. Next question, what would you do as a board member if the whole board votes and makes a decision that you fundamentally disagree with? Describe what your follow up actions would entail. Anytime you've been on a board, I mean, not everybody has 100 vote or an agreement on everything, but what I believe is the most important thing is that everyone feels that they were heard and that they were able to express what their opinions were to be able to research the issue
issue at hand and to provide their voice at that time. There's an appropriate way to do that. And then when the decision is reached, it's important to be part of that team and to move forward. Because the decision was made. I mean, everybody had all of the information, the decision was made. And that's where we need to now move forward and look at other things that we need to address. And I would just add it happens all the time, not just in schools, but also in the public sector, in the private sector and in the emergencies and in crisis. We have to do that that sometimes in crisis situations in an instant command post like are
are we going in, What are we doing, What's next? So sometimes it can be very rapid and sometimes we can slow things down because we have to have a very thoughtful approach. To our decision making. OK. What is your view of policy IJL 1 2 R and E regarding library books books? What would you seek to change or keep the same Well that was very interesting reading, but I do think in sitting through many of the board meetings, we've heard a lot about books in our library and most recently I've
had the opportunity to visit with the Superintendent from Elizabeth Schools. Who's also a friend and colleague of mine. And it's very interesting what they're facing that could go all the way up to the Supreme Court level based on the books in a library and their decision to either remove them or to place them, I think this is gonna be a extremely big issue at the National level, and our neighbors just to the north are facing it head on. And so therefore, do we have to when I I looked at the policy, I was very impressed to see that many
updates because I have reviewed those policies in other. That I've worked in but seeing seeing that and also comparing it to what's at hand, it's important that the policy that we we follow really protects us before, during and after and And I would say the before part would be. When I see the policy updates that have occurred in 2024, that really brings a multidisciplined approach to include parents in the review of those materials.
But also some of the legal things that I researched was the board does have the power to exclude a moral or pernicious. I can't even say the word. Can somebody help me with that pernicious? Thank you. Pernicious materials and books. And I think that it is important that we take that very seriously because we are school libraries, and I think it's really important we look at age-appropriate level of what we provide to
provide to children. There's still public libraries. There's still the World Wide Web, there's still what they can find in the home. But I did like that there was a multi discipline approach that included parents, 2 board members if If there's a concern of something that's in the library, I really thought the policy I'll be really curious to to continue to assess that and see how that works moving forward as we face these challenging times and monitor the Supreme Court level if this goes up that high. Is that me?
Yes, thank you. Ms Payne. What's your understanding of our policy related to clubs and schools What would you desire to change or to keep us in? Well, here's one where I think following the policy is really important because the policy is very strong when I review the policy it's very clear to me that at the beginning of each school year there's an application process for clubs and schools if it's curriculum based and and related to a class content, then there's
somebody that's assigned to the club. They can also advertise daily announcements social media, posters and common areas in the school. But that really changes when it's noncurricular and I think that the policy is gonna really protect anyone if they follow it. However, if you start to get complacent or ad hoc in what you choose as a club, then you have to kind of go across the board. I mean, that could mean we could have a club on witchcraft or something like that if we start allowing those things. So non
curricular clubs, I think it's very important to stick to the the policy of how they can be advertised and supported in the. And I would just really encourage everyone to follow, follow the policy. Thank you, Academy District 20 continues to review and improve overall security in our schools. What are your some of your ideas related to school security and how would you or how could strengthen or improve security in our schools? When we look at District 20, I'm
very proud as I go around the country because I go all over the country to work with school boards and school superintendents and state level on keeping school safe and keeping our children and our teachers safe as well. But I do think it's important to have a comprehensive look at what safety and security means. I'm very proud with what District 20 does. Now we can we can say we have armed security in our Elementary, Middle, High schools, I don't think there's any other school district in
Colorado that I know of that can say that. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but when we look at that kind of investment, those are the things we're seeing that have come about legislatively in Texas and in Florida through very different strategies. So I do think we're leading the way there. And when we look at safety and security, I think we have to have a mindset and that also kind of takes me back to that last. That last thought because as we look at what children have access to in schools. That would mean I really do struggle
with the exposure and contagion aspect of when kids can be exposed to violent How to make explosive devices they can how suicide suicide works, the things that could really have a contagion effect do concern me. But when we look at safety and an upstream approach to prevention and safety, we have the armed security, but we also need to have on the front end. How do we intervene with someone that's struggling? And what are the indicators and warning signs so
So that means in my purview is a very strong strategy of behavioral threat assessment It's very important to know that if we do need to intervene with somebody that is expressing concerning behavior and what that age-appropriate level is that we have staff that trained in those approaches and that actually comes from the Secret Service I'm wearing my pin because this is the Secret Service pin. And it is the National Threat Assessment Center and I've
had the honour to be an expert and serve with them over the last 20. I guess I should just say 25 years, but specifically in most recent years in the Protecting America schools in the aftermath of Parkland where we have published studies but also toured nationally and provided training to law enforcement in schools and school boards on how to keep school safe and And that really is a comprehensive level. And while I can highlight. That I think District 20 does an excellent job
I would be remiss if I said it does a perfect job because it is never perfect. We have to constantly look at how we improve and any day something bad can happen here. Crisis happens every day in school and we know it. We've seen it, any of us that have worked here or worked in schools so making making sure that we're well prepared and that we're always on the cutting edge of how we prepare our staff and how we lead to to make us make sure that we're doing everything. To make sure that our students are
safer, our schools are safer and our staff is safer, but we we can never be 100% sure and we always have to remember that and that's why we strive to be the best that we can be. That was probably a lot. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. All right, Ms. Payne, student achievement is a priority for D20. What is your understanding of student achievement in D20 and how would you support our district? To increase student achievement and growth. I've thought a lot about that because in the time that I've been kind of sitting in on your board meetings and
looking at I was a little surprised because you have my son went to the Air Force Academy. That's not easy to get into especially on the local level. My second daughter has a masters. My youngest went to SMU and a scholarship. I mean, they really came out and did so well well academically at District 20. I couldn't have been more impressed with the teachers. But what I really, I would say my research that tells me a little more in my investigation of this is I'm really intrigued by looking at. And this is with no intent that you mean. I've already looked at
this, but I really look at the science of reading when I look at the math and reading scores that have been published and how we compare to other districts in the state. I did a little research and I thought the science of reading in K through 3 specifically. Really emphasizes phonics, one of my colleagues on the national level is a subject matter expert on brain development in children, and I think that takes a lot of that into account and I right away away after I was looking and again, I haven't approached anyone on this, but I thought
I would be really intrigued to assess where we are as a district and to bring some of those concepts to light that we we might look at when it comes to the science of reading and and how that really works on. Preparing our staff in the K through three to really understand the phonics and I I'm sure they already do. And we have interventionists in the districts, but making sure that we're supporting the professional development and growth of our teachers on the strategies of not only the science of reading, but the science of learning in general and brain development and
And along with that can you can never under emphasize how we develop our staff to understand understand how to best engage our students because in the end, every student is an individual with individual learning styles and it's important that they can grow. At their highest potential, and that's such an individual thing that a teacher brings to the mix. But I sometimes in my years of being a parent felt like like teachers sometimes felt underserved in
getting really the quality of professional development that they might deserve. So I would really be supportive or I'd really be interested in looking at the assessment of that professional development growth and really really looking how. We can take. Measurable outcomes on whatever it is we're doing as a district to make sure that we're investing in things that make common sense, but scientific sense, but then also save U.S. dollars and cents so when we're looking at yes we
we might need individual programs, but what could we as a a district really focus on as core strategies for our teaching staff, especially in those K through three years? Because to me, when kids get behind and aren't learning at grade. And the years they don't build the foundation for the next years that come and we're not setting them up for success. And again I know you all know this, I'm just saying I did a little bit of research and that that's my thought process on that specific topic. And I just want to give a time check that we're
Oh yeah, right up 20\21 minutes with you and doing great OK. Thank you. 6 questions left. D20 is a policy governance district. What is your understanding of policy governance and the importance of the board? What role would you, as a Board of Education member, take in accomplishing these ends? So I mean, really a policy governance. The school board sets the vision we set that based on this multi discipline approach, we bring back our community values and we provide oversight to the district while that's the Superintendent is really the one responsible for those day
to day operations and creating the infrastructure to support that vision. And to make sure that we are succeeding and And does the data show it? I mean, do we look at? Then what are the measurable outcomes to say? Where do we need to do better? Where can we look at those revisions? When I look at all of this, I do think like as board and when we're a policy governance board and what I liked about the library book book revisions is it did include a component where the board
serves on that process. Now that was maybe after the complaint was made, but I do think we could consider maybe Or maybe one board member assigned to assist in what comes before it's presented to the board in an open meeting. Everybody ready? 11. The Global End statement identifies knowledge, skills and character as as priorities across our district. How will you support the district's continued work with character education? Well I think character education is so important and I would say more focus
on the basics of character education and emphasis on on personal accountability. Development and resiliency I also as you can can see, this is probably a common thing, but I really do want to see measurable outcomes. Based on the priority, based on our vision to say our is our, is this being met do Do we feel like we're able to develop that character right along with that academic achievement and what is the framework that supports that across the board as
as a large district like this? I would add that research focus on this is on a high expectations, kids that have high expectations and academic achievement and success goals. They really do rise to their expectation. It may be in a personal way, and I really do want to honor that because while we might have our highest achieving valedictorians valedictorians, growth and learning is a very personal thing and there are so many kids that do learn at their highest potential that we have we to be so proud of. But we can really determine
that through measurable outcomes and see that their journey includes. Achievement as they grow. And acknowledge that and praise them for that. Thank you. How will you work to build trust and confidence among all stakeholders in Academy District 20? Give an example of how you have created this type of culture in another setting. I think culture and climate is really important and it's a framework even in building safer schools for tomorrow. But I do think transparency is part of that. We have to be very transparent. We need to
have a climate of respect and I think professionalism at the board. We have to set the standard high and make sure that. When someone's watching this meeting that we represent this this district just the way and that children look up to us and see that that's the way we respond. And then and because the only thing we can do is control our response. So I think it's important to encourage the sharing of details and context, but it is important to be transparent. I would like to see us even in just this time that I've been doing this.
Have some ways where we could have facilitated community discussions as a board. And this probably comes from my days of relationship based law enforcement where we would do coffee and Donuts, is so predictable but really getting community together so that we could have two way dialogue and listen And I got to serve on the DAC committee. I got to do a lot of things where I can have my voice heard, but not all parents can so So I think that there's a way that we could have more community member meetings. where there could be better two way dialogue?
I plan to be pretty forthcoming on any of my issues or any of my position on issues, but even if we don't agree, it's important to understand why we don't agree or why we have different perspectives because that can allow everybody to move on and we can focus on the next steps. Thank you. What role do charter schools play within the public school system? What would your stance be as a board member regarding support of charter schools? I think there's sometimes confusion on charter schools, but we can
clear that up right here for everybody that's listening all. But I do think it's important to know that charter schools are publicly funded schools and they obtain their charter through either a district or a board And so it's important to understand that some charter schools go independently through the Charter School Institute but if the charter is obtained through your district they are one of your charter schools and there are certain things that that I think a charter school has to maintain consistently
with the district or they can put us in a lot of legal jeopardy and some of those things include safety and security. And my perspective on that is that there has to be consistency within those things, but charter schools, really. What was I gonna say on charter schools? They really do provide parents and students with options and they provide them with that choice, which I think is really important. And you you can also evaluate, you know, what is is their success? They take a different approach to what they're doing
but are they meeting their academic standards? Are they succeeding in things? They're usually more targeted on what the students might be wanting or what the parents might be needing and it allows them to exercise their choice in choosing what school their children go to. And one of the things I like about about District 20 is that doesn't just pertain to charter schools That's also included district wide. So that's provided those options to parents and families depending on where you work it it may not be close to where you live and it might provide you
those options. To choose from. OK, give an example of how you have built strong community partnerships in your past and the actions you would take as a board member to connect with community partners in District 20. So that's I would say in District 20 specifically. The first thing that comes to mind is we experience the one of the I mean, it directly impacted me, families, friends. One of the highest rates of youth suicide at a time that my children went to school here and we started
to see a pattern of occurrences. And really one of the things that I did is I came and met with the school Superintendent and the board. And I established a meeting across the street at the fire department and set up a room much like this with name plaques for the sheriff, the chief, the coroner public health asked them to come. Many of them said they could send a Lieutenant I'm telling a funny story about about Bill Elder because he said I'm sending a Lieutenant. And I said that's great. The more the the merrier, but your seat will still be there with your name on it
And I have to give Bill Elder. Our sheriff came. Our District Attorney came Our chief of police came. Our coroner came. Our director of public health came. Because this was a community wide issue and it was so important that we addressed what we could do better as a community and how we could protect children and how we could do better in the aftermath. So a lot of great things came out of that media training as APIO, we did a lot of training for the media here on how they would report things to
reduce the exposure and contagion. And obviously in Colorado we really worked worked on the no notoriety campaign. But also with our faith-based leaders, we just really brought everyone together and I think that had a lot of healing and a lot of efforts moving forward and we still continue to monitor those numbers and our efforts and prevention to this day and help other communities communities that have gone through similar experiences overall Overall, I would say it was very successful in the healing and we as a group from District 20 had the opportunity to present
a case in Casbah and even in other states. About kind of what we went through as a district and even surrounding districts. It wasn't just us, but it was a leadership role we took and it involved key stakeholders and a community response. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us that we did not ask and seeing as how we're about 11 minutes ahead of the clock, if you have any questions for us? I would ask you, what do you see as your top three challenges moving forward? Great question, who wants to share?
Financial is always one as everybody knows. Teachers are underpaid. Districts are behind in maintenance. I mean figuring out how, when and where to best spend limited resources. Is constant. Can I have a follow up on that one specifically because I do have a question on that since I get to ask a question that does bring about like where we are as a nation and as a state and how? Dollars are assigned to school districts. And looking at our I know that this district has fought some of those battles at the state level
to bring attention to those things. But do we see a pathway forward legislatively on that? That could help us with the funding thing, or are we waiting for the national level decisions and how that'll come down to the I'm going to let Superintendent have her answer that question, yeah in general, we're really still waiting on. The federal government, there's been things that have been put out, but we're really taking our direction from CDE from Doctor Susanna Cordova, who is. The state Commissioner for Education and she sends out a memo like once a week could kind
of tell us where we're at with things. So we're still kind of waiting to see what actually happens with the funding at a federal level I think at the state level, we did have a victory, I think, this year that the funding instead of the governor proposed proposed there would be no averaging for the. For funding for schools which would have negatively impacted us, but really hit especially the small rural districts and I know know that we as board members myself, I was at the Capitol three times and I want to really say a
kudos to Senator Lundeen because in talking with with him by the third time, I think he even was in in an article where he supported doing going to four year averaging and then kind of phasing that. Down to less years of averaging and averaging is important because our enrollment can kind of fluctuate and we don't know until May, right, is when they oftentimes when the education bill gets passed where where we know exactly what our funding's gonna be, but we have to make those decisions back
in like January, February, even December as we're putting that forward. So that's another reason why the averaging is so important one one of many. So I think that was a positive. There's also a new financial formula and I think that what they landed on for this year into next is gonna be helpful. There's like a hold harmless clause that's in there so So I think there's just definitely like every year uncertainty in the what the future budgets will be. We were told by our lobbyists that
you know, even for them to balance the state budget this time they were taking away, they used a lot of maybe one time money. And so if things don't improve into next year in the one time money has gone down, what will? The state need to use at that point? So those are some of the conversations we've had. Nope. Thank you. I'll just add on a few of the opportunities I'm not sure. Wait what word you used used that I see. Parental responsibilities, not just rights. I'm a big advocate for engaging parents and families
more in partnering with our teachers and like you said, the basic character education is a strong strong push of mine embedded within core curriculum. Student behavior. And how sometimes, honestly, staff is handcuffed. It's a safety issue a lot of times too. So student behavior and then staff training and retention. I'll jump into teacher so attracting and retaining teachers nationally. We know that it's
an issue. I became a teacher because of my teachers so so staying competitive with Pay comps benefit packages. We had an education student signing day which was really special to attend things like that that encouraged the next generation of teachers. I think that's something I think we need to be continually working at. No thank you for for all of those. I think all of those things meet our type, the type priorities, but I do think how we retain the
professional teachers that we have and the quality teachers that we have is gonna continue to be a challenge. And I know part of its its financial. Part of it is also how we hopefully make them love it here so that they don't seek employment elsewhere, because I know that's part of the problem. Also, the last thing I would say is that when we're looking at special Ed and needing. Staffing some of those positions and how we creatively like recruit those people. I love the idea for the teacher signing day, I think
there's other ways we can do that. I know UCCS is graduating for the first time, I think. UNC, I think they exceeded UCCS. UCCS let me see that correctly correctly. UCCS exceeded UNC in the graduation of maybe teachers that were hired statewide, it might have been been just a data point, but it is important to know that we have that coming out of our local institution. All right, very good. Thank you so much. Any other directors have anything be good? OK, very good. We thank you so much, Ms. Payne. We are going
to take a 5-minute break mark at that point Let's see what time it is now. It is 4:30 So we're so we're we'll take a 5 minute break now and then it'll be up to Mr. Waldrep if he wants to to wait until 4:45 or if we start in 5 minutes. So a 5-minute break, we'll start in 5 minutes. He says. OK, 5-minute break. Thank you. We're going to wait for Superintendent Haberer to return and we'll start. Yeah, sure thing. Thanks for the water, by the way, too. I was like, where's the drinking fountain? Perfect. Same questions every time. We'll just keep it the same order that way, Everything
15 more applicants. This could be a long day. OK. Thank you, Mr. Waldrep, for being here tonight We're gonna proceed in the same order that we did last time, starting to my right with Ms. Konz and so on and so forth around the circle. So, thank you. All right, thank you for being here. Question number one, why are you interested in being a D20 board member? What experiences do you have that would make you the best candidate for a board member position? Thank you and thank for the opportunity and thank you for my wife for being here just for me today as well. So
So it's nice. So one of the reason why I'll be interested in being a D20 school members I've really had a heart for service to others for many, many years, ever since I first joined the military back in 90 Yeah, I went off to serve my country. I re-enlisted after 9/11 to continue that service. And I've just really had a passion for serving people ever since then. I got out of the service, I decided to become a clinical psychologist, and that's what I do currently. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist at the VA and I really have a passion for seeing people thrive. And my special area is PTSD. I'm a
PTSD specialist, so I really love to see people come from where they're at be all able to build their lives and thrive. And I think those are also some of the skills that make me a very qualified member to be on the board. How would you describe the ideal relationship between the board and the Superintendent? Yeah, well, I really see the ideal relationship between the board and Superintendent being really collaborative and kind kind of keeping each other accountable, I think. The school board kind of our job is to be able to kind of synthesize the values and things that are important to our community and stakeholders and be able to kind of communicate those things in a kind of achievable goals for
the Superintendent to be able to achieve. And then and by that I actually mean mean kind of achievable goals. I think sometimes there's been some challenges trying to say, well, what is it we're trying to accomplish and how can we kind of actually accomplish something that's meaningful and make that realistic in some way? So I think that's kind of one of the really big roles of the school board to be able to characterize those things, kind of determine what those objectives are. Trying to communicate those to the Superintendent in a way that is actually achievable in a reasonable manner, and then holding the Superintendent accountable for that. And then of course the
the Superintendent being able to give you the ability to achieve those goals as he or she feels fit and also to be able to hold the board accountable as well. It's like, hey, if you want me to try to accomplish accomplish these things, yeah. How can I actually do that in some way that I can get practical in some way? So that's how I kind of see a ideal of relationship between the two. OK. Thank you, Mr Walter. Oh, by the way, so in one place we've got WALDRUP&R REP. Which is it? REPR
REPREP. Thank you, Rep, and my title's officially doctor, but that's fine. That's pretty common. Thanks, doc No worries #3 is a hypothetical scenario a parent sees you in a grocery store, tells you about an incident where their child was bullied at school. What would your response or or reaction be? I think my initial reaction would be about validating their distress and having something like this happening. I think it probably comes naturally being a psychologist and then trying to figure out too kind of well, what's kind of going on with that situation as best I can in a
setting like a grocery store where it's unexpected know. So there's gonna be a limited kind of confidentiality, things like that in a public setting like this And they're trying to many ways I think about trying to encourage. This parent to try to seek the lowest level. Of remediation as possible, yeah, so hopefully see if they've addressed it with their principal, with any teachers that might be kind of associated with it or be aware of the bullying that's kind of going on. I'm trying to seek that at the lowest level and if they continue to have any concerns, I know each one of the
the school board members is assigned different schools and different sections I don't happen to be the school board member assigned to that I'm I'm encouraging me to reach out to either the Superintendent or to their school board representative just to follow up on it, but to really kind of start. Lower level, I kind of think about that from my military services in terms of like a chain of command, who are the first people that are right there? They're probably the best people to build address these things effectively and if there's any other concerns concerns going on there, kind of working our way up as appropriate. OK, tell us about a time when you were on a high functioning team and how you contributed to their success as a member
on this team. Yeah, well, thank you. I think I'm currently a member of a pretty high functioning team. Your PTSD clinical team here in Colorado Springs, we have a pretty good reputation I think, and how I really contribute to the success of the teams I try to be the best clinical psychologist I psychologist I can be make sure you're focused on what are the things that are effective for my my job more the skill set that's necessary for that. How do I continue to develop those things? So of course in my current field is thinking about what are different types of drama? What can lead to the development of PTSD what maintains it, how we recover from it, but then also how to communicate that
that to members that are also kind of affiliated or multidisciplinary kind of team members. We also work with psychiatrists, for example people that are pharmacist, Dr of pharmacy who actually prescribe also primary care physicians and others who are not experts in PTSD, you know, they have have their other skill sets. That part of their daily focus and so part of I help to be successful in that team is be able to communicate those things that are are important. For good referrals, what are kind of different factors that are associated with it, additional recommendations and then we also do things on our team too, like journal
club. So we kind of stay abreast of kind of current trends in the field, so those are some of the ways to do that. OK. What would you do as a board member if the whole board votes and makes a decision that you you fundamentally disagree with, describe what your follow up actions would entail. Yeah. I can foresee that kind of potential. I mean, anytime you work on a team, there's really people who have different opinions, different viewpoints and and I think in a board you try to state your case as best you can and try to influence people to your perspective and it it doesn't go that way. I think you accept that as kind of reality
and try to support the team members. Yeah, in that decision, I think about the next steps probably comes along kind of thinking about what are the kind of priorities, because there are many things that are are the responsibilities of the school board. And if we get really kind of tied up and hung up on one element of something that the board has already kind of. I made a decision about is moving on. It could be kind of detracting from what we're actually here for so in in that regard, I think about how important is that maybe at a later date might be important to bring up again if it's really fundamental to me but then again supporting the decision of the board.
What is your view of policy IJL 12R 12R and E regarding library books? What would you seek to change or keep the same? Yeah, I took a look at these policies. They look pretty reasonable for the most part. I think 1 one of the potential concerns I have is there's like maybe a lack of kind of parents or the stakeholders outside the school kind of give an input into some of that process. So if I think about one change, it might be kind of having a little little bit more. At the initial level of deciding what kind of books are included in the libraries. I know it's kind of by the principal or
designee people in library services, things like that, which I don't generally kind of see an overall problem with other than it probably benefit from some community involvement, especially these days where there's been a lot of concerns by parents and that's kind of obviously driven kind of you a lot of news across the country so So I think that'd be one way to kind of improve that a little bit is having, you know, some kind of parent feedback on that or some mechanism for other than than just the kind of repealing process. One of the other ones I think it was. Think on the criteria, I think #8 in the policy I think it said that the overall value of the
literary content could outweigh any concerns there might be of of offence. I think that might be a little too strict in terms of we might just be able to change, make a minor change like say it may outweigh any any kind of risk of offense because one of the things things I do in my work a lot of times is I think about. What is a crazy outlier kind of a another example, but with that being so strict and it's kind of language. There could be example or someone wants to pick something that's really atrocious in their principal and don't have outside feedback members and they say
well the value of it just kind of outweighs any other concern. I don't think that's likely to happen, but I think kind of having just a slight change in language that it may may outweigh it and that kind of gives room for know more direct concerns. Ignore. We are on question #7 we're right out. We're doing great. What is your understanding of our policy related to clubs and schools? What would you desire to change or keep the same? Yeah, so the understanding generally about the kind of club policy is that if there's yeah a curriculum based kind of content or club that's associated with the curriculum, it can
can be held during school hours, of course, with, you know, a teacher or sport member. That's kind of of you. Associated with it and things that are not curriculum based are to be held kind of after school hours. I think overall it sounds pretty general are pretty pretty reasonable. I think about these things sometimes. They'll probably spend a little bit of time too much time around kind of universities, but one one of the things we have a lot of universities is having a centralized kind of messaging board where we kind of put up all the things that are advertised for these different clubs and activities. I know there's probably be a reasonable kind of a little bit more restriction on some of the content to some of those groups and
and elementary schools or K through 12 versus universities. But I think for the most part it sounds pretty reasonable the way it's set up. So I wouldn't really hopefully get changed a whole lot from the way it is. OK, Academy 20 continues to review and improve overall security in our schools. What are some of of your ideas related to school security and how we could strengthen or improve security in our schools? Yeah I think that's a great question. That's a concern that I have and like many other parents not just here but across the country, I think we have pretty good security going on in a lot of our schools. I think we have people
have people within from K through 12. Who are armed security or actual security yards in these kind of settings. So I think that's outstanding some of of the things we might be able to do is. I came here last time I was out of school where I'd seen something like armed security kind of posted on the outside. And so sometimes I think just communicating that we have armed security might be affected to deterring one of the things we unfortunately see see across the country, a lot of places where they have some of these horrendous attacks is that they're kind of identified as soft targets And because of that, some people that are more likely to engage
engage in these kinds of attacks. Might be able to see a sign like that and know that this is not such a soft target and be able to kind of deter some that I would hope. Other than that, I think a lot of things we've also seen is a lot of mental health kind of problems that have been associated with a lot of these attacks and the safety in the schools, I think having good anti bullying policies and as well as kind of a good way to be able to try to identify and to assist with someone who might be having some mental health concerns that might be prognostic of some kind of attack or violence I think
think we've all seen too many cases where there's kind of warning signs of some of these things before the attacks happened. And kind of inadequate response that's a it's a difficult job. I used to be on the disruptive behavior behavior committee within the VA where we kinda do a lot of kind of behavioral assessments for kind of for different types of violence. So it's a pretty comprehensive kind of evaluation plan for those things We're not gonna be able to do that in all circumstances, but I think just having ways to try to identify who might be at risk, how do we get them linked up with appropriate appropriate services. Those are some of the ideas I would have about that.
All right. Thanks, Mr Waltrip Student Student achievement is a priority for D20. What is your understanding of student achievement in D20 and how would you support our district to increase student achievement and growth? Yeah, well, I mean, D20 is a, you know, honored with this station. So I think that's outstanding. I think there's opportunities to continue to build on where that is and thinking about kind of even considering this kind of school board I decided to do do what academics do is read some books about these things and. I've been a couple of great books about this kind of results. 2 point O
better on their behalf have some great ideas about these things and And one of the things that was really kind of surprised to learn through some of that reading is that that there's I think, a lot of times opportunity for more evidence based kind of curriculum and focus and some of these places and anywhere that I think that might be able to come into play here in D20, it might be a great way to start to think about how we might build on the success we already have. I really tend to think in a very nerdy way about evidence based outcomes a lot lot of that kind of research even comes from schools thinking about cross
sectional studies, longitudinal studies, kind of staggered studies. And trying to see what kind of things we can build on within there. We do see a little bit of a lower kind of performance in some of our K through three and also middle school kind of years. There's still some debate out there about how much that is impacted by COVID, but I think those are great opportunities to try to identify what might become driving that, how we can we continue to improve it. That's why I really think about those evidence based outcomes. D20 is a policy governance district. What is your understanding of policy governance and the importance of the board ends what role would you as a as a Board of Education member, take in accomplishing these ends? Yeah
I think for policy governance. My understanding when I was kind of reading through the district is basically 10 different principles with three different content areas kind of associated with that. And I think the real kind of goal that is just like we're talking about earlier about the relationship between the Superintendent and the board is thinking about how do we. Kind of have goals and objectives that are reachable and attainable and reasonable ways. And as a board member, I think that's one of things we really try to do is try to set up those kind of achievable outcomes and then trying to supposed to the Superintendent and how she
achieves these kind of give her that latitude to be able to manage organization, the day to day things, the teachers things are important and just kind of think about are these things things objective? Are these things achievable in some way and are they meaningful? OK, round #11 Mr. Waldrep, the global end statement identifies knowledge, skills and character as priorities across the the district. How will you support the district's continued continued work with character education? Yeah, that's a that's a great question. I actually think that was
discussed recently when the board meetings here about how we kind of work on those things. And I think the knowledge and the skills I think there are are some great evidence based ways to kind of focus on those things in terms of. What are some of the things that are shown to be effective and in party knowledge to students and some of those things like direct teaching methods, things along these lines which are are part of those evidence based curriculums? And then I think kind of maintain fidelity to those things would have been really important. The skills I think about quite a bit in terms of one of the things I hear a lot and I've kind of witnessed myself and I was teaching at UCCS a lot of our younger
younger people having a real difficult time with writing you I'm not sure exactly what's kind of driving that in some ways, but I know one of the effective things that's been shown is by having kids kind of have knowledge imparted to them, testing them on that knowledge knowledge, and then have them articulated in some way. So I think one of the ways continue to build on those skills is we having more written assignments, something that's too crazy. I my graduate students, I'd hit them with like 25 page papers, nothing like that, but just reasonable things how you kind of write write these things, how you wrap your head around in a different way and communicate it And then character. I've been thinking about that one quite a
bit because we're kind of looking at something that's kind of subjective. And so then we're thinking about how do we have some kind of objective criterion to kind of assess something that's subjective in nature. And I think some things that we could do from that is shifting away from kind of word attachments to what that looks like in terms of character and start looking at more objective measures such as truancy rates. Disciplinary problems also looking at at kind of grades, how many students are kind of looking at kind of taking AP courses are really challenging themselves and then how they're performing those different ways. So I think there's different ways to look at more kind of objective criteria
for what we think about in terms of character. The military has a lot of different kind of acronyms to use in different forces. For these things, the Army has leadership very many of the same kind of character things, loyalty duty, respect, selfless service, you know, courage, integrity, things like this. But we are everywhere in the military's kind of held accountable to those things. And I look at the list that we have for kind of character and there's so many there that would be a task by itself to try and get students to memorize those things. So I think it might be a way to synthesize those and and try and hold some of our students kind of like as a challenge, like who can
remember these things? Who can articulate these things, wait for them to kind of sink in a little bit. So I think there's those multiple different ways to try and think about that. Thank you. How will you work to build trust and confidence among all stakeholders in Academy District 20? Give an example of how you have created this type of culture in in another setting. Yeah, well, trust is incredibly important and I think think that's again, one of the things we've seen is a challenge across the country in the last last few years, or there's been, I think, a concern about too much influence about kind of different political ideologies or things
like that being infused in our schools. And I think that a really good pathway out of that is with transparency. Trying to let the stakeholders know what's actually happening in our schools. And I feel like we're trying to hold a blanket over some of these things so they can't see what's kind of going on. And I also think again back to my nerdy sense of kind of evidence based outcomes. I think as much as we try to be objective and the way we communicate and the things that we're doing, I think that's how you start to to build trust, something I do a lot in my work obviously as a therapist is a lot of trust kind of concerns people have for many
different reasons. And if there's any kind of inkling that something. Disingenuous. You lose trust. Kind of right off the bat. So I think things like transparency, trying to be objective as we can, communicating as best we can, or how we start to rebuild those things. Thank you. What role do charter schools play within the public school system? What would you stance be as a board of Education member regarding support of charter schools? Yeah, I support charter schools, I think they're great opportunities. I think they can be a supplement
or even a compliment to the district and and for public school settings. They are definitely part of the district and how we kind of have an association with those, relationship with those is very important. And I think they're also great opportunities to build kind of innovation and competition. And I think that there's a lot of benefits coming from those things. We could have a charter school that has a certain emphasis or a different teaching method and if they're performing well, they can give kind of lessons learned to to our other end schools. So we might be able to take from those things. We've also seen great evidence from a lot of charter schools across the
country, even in something more challenging districts. And so I think there's Yeah. I'll be holding the same kind of oversight that you would other kind of public schools in a reasonable way But I think they offer a great opportunity. Give an example of how you have built strong community partnerships in your past and the actions you would take as a board member to connect with community partners in District 20. Yeah, thank you. One of the things I really did quite a bit when I first kind of moved back out here to Colorado Springs back in 2019 was to work on developing kind of internship and practicing student opportunities with the VA for our local universities, Uccs for
for example, has a great psychology program They also have a, you know, trauma track, which is more specific to you my area know, my area of specialty. Kind of working with our different people within not only the VA but also the local universities and hospitals to try and make an incentivize an attractive place for practical students to come and get their learning opportunities opportunities. And so I think that's a great experience. And then for me, I think is in terms of being on a school board, which should be a little bit different. So my specific kind of of work related things, I was trying to really be an open
to meeting with stakeholders and people that have any concerns. I know I had a great great opportunities when I first started being involved with. Awards meeting with Tom Gregory as well as kind of I had the Connor other people when I had wanted to sit down and have a discussion, be able to reach out and and have those meetings and I would do the same thing as a board member, try to to make myself available and as reasonably as possible to be able to meet with with people here, their concerns or their ideas. OK, Mr Waldrop, lastly is there there anything else that you would like to share with us that we did not
not ask and do you have questions for us? I guess a lot of the thing I would share with you is just that I think District 20 is a great district. That's actually what attracted me here in the 1st place when we were looking at moving back to Colorado Springs we're thinking about, well, what's a good district to kind of move into? What should we look for, you know where where we want my, Yeah, our daughter to be kind of educated and to be successful and I'm just happy to be a community member here and I'm hoping to be able to continue to serve in that regard As far as a question I would have is. What would it look like if to be selected for example example, to be a board member? You know what's the
the onboarding process to try to give me or whoever is selected up to speed so we can be successful and not kind of feel like a kind of 1/3 wheel had holding things back but wanted to try to be here what we're re here for is success with the students. Yeah, I'll answer then anyone else can join in that's a great question and we have great plans for doing that that, getting you familiar with the board policies and making sure you understand those also. I think it's important important to understand the tempo and the calendar of how we do things, agenda setting
consent discussion that those all how that all works as well as well as just getting you really familiar with Superintendent Haber. And starting to build that relationship to be successful. Does anyone have anything they want to add? Superintendent had where you want to add something, Yeah, so we already have time blocked out on the calendar the first week in June. To be able to bring in or actually the week after whoever is officially sworn
in to meet with the various cabinet members so New board member can say well tell me about the finance how does that work and just at least give you give that person person an overview of all the different departments, human resources, finance learning services and then we we also have CASB which is the the Colorado Association for School Boards. We're a member of CASB and they offer a lot of wonderful resources. They even have kind of like a boot camp for new board
members so. Whoever that new board member will be will make sure that you get that person, whether it's you or somebody else gets connected and kind of know where those resources are as well and what some of those opportunities would be for the new member to take advantage of we'll also give the new member a tour of like our transportation department school will be out so we we wouldn't have an opportunity. To desperately go in and see kids. But. And really just see what that person's interest is and
and then that would be my job to ensure that we follow up on whatever that person really feels like they need on top of the things that are specific to the board. But maybe more about the district itself. Yeah. Thank you. OK, very good. Thank you. SO much, Doctor Waldrep, for your time. Appreciate you. Yeah, you as well. Thank you much. All right, so I do now we are ahead of of schedule. Do not see Ms. Czukas here yet. So we will plan to resume at
5:30 unless she gets here and is ready to go. Ms. Czukas. We can start anytime you're ready. Or we can wait till right at 5:30. It's totally up to you. OK, sounds good. OK. All right, thank you so much for being here tonight. We're just going to go around in a circle, take turns and asking questions. We'll start with Director Konz and then go to Director Yanez, then Director Wilburn and myself, and around and around we go. All right, so with that, Director Konz. Thank you so much for being here, Ms. Czukas, first question, why are you
interested in being a D20 board member? What experiences do you have that would make you the best candidate for a board member position? Sure, I realize that I have a unique set of experiences and professional skills that have relevance for contributing immediately as a board member during the next six months. My attendance at board meetings is reliable and it's well documented in the minutes I'm already contributing to the discussion of the board's agenda. And I bet a few times you probably wanted to engage me in a discussion or seek out clarification from me
but the format doesn't allow for that and so appointing me to the board the board allows for that dialogue to actually happen. My experiences over the past 15 years in the Colorado Springs education community are outlined in my application It's just hard to believe it's 15 years, but probably, and that's probably easily interpreted from the application, but I wanted to decipher a little bit more about my professional experience. I've spent my professional career as a private sector business strategist. I help
teams make hard choices. And I do customize and focus research for the world's largest private organizations to allow them to make billion dollar decisions where to to grow, where to cut back. Where to invest in what actions to take and what actions to ignore. And I help executives discreetly collect a wide and rich source of perspectives from people to make data driven decisions at my my heart, I'm a listener, I'm an observer. You probably don't see that
And I have lots of stories to tell about that But guess what? I don't tell those stories. I hear I adhere to a set of professional ethics, and I have integrity I follow process and this private sector professionalism is what I would bring to to the board and allow it to continue to be successful over the next six months. And I'm happy to take actions in this short term to ensure success beyond that with a new board composition in December. OK. How would you describe the ideal relationship between the board and the Superintendent? Well, I believe that there
should be open communications with the entirety of the board and the Superintendent when we're in this room for board meetings and study sessions. We need clear auditory communication to make sure that it's understood by everybody and I'm not sure where communication right now and open communication is less than ideal. But I work with hundreds of organizations and they have different ways of communicating both in person and digitally and I've seen
seen a lot of different patterns and permissible forms of digital communications and I'm happy based upon upon what this board wants to improve upon in June June, to suggest other ways that open communications with the entirety of the board and the Superintendent can occur. Thank you miss Ms. Czukas for being here and And you're right, you do put in a lot of time in this district. We all recognize that and And the fact that you're here tonight continuing that pattern is frankly, no surprise. Question #3 is a
a hypothetical, a scenario a parent sees you in a grocery store tells tells you that about an incident where their child was being bullied at school. What would your reactions or response be? Obviously this person has the. Interest in feeling like they can confide in me for some reason about something that's very sensitive to them and their child I I guess, given that this board is really a policy governance board I don't have a role in overseeing or investigating what that is all about. However, I would want to inquire to
understand, as you know, what does this parent need right now? Do they need an advocate to be with them, another adult to be with them to to understand the site based process that goes on with that Are they curious about sort of what? Age appropriate. Information that goes on in terms of justice and reconciliation that goes on with bullying at their site in some way, but ultimately it's about sort of referring them and making sure they're comfortable with their site based process because that would be the first place to go and then then to if their advocate doesn't really have the ability to help them
understand that process. Beyond that, I'm happy to inquire with the district about sort of what it would be after that and point them to those resources. OK, thank you. Tell us about a time when you were on a high functioning team and how you contributed to their success as a member on this team. Well, so I will say I always work in a team setting again. I since I've left academia, I've never somebody who does something on my own right. This is not about, this is not about me at all. This is about a we and what we can achieve.
If I go back to sort of 1999 if you you all think about what you were doing in 1999 and what was available to you. This is the time of the.com. Sort of like in period there and I moved back from Washington DC back to to Boston to be part of a core team face to face focused on buildinga.com. You know we are really a start up there, but again I'm m not a software developer, I am not a web designer, I am not a software salesperson to enterprises. The skill set I brought to this team was that
that I'm a statistician and ultimately. What our product and our service was really about. Was about meeting the needs for statisticians and people who would like to be statisticians. Translate that to the world of today of data interpretation or data science right again, but this is 25 years ago. So again, what I did was I stepped into a product management role and I understood the constraints of my teammates with their specialized skills and was empathetic to to that. We negotiated together to reach a product that could we. We came up with a way to document
a process and I spent a lot of time with process and help documentation. To bring it to requirements to bring this to to software, to bring it to reality. I understood the customer needs and could could contribute in that way as well. And it poured a lot of time and effort into this contributing in the ways that I could. Team members valued my role. They value the ability for me to step up in a variety of ways. And you know, and I'm proud to say that you you know it, it's interesting in the software space that this product endures 25 years later, I was meeting with a client. Six months ago or something like that, and they saw that, they saw the name
of the product and they're like, wait, we still use this. We love this And again, who would say that about a.com? From 25 years ago. Nobody's using that sock puppet website anymore to buy pet food. So anyway, I'm proud of that and the role that I played there. Thank you. Next question, what would you do as a board member if the whole board votes and makes a decision that you fundamentally disagree with, describe what your follow up actions would entail. Well, so again, once a decision is reached, I believe the board speaks with one
voice to ensure clarity and consistency for the Superintendent And so again, I this is all very hypothetical and so I'm not even going to bring an example, but I think that any follow up action would be work would be to work to find conditions if if necessary. For the decision to be revisited on a future agenda item again, if that's necessary, but not just to to revisit it for that sake, but to actually understand what additional context, what additional data would be needed the next time the decision decision could be revisited. What is your view of policy IJL 1 2 R
and E regarding library books? What would you seek to change or keep the same? So again we got these questions like 2 two hours ago, right? And so again, I was really focused on board policy rather than administrative policy, so I went, I looked at it sometime in the past two hours, but again, my view when I look at these policies is that there was a lot of work done by a lot of professionals in 2023 and 2024 to refresh these. Policies and I don't believe it's a priority in the next 6 six months to revisit them ultimately this
is about parents having a choice about how their or guardians about how their students their student uses the the library and ultimately that parent choices is reflected in that. And if that's not understood by parents then that needs to be communicated better to parents if If that's not understand but understood by that by our community, by our community. Property owners in this district and this side of the county and it needs to be communicated better to them. OK, we're moving right along #7 what is your understanding of our policy related to clubs and schools
and what would you desire to change or keep the same? Sure. And so when I I hear the word clubs, I think about a few different things given my experiences in different buildings in the district as as a parent, I think about athletics activities and on site gatherings and I think that's what that that by that I mean things that are not for academic credit. So like DECA in the high school, that's for academic credit, that's not a club orchestra in the middle school, that's s for academic credit during their exploratory periods, that's not a club. OK, so then
we're talking about athletic and I don't think we're talking about building rental, which again is about for profit service providers like Lego Battle robots building things in the elementary school and that's for profit service providers renting space in our schools and marketing to our our students. So I don't think you're talking about for the building rental. So, but again that's I think equity has has been put into that in terms of the funding sources. But again, I don't think you're talking about building rental by for profit service providers. So then I think you're talking when you say clubs, it's about athletics activities and on site
gatherings that are not for academic credit and And I think about these as being the unified sports, the intramural sports, the interscholastic athletics activities and on site gatherings and these are amazing opportunities for for students to gather together on their own interests. They opt. To these it fits strongly with the strategic strategic plan of connectedness. It is allowing for leadership opportunities for our students and I think it also surfaces gaps and needs where formalized academic.
Programs and innovations can happen. That's happening in esports. That's, you know, again, that might have been some sort of club before and now it's actually a chasse designated thing about the digital media experiences that we have at Air Academy about aviation and interest in aviation, right. So this helps us to surface formalize programs I think think faculty supervision is important if it's during school hours. And again, I think that's what we're talking about by these types of clubs and I think that the place there's a policy about placement process with
with sites don't have programs. That all makes sense to me. I I found that in board docs. So that makes sense to me I think if I had one comment and this is based upon upon a site conversation we had in this winter about things to change it's really about fees for these types of. To really reflect the reality and right now there is a schedule of fees or a price list for many different clubs and activities at the K through 12 level and I don't in our conversation at our our high school, we don't think it really reflects reality and we think that we talked about
it and came up with solutions for our site, but there needs to be better communication about additional funding requests that are beyond that price list, the district provided price list. We talked in our school, we talked about how to resolve this between the booster clubs, the parents, the club leaders. And it's all about communication and transparency an An example of this might be Marching Band and the fees actually required for marching band. OK, and that the if you think about the successful marching band programs, the what is required by a musician
musician or a somebody who's part of color guard is well beyond what that published fee is if we think about football and the Durango travel that our Kadets have to do this fall, that is well beyond what what that pet, that scheduled fee is for this year. And again, so that creates surprises. And again it has to do with challenges for fundraising needs within specific activities and clubs. And I think there just needs to be better communication and transparency. OK, Academy District 20 continues to review and improve overall security in our schools. What are your some
of your ideas related to school security and how we could could strengthen or improve security in our schools? Yeah, sure. Again, I know because I've been in this district for a number of years and as many of I chose to be part of this district the week of the Sandy Hook shooting. So again, security of young people has always been important for me in terms of the choices that I made long ago, I think we've invested a lot in physical plant
infrastructure. We think about our prior bond and what is it kind of changed. That's been very helpful. I think that you know what we've heard in presentations whether whether it's been here in the boardroom or at community, community groups like parent sounding board at the security presentations in 2024 and 2025. They show the outstanding job that our staff security team is doing, the SRO model I believe is super helpful about building relationships and building visibility about with our staff and our
students and perhaps with our parents about security and safety. And that needs to be continued and those positions need need to be filled if I think about improvements improvements, what's really interesting about our district is that we actually have 3 three different external public safety organizations that we have to coordinate with. On the Air Force Academy, we have security forces, right Students all know all about security forces up there. We also have the CSPD and we have the Sheriff's Office And if there was anything that I would suggest improving, and this is really
based upon my participation in groups about understanding county resources, there's a great program I encourage everyone to be part of called Citizen College in the fall and really understand our sheriff and. Our sheriff staffing model is such that the head count of about the number of people who are in the Sheriff's Office is that. The vast majority of them are working in the county jail and so there aren't a lot of patrols for sheriff's officers. There are not a lot of cars driving around and there aren't a lot of patrols on the northwest side of the county
county where our school sites are. I'm thinking about Sun Hills. I'm thinking about Black Forest. And so I would do anything I can encourage for a better head count in the Sheriff's Department to ensure that there's better patrols on the northwest side of the county and into Black Forest. And that's something that I would say that needs, that would need to happen. But really that's about sort of the what if the the hypothetical and when we need emergency responders with us the more frequent things when I think about school security and and school safety is about how we keep people safe from the
the other beings that are around them. And that's really about traffic and traffic patrol and also about wild animals. And again, you've heard more than you probably ever wanted to know about safety and wild animals from me, but that is an important thing. On my side of town and probably also in the Black Forest about how we keep our children safe from wild animals and also when people bring their pets to the school site, but traffic's also important. I remember having a great conversation with the leader of the CAPS program which is about the community oriented patrols and I'm like why aren't you guys up on old ranch Road and
And Powers you know you you're able to be out there doing volunteer work for a lot of different sites when there's a lot of ingress and egress and. Ingress and egress of different sites, different parking lots around the city. Why are they up there by Pine Creek? And again, those are things to think about. And again, they're open to those conversations. And that's what we should really be thinking about is better education and enforcement of traffic and also about animals. Thank you. Student achievement is a priority for D20. What is your understanding of student achievement in D20 and how
would you support our district to increase student achievement and growth? Yeah so the the word student achievement, I think how we define it in the district is academic excellence and it's a part of our strategic plan. And it's very clear sort of what's being measured in terms of success with academic excellence excellence at our district. This is about college and career readiness. This is about English language arts and this is about math competencies and it's about our special education
population. Not going to talk about college and career readiness, but on those other three, this is when we hear about that we have a lot of success already. We have so so many people meeting the benchmarks. We have so many close to meeting those benchmarks, and then we have some people who are further away from them. But we ultimately know when we talk to the professionals who are responsible for. For ensuring students do this, it's about hands on interactions, right? This is about building relationships with those students and understanding the barriers that they have
to not making that benchmark for English language arts arts, math or with the special education population. And again, there's only certain places that we're we're falling behind what we've defined, right? So we need to. Make sure that we've got enough financial resources for those hands on interactions as well as we need to if people people don't believe that we've got a lot of. Great student achievement or academic excellence? We need to communicate more about that greatness. And so those are two things I would say but really for hands on interaction, this is about ensuring there's enough funding and that's something that I feel very strongly about
about when I think about the places and the sources of funding for this district You know, there's three, there's three different levels, you know, 1 one is 1 is the federal level and that's full of a lot of uncertainty right and over over the next couple years we don't know what the federal government is going to think about for Title One funds and idea funds, we don't even know what it's going to do for DoD affiliated families and what's going to happen with that impact funds right so that that really for the most part that's going to affect our special education function function. So we need to think about where we can get those funds from elsewhere
If I think about the next six months, the state is not going to do anything to change that. Again, the budget, the School Finance Act is locked that's a January thing when the sessions back and we really really only have little things. Can advocate for tweaks we can tweak. We can advocate for tweaks for next year. But again, we're never going to be be advantage at the state level. We're not a rural school. We do not have a lot of English language learners. We don't have a lot of at-risk students in terms of free and reduced lunch And so we just have our special education population. So we need to make sure that
we're focused on them as well. And so if we can't really get anything, so all we can do to help us with state level funding is just ensure that. Everyone in terms of communication and an ease of process. That we have as many kids here on October 1st headcount day as we can, right? We need to be talking about the the greatness of this district. We need to be talking about how we're going to be supporting special education students. We need to be talking about that it's easy if you just just show up and sign a lease on August 1st that we've got a place for you in your neighborhood school and you know those are the
the things that we can do to get our state our share of of state funding. But we can't affect the formula. The other thing we can can do at our financial level to make sure we're improving these hands on interactions. Is really at the local level communities communities can fund their own public education communities Communities do this in the state of Colorado if we think about Cheyenne Cheyenne Mountain, if we think about their what they do with things like mill levy overrides, they're 160 higher at a pure pupil level than we are. We think about Boulder Valley, who probably cares a lot about education given the university
population, they're 200% higher than we are at A at a PER people level in an MLO. And so my belief is that we're not using the Instrument that the state of Colorado makes available to us to locally fund our own public education and we need to have a lot of conversations about that we need to educate the people who are property owners in this district to to understand that property owners are not the same as voters, right We know this as well. So many of our military families do not choose to register to vote in Colorado, but we need to educate our property
owners about community funds can fund their own public public education. I if I think about two months ago at parents sounding board, we had a wonderful conversation, a lot of creativity. About other ways to think about public local communities funding their own public education. Taking advantage of those funds. We know there's a lot of creativity about that. There are there are places in this state that use sales tax to fund public education. And why can't we be thinking about that for our five districts in the city? Why couldn't we be thinking about that for the 17 districts in this county
There are communities, mainly resort communities, because they have a lot of of tourists coming through who use their LART dollars to fund public. Education and support Public education. We are a resort community. We're not the same as Steamboat Springs, but we are a resort community and we need to be thinking about that as as well. Local funds for local public education. And ultimately, again, that's the thing that we need to think about And I think those are the ways that we can think about increasing hands on interactions to make sure that we're achieving student
achievement. D20 is a policy governance district. What is your understanding of policy governance and the importance of the board ends what role would you as a as a Board of Education member, take in accomplishing these ends? So again, it's a policy governance district, right? So my goal as a board member is to make sure the Superintendent and everyone that is sort of part of that organization. That they're working on these ends. Right. And so that it's very clear it's and that they're clearly communicating how we're doing, how we're doing in terms
of the knowledge and skills and the character and what and that's ultimately what we need to do is sort of hold the Superintendent accountable about that I I think that there used to be and again, I get confused now with the changes in board policy. I think there used to be a regular cadence to doing this and I don't know if it needs to end then it changed to sort of we'll do it on an ad hoc basis and I just don't know sort of. Coming up over the next six months to make sure that the Superintendent is communicating on these
board ends to us again like we sometimes they're talked about at an earlier point in time but but I do know that really over the next six months we're going to get get a great report on the student experience study and it's going to give us a great understanding from people who are parents and people who are students and I think staff as well about sort of how we're doing on the character measures as as well as how we're doing on the. Of a graduate measures and we're going to kind of understand some aspects of that and I don't know if in the next
6 months that we would understand if there are any gaps or any action items the Superintendent seems seems in those character aspects so. The global end statement identifies knowledge skills and character as priorities across the district. How will you support the district's continued work with character education? Yeah, I, you know, I think we've in the district, we've come up with the notion of. Encouraging a vision for success of our students through the portrait of a graduate and I would encourage the
portrait of a graduate work again, it was sort of defined and and it's being rolled out about what it is and what it means. At different levels of students ability to understand it and I think that just needs to continue to roll that out to all the relevant populations. For example, I I don't know what portrait of a graduate means to the preschool population. Again, for the kids lucky enough to go to preschool here in D20 I don't know if we're going to get down to that level of communicating that to those parents or to those students. But again, that's part of that rollout right now, we're focused
re focused on the high school students and the high school staff so. I also I do and I also add to that there was an an interesting conversation in this boardroom. It's it started and then again it was as an auditory person who doesn't get a transcript of the board meeting it It wasn't clear sort of where it ended, but there was this desire again Again, we're getting data from the student experience study about portrait of graduate dimensions as well as character measures. We're getting both of those right now in this next this 20 2025. Measure of this. It's going to be interesting to see if that is going to
be helpful for that cross mapping that's desired in some way, sort of character measures and portrait of A graduate measures. I do think again when we. This is a the portrait of a graduate work is an amazing depth of thought and collaboration from across the community about sort of what it's going to take for somebody to be successful in 20-30 right as they transition transition out of the district, right. This is about the future. It's future oriented and I I do think that perhaps one thing that could be achievable in the next
six months after we're getting this data from the student experience experience study, after we've done that cross mapping of the portrait of A graduate and these character measures. Is really to revisit the character ends that are part of the board or part of those ends in the board policy because last time they were revisited was 2012 And so again if we sort of think about what we're actually doing to to prepare people for the future, to prepare them to transition to the next stage, it may well be that one thing this this board could really, this board in the next 6 months could really help
help with is defining a better set of ends that are really related to Portrait of a Graduate. All right, Thank you. How will you work to build trust and confidence among all stakeholders in Academy District 20? Give an example of how you have created this type of culture in another setting. So there are a lot of stakeholders in Academy District 20. It's an awful lot, right? There's our funders who are property owners, right? And I don't even know how many of those there are there. There's probably 60,000 of them, right There are. And so they get, they are
somebody who is part of our stakeholders. We've got voters, we've got 95 000 voters. We've got 26,000 students, which probably means 40 000 parents and not all of them even live in this district. We've got staff who who don't live in our district, right? So there's a lot of different groups of people, so. Have ever have I ever tried to build trust and confidence at the level of a 200 000 person organization? I haven't but I have for 100 100,000 person organization right And this was about sort of a rebranding exercise that that I did with them and really sort of working through sort of
what their brand for the future was going to be about. And it ultimately was about sort of having everybody internalized what that brand meant to them what that brand meant to their function and division and their part of the world And so again, that's about communication and that's about not just communication out of one way. But dialogue both ways, right? And so the idea here is if you're trying to change culture in some way, like again, it has to be about two way communication and know it's not, it's not just about me, it's about we, it's about a whole
group of people and sort of thinking about that so. I build trust and confidence in the small groups of people that I work with, the teams that I work with, but by showing up by doing the work. And so again, if that's what your question is, that's totally fine 200,000 people that That ain't my gift, right? But thinking through what it could do to sort of change around 100,000 employees at a one of the most successful companies in the world. I I've thought about that before. Thank you. What role do charter schools play within the public school system? What would your stance be as a board of
Education member regarding support of charter schools Charter schools get their fund. Charter schools in Colorado get their funding from the D20 district based upon their per pupil count on October 1st. And so I would just want to make sure to ensure that they have the funds that they're promised. And again I would say that I would want to ensure that if any applications came up in the next 6 months that the DAC. Has adequate time and briefing to adequately review applications. I don't
think the DAX reviewed applications in a long time, but again, just to make sure that they've got the time and space and resources so that they can do that. Give an example of how you have built strong community partnerships in your past and the actions you would take as a board member to connect with community partners in District 20. OK, so building community partners OK, so when I started speaking at board meetings five years ago, I was not confident that the the discussion or commentary understood the impact of decisions on our amazing set of Westside educators
on our aging school sites or on the children or adults in our community. And so I spoke up, right? So that was something that was important for me to do. And as part of that it also led to me being involved with different, different community groups in a way that I hadn't before. So I had been on a SAC at an element at the elementary school at Woodman Roberts, but with site based management I find school school accountability committees, Sacs to be amazing and being part of the and now Co leading the sack for air
Academy high school really crystallized for me the the unique needs of its facility. And to me, it was important to elevate the need for facility funds that a site based budget cannot accommodate. It's not just a few $1000 that were required to make to keep that facility up there, but it was a few $1,000,000 that were needed and I'm really proud of of the conversations that we initiated back in 2022 and 2023 amongst engaged alumni, parents and staff. You know, we
were doing this a long time ago and in and I was really proud of again, not just those conversations happening then but those then connecting to the group of committed. From across the district that came together in June and July of 2024 to get ultimately what was called 4B passed it did that you know for air Academy high School and also for other schools to address their physical facility deficiencies but this required building partnerships across the feeder strand strand across the school parents that you know that I had interacted
with only a little bit and really to get them involved and get get who else they think is going to be involved it in it required us to have convers. And professional conversations and the broader business community for them to support Academy District 20 and the goals that we're going to be required to change around what the facility site was allowed to be by the PISMIP grant. So that, you know, that was something was also going on there and it required conversations into our neighborhoods right into the neighborhoods on my side of town and the
town and the HOA. And it required bringing together lots of different people to get that information really proud of those types of community partnerships. And again, if I think about what actions would I take as a board member to connect with community partners, well, I'd like to really communicate wider about local school funding and how we can do this local school funding, thinking about different ways to make this happen, whether again is at our district level, if it's at the city level, if it's at the county level, but really sort of being a being a part of thinking about local school funding because again.
We're not going to be our school district of the 170 school districts in the state is not going to be advantage by any school funding formula. We're just not. OK. And so we need to think about the sophisticated financial measures that we can take into place so that we people understand local school funding. So that that's sort of what I would want to be a part of. OK. This is the last question. Miss Judas, are there, is there anything else that you would like to share that we did not ask or do you have any questions for us? I think I both hopefully
that's OK. So it's not or hopefully it's an and so again our so first of all to share with with you again as our family is finishing up our 12th year in the district district this week, my husband and I have been happy to educate our kids and our neighborhood West Side Academy District 20 schools schools. We've tried to participate in the school committee community. As much as our work commitments would allow, which probably makes me no different than any other current parent or guardian my My application outlines the way I've assisted over the past 12 years. My
children's teachers know the way I participate in my children's education. My children's administrators and staff know how they can get me involved in the ways that I'm comfortable participating effectively. I've never had a problem participating in my school in the schools where my children attended, but my schedule was never gonna allow me to make a good DAC representative for any site that my schedule wasn't wasn't gonna ever allow for that. But I can reshelve library books with the best of them. So those are the things. These are the different ways that I participate the
The reason I get involved at board meetings is because our side of town, which really is about probably 300,000 people, it really has unique needs when it comes to our neighborhood public public schools And this is across District 20 and District 11. It's very blended blended up there. And that's probably what the four of you on the board know me best for. I'm talking about the safety needs, which are unique for me and my. In our community, in at our school sites So again, I'm a person who day to day I walk the streets of my neighborhood, I walk my kids to school with
very misbehaving dog I park at the bus stop and drive a kid home for that last hot and and uphill half mile. I sit in kiss-and-go parking lots. I wait in line at the South gate getting access to the Academy. I'm there at these school sites so those So those are things that you know that I think make me. Kind of unique and I didn't get a chance to cover in anything else. The again, I was hoping that this could really be a dialogue about a few things. And so I guess my question really is did you want to hear from me about I
I outlined what would, what I had as 3 priorities, 3 top priorities on my application about what could be achievable in the next 6 months. I don't know if you have any questions for me about any of those or did you want to hear any different different ideas about what I think could be achievable in the next 6 months as I've had time to reflect on this, I've got a couple other ideas as well. So that's my question to you have about 5 minutes left. So I think you can share what you would like to and the rest of that 5 minutes, yeah, sure, no problem. OK, so again as I think about a couple things over the next six months, again obviously in my application, I'm just gonna say this quickly
for people who didn't have the chance to read the application is again, I think we just need to continue to make sure that all of our capital projects and what's going on with the 2025 2025 bond issuance in the next few months. Are communicated well about sort of what we're doing to make those improvements quickly and safely and not interrupt learning. We need to talk about the great academic excellence we have in this district and to clear up any misperceptions about that. And then also again I'd love to get alignment with fellow board members and the ASD 20
administration on local funding sources to ensure that you know over over the next three to five years we have the funding we need for that, those hands on experiences to close the other academic excellence gaps, the other things I think about really related to a couple of things which I think are fairly fairly achievable in. Time frame is 1 is purple star schools We need to make sure that we're getting all of the purpose dollar applications that are going in completed and get those that recognition out there that's so important for military
military families who are coming in and it's so important to have on site resources as well for those military families. The second thing I can think about again is this is an auditory method of communication in this boardroom and I was over at the library, I'm over there quite often and there's a parliamentarian in El Paso County who's willing to provide. Their services and it would be great for this board to think about using the Parliament, parliamentarian to get a couple of our questions answered and how we can be more effective in auditory communications the The implications of that, I really want to make it clear, is if I'm in the back
of the room here and I don't hear something, I can't get the recording until Monday right And so I don't know what the decision actually is or the nature of the the conversation is until five days later, right? So that's kind of weird And so it would be better to sort of clearly communicate things auditorially. Right away, right. So that would be useful there and And so that's something to think about is whether a parliamentarian could help us with that. I do think that in the fall as we we're gonna hear about ballot initiatives coming up things for voters to vote yes or no about and
And I think we need to educate our community about the vulnerabilities related to free breakfast and free lunch. Again, this district stands to lose a lot depending on different different ways that I think there's gonna be two measures and based upon one of them, this district stands to lose a lot. Again, we're not advantage in terms of a lot of the formulas. That go when there's only limited resources for free breakfast and free lunch. OK so to make that really clear for example is I think there's going to be a ballot initiative that says will you fund free school lunch or not and if they if people
vote no, our district's not going to get any money for free school lunch, right It's going to go to districts which are rural. It's going to go to districts which have English language learners, which have a larger at risk population If that limited, there's only a limited amount of funds, then it's not going to come to us So again, we may need to educate people about the vulnerabilities about that and. Means also for changes in processes whenever those funds run out, if that's the 2026 school year or if that's January 1st, 2026. So those are a couple things I can think about that are very
achievable in the next 6 months that I did not bring up earlier. Very good. Thank you, so very much, Ms. Czukas. Appreciate your time and your input and have a good rest of your night. We will take a 5-minute break and start at 6:15 as scheduled for Mr. Beckman. All right. Thank you so much, Mr Beckman, for being here. Appreciate your time and energy into all of this How we've been rolling is we take turns with questions. I'll start to to my right with Director Konz, Yanez, then
Wilburn, back to me and around and around we go. So with that, we'll start with Director Konz. All right, welcome. Why are you interested in being a D 20 board member? What experiences do you have that would make you you the best candidate for a board member position? First off, board, thank you for the opportunity to interview with you tonight. First off, the reason I would like to be a member of the District 20 Board of Directors is number 1 to serve our community. District 20 has been good good to me. District 20 has been good to my family. District 20 has been good to my children and I would like to pay it forward with what I
I can offer through a unique perspective for District 20, so the number one reason why I'd like to serve on this is to serve our community I'd like to ensure that all students have access to the world class education that they move to Academy District 20 to get. And that it opens the doors of opportunity for the best possible outcome for them while they're here in our care. Also, I'd like to continue the tradition of financial responsibility that the district has had as long as it's been around by using district resources well And then I'd like to assist our parents in raising the leaders of character for tomorrow. As every parent knows, it's a challenging time to raise kids, certainly none
of us go back and wish we would have been raised now. We're glad we were born earlier, but helping the district to raise our children and helping our children, helping our parents to be raised in this challenging time, I think is something I can let offer a different lens through. And to answer the second part, the reason why I think I would be the best candidate for it is the different lenses I can provide to the board. Number one, I'm a current parent. As you can see, I have my 6th grade grade daughter, my 8th grade son with me who only know District 20. It's the only school district they've ever attended and we chose to put up our roots here in
District 20 about a year after we moved to Colorado Springs because we wanted the type of schools that District 20 offered for us. Number 2 I'm a current teacher. I teach in the classroom every day. I have 20 years. Distinguished teaching in the classroom. Little different role now than I've had in the past, but I'm able to let lend that lens of a teacher that I think I'll be able to bring up in a couple questions that'll come out today also to be be able to work with data. I'm a math person, sometimes my wife jokes that my love language is excel. I can lend that as the district or as the board of directors has wanted to
move more into data driven decisions. I think I can lend that lens to it Currently, I work at an institution that's incredibly data driven driven. Every single question, every single student, every single outcome. Driven by data. In fact, all day today, we're really just talking about the data from our previous school year that we had and I think I can add that perspective in that lens while being good at explaining the math and not making it too complicated for everybody in the audience, whether that be people attending the board or people who are not in education to to be able to understand what these acronyms in education
Mean. second or also a track record of our financial financial responsibility. As you can see from my resume, I've had many opportunities to serve as a a treasurer. I've also served on the board of directors of our metropolitan district. I have extreme responsibilities and also experience in reviewing financial reports. In fact, oftentimes my wife would joke with me that there's ink on my hands because I've been going through reports all night on finances and I'm really good at asking the right questions to help get the lens of like what we can do to optimize outcomes in addition addition to that, I have the advantage of having working experience in District 20
having been a teacher in the district for 11 years from the classroom to help out on the mill levy override campaign in 2023. 2 even speaking with board members here in this room on occasions. And lastly, I'm a speech and debate coach. I have I've taught many people how to use Robert's Rules of Order. For years I was the state congressional chair. In fact, I was the first chair of congressional debate for the state of Colorado when they brought that event back. So I offer a variety of of different lenses that I think other people just don't bring to the table that could help our board meet our board ends. How would you describe the ideal relationship between the board and the
Superintendent? Absolutely. Number one is positive and and research even shows when the Superintendent and the board of directors have a positive relationship, it leads to better student outcomes and better academic results. University of Connecticut, 20 2015. So the first thing is a positive relationship that we're on the same team. We're working together to address the challenges that we're going to face as a district because let's be honest, we do have several challenges in District 20. We are one of the lowest funded and sometimes even the lowest. Funded district in the entire state, so we have to have a
positive relationship with our Superintendent to address the challenges that we as a district have #2 and this one you get for free because it's clearly defined rules. We already have that in board policy that's been refined and revised over years and years and years of clearly defined roles of what is the superintendent's job, what is the Superintendent responsible for and what are we as board members responsible for. So #2 is a clearly defined roles allows both groups to experience. Success because they know what exactly their
their expectations are #3 would be a shared vision where do do we want to go and how are we going to get there? That's crucial that the board and the Superintendent have that same vision of where they want the district to go #4 abundant and timely communication that is prioritized because many times things comes up or there's a there's a change in a budget situation or something happened that morning. A Superintendent that has great communication with the board of directors that gives them that timely communication and abundance so they can process and bring their expertise to the table. To allow the board to lend their lens on how should we address
this or how should we move forward with this? And then lastly an honest, being honest about the challenges and opportunities that are facing our district. And let's be honest, we have funding challenges. We are sometimes not even given a raise from the state of Colorado equivalent to what parents are going to ask more from us that year so being So being honest about what the challenges are that our district's facing what the Superintendent Superintendent and the board see so they can have that clear communication and the opportunities that are coming up. Here are things we see that we can do it in the future in District 20, having that honest
and clear communication about both the challenges, the opportunity would be an ideal relationship between the board and the Superintendent. So to summarize a positive relationship, clearly defined roles, a shared vision abundant and timely communication and honesty about the challenges and opportunities facing Academy District 20. You done writing? Yeah, OK Thank you again, Mr. Beckman and all of the candidates for putting on in the time it took to get yours as far as as you are question #3 is a hypothetical. This is a scenario
a parent sees you in a grocery store and tells you about an incident where their child was bullied at school. What response? What What would be your response or action? This isn't a scenario after 11 years of working in the district and choosing to buy a house in the attendance area of the school that I worked at. King Soopers and parent teacher conferences were literally the same location for some parents in the district. So I have a lot of experience with this and my wife can tell you many times they what should have been a milk trip and taken 5 minutes was a 45 minute
conversation because a couple parents happen to grab me while I was there The number one thing is expressing the humanity I'm sorry this is happening to to your child. This is not what we expect in Academy district 20. Just because they're a person's on the board doesn't mean they lose their their humanity. They need to do the right and the just thing. Parent and say I'm sorry that's happening because number one that gives gives you the credibility for that parent to listen to you, that you understand the situation situation they're in. So #2 I'm glad that your child trusted that information with you
Anybody who has children in this age will know that it's hard for kids to tell their parents about their shortcomings that, you know, every day is supposed supposed to be about what great things happen. The a you got on that test, the goal you scored in hockey, the solo you got got in band. It's hard to come home and talk about those imperfections. World that's dominated by social media perfection so I'm m really glad that your child had that trust relationship with you that they were comfortable telling you that. And sometimes parents need to hear that so they hear that there was a positive and a negative
number two that now we need to talk about what we need to do going forward have Have you have you set up a meeting to talk to your school administration about the issue effective Effective communication in this world right now comes down to relationships while it's easy to send a text message it's easy to. Unsafe to tell, it's easy to send an email. It's far more effective to start that relationship with that administrator that's over your school's, that over your child's school, just here so they can hear what's going on and they can start that trust relationship with
you. So have you emailed your school's administration? Because not only is that policy like that's what we do in District 20, that's also just the right thing to do because that's where the solution to this situation is going to happen at. It's not going to happen at a a board meeting. It's going to happen at that school. And then one of the cool things you can do is carry around something that has your business card in it that just say, hey, shoot me an email and I'll then follow up with me and let me know what happened. Let me know what the result was. Because 99 times out of 100 just that conversation with that building administrator resolves the issue
cause there's something going on that administrator wasn't aware of or there's an inappropriate relationship that's going on between a student and another student. But 99 times out of 100, it does. And the one time out of 100, it doesn't. That you as the board member could then say, well, here is that. Of command that is the next person that you would need to talk to. But certainly I have no illusions that joining joining the Board of Education is going to have me changing student schedules as soon as it was announced to the finalist was my phone blew up with messages of will you get my kid on the hockey team? Is it possible that DCC is finally going
to get that hockey team they always wanted? When is the district going to build a hockey rink? I want the pilot program at Rampart, not Air Academy that are just not roles that the board has in in our governance structure. That's delegated to the Superintendent and the Superintendent delegates that to administration of the school. So just letting them know what that chain of command is in District 20 and that you're gonna follow up to see, make sure that was resolved, that's how it approached that scenario. Thank you, Mr Beckman. Tell us about a time when you were on a high functioning team and how you contributed to their success as a member
member on this team. Absolutely. One time I was on a high functioning team as I was working at Discovery Canyon High School. I was in the math department and our data showed us that our freshmen were really struggling in mathematics and this was in 20 2019. So this is pre COVID just to give you the scenario we were in, our data showed that our freshmen were coming in well below grade level So we had to do something about it. So what I'm going to tell you about today is the systematic intervention program that we introduced for freshman math. Number one was we had positive relationships within the team that we had trust of each other. Mr. Brebock, Mr.
Meyer, Mr .Chimilleski, Mrs. Doctor Watkins, Mrs. Scholaski and Mrs. Bonfield. These were all first round draft pick teachers They were people that you would love for your child to be in any of their classes and when you have that scenario you already here set set up for success because you have people that have both the right training and the right heart. 2, we needed to clearly define like we got this problem. What are we going to do to accomplish it? So clearly defined goals of what we wanted to accomplish. From this system, then, we defined out who was in charge of what part. Like we had to write learning targets. What exactly do we want our kids
to learn? Because now it wasn't just going to be happening in our our classrooms. Our students and our interventions were going to be going back and forth between multiple teachers So everybody had to be on exactly the same page of like what did did learning target 4.3 mean? Just like what does administrative policy 4.3 mean in the district if we're not on on the same page, that's the end of the success for that group. 4 we researched, we looked at what other schools had done to solve that problem. We also looked at what our data had showed us of things we had done in the past #5
We had an admin team that believed in us. So those people above us which which went all the way to Mr Gregory, who's our Superintendent at the time, Doctor Fields, who was over our school. Doctor Bram Schreiber, who's our our assistant principal over us. But we had an admin team that when we presented the proposal they said, yeah, go for it, because they believed in what we were trying to do. And do and what we were trying to do for the students of District 20. So that high performing team was built on all those characteristics that were very intentional and very strategic at every part of the conversation. And really at the end of the day, that's what high functioning teams have. They have people that are very strategic about what
they want to accomplish and very intentional about how they're going to accomplish that What was to the second part of the question? What was my role on that team? I was the math department chair. So like I mentioned, I hired the right teachers that had the right hearts. Freshman math is a challenging thing to teach. And I had the right people in the right location number advocated for the resources, which were both time for us to accomplish these things that I talked about and FTE 'cause we had to have intervention teachers, MTSS teachers that could accomplish the the work of working with our students. I recruited the right students to
help others. And then just like I planned to do if I get to join the Board of Education, I set up the group for success. And I got out of the way. So I set up the policy of here's what we're going to do. And then I let people fly with with it. And just so. The results of that year we were number one in freshman math in the district and the the only time the DCC ever beat TCA in freshman math ever. Thank you. What would you do as a board member if the whole board votes and makes a decision
that you fundamentally disagree with, describe what your your follow up actions would entail. Well, 20 years of successful marriage and a lot of one one votes which don't feel a lot of different than 4/1 Has prepared me just to have a different point of view than other people have. Often times my financial responsibility and wanting to meet 401K goals interferes with my wife's Disney Princess dreams of hitting Disneyland and Disney World in one year. The overarching thing I want you to hear on this is not a
problem. This is part of being on a team you're going to to disagree with the people you work with regardless of the scenario just today the team I work on we were discussing if we want to require our college students to buy a physical. Book or if we're going to permit them to just rent the E textbook and it was a very it was very passionate conversation that ended up at the end of the day actually being a four one vote and I was was the one and that's OK, we move on so So number one, it's happened before. Like I mentioned in that I also was on the board of
directors of Morningview Metro district. We were we had an issue with some trees. The other board members voted for one. I listened to their perspective. I truly wanted to understand why they felt that that way and why they wanted to vote with that. I clearly articulated my position and why I was advocating for the other part, but after the vote it's key to support the decision outside of the room After that vote's been taken, that is the end of our work on that issue. We are moving on to other issues the district has and support the decision outside the room even if you disagree with
with it. Here's why my fellow board members voted in this way and and here's why they supported it. That's the direction the district's going moving on on to the next issue. But I do think there's strength and varying perspectives. That's something that my current job teaches over and over and over again is you don't want to have four people from the same career field. Making a decision you want to have people from from various career fields so they can take in the risk factors that this might offer or the strengths that this might offer from a varying perspective. So I don't think that that's a problem. I just want to give a time check you've
I think been about 16 minutes. We have 40 allotted and we're a third way through the question. What is your view of policy IJL 1 2 R and E regarding library books? What would you seek to change or keep the same? So I'm gonna go through those those item by item. So IJL which is large scale purchase openings from the district. This is where a lot of the book challenges that we have when you you go back to the root cause analysis of the program, like why was that book there or when was that book purchased? Is it was there a purchase of
when that school opened? And you could imagine the challenge 'cause we're gonna have this with with Douglas Valley. It's the first school Open in quite a while. Douglas Valley Middle School when you need to buy 15,000 books like nobody is going to sit down and and read 15,000 books in one calendar year and ensure that they're all appropriate in what we want. So number one, while this should not be a policy change, I think we're going to be very intentional and very strategic about how we we allocate resources to this because this is going to be the first school that we've opened it quite some time. So at the end of the day, that's where we need to be very intentional with it because that's where many of the books that have been challenged
originated in their purchase. IJL E #13 I was great that we added in that. They needed to read the entire material because many social media sites put out like a quote from the book or just a very small selection of the book that taken out of context sounded really bad. But even when you read the entire chapter, like it fit in the context of that chapter IJL R one which is I want to talk about the the family engagement opportunities. Huge kudos to our district tech team for getting that operational for this school year and kudos to the library team. 99% of
of our middle school parents filled that out. I mean it. The only thing that we've hit it up 100% is students registering to come to school. This is that 99%'s a huge bar. So kudos to both teams for getting that in and then then 95% of our parents agreed to allow their students full access to the YA, to the YA library. So at the end of the day, mission accomplished. Like that was very successful. We gave parents choice 95 95% of our parents made that choice. We gave them that opportunity. I don't see a need to change at this point. I just see a need to be very strategic with now a new school opening and those large book purchases.
What is your understanding of our policy related to clubs in schools and what would you desire to change or keep the same? And in answering this question, I believe believe this is referring to policy JJA. Clubs are where you find your people and we serve a military community that has students coming in and coming out all the time. It's very important that those students who may be going to their 4th, 5th, 4th, 5th school in their career, they find their people at their D20 school as fast as possible. So I do believe that we should have as many clubs as are
appropriate for our school. Both of my kids have enjoyed clubs from forensics to Stuco to Reading Club, some of the most passionate groups that I was teaching was the physics of Super Smash Brothers, which really is just a video game club, but they did spend time talking about the physics of the video games as they were going through. I led a club, it was a a curricular club. Curricular clubs are led by a teacher. The teacher provides guidance, the teacher provides direction as opposed to to JJA then created noncurricular clubs which there is a Teacher supervising, but only supervising
a student would actually lead that would actually be in charge of it the The only change I'd want to make is leadership training for kids on how to lead a club. That's a big ask for a kid like they're re passionate about the physics of Super Smash Brothers but leading that being the person in charge of direction I I just think we need to provide students with guidance on how to do that. And Ms. Konz, can I ask for a time check again? Ms. Shandy, do you know exactly what time we started? I felt like it was a couple minutes before 6:15. Is that accurate? It was right at 6:15. So we have until seven, OK and it's 6:33 now. Yeah.
All right, Thank you. Academy District 20 continues to review and improve overall security in our schools. What are some of your ideas related to school security and how we could strengthen or improve security in our schools? Every parent in D20 if they get only one thing each day as their kids get home safe from school and and that means picking them up from the bus, dropping them off from the bus, they're safe but they're safe while they're at school. That is the number one priority of parents and that should be the number one concern of the district. I'm very proud of the district for prioritizing elementary education. That was a hard choice. That was a choice that the board and Superintendent made after the
MO did not pass. I'm very happy. But that occurred because Edith Wolford's a long ways from everywhere else. The school in the woods, which my daughter attended is a long way from everywhere else. Even though we we go to Woodman Roberts, that's not close to where some if if something terrible were to happen, there might be somebody prioritizing prioritizing. That was very important for us to communicate to our parents. That is our priority. I'm very careful with the word policy and and a lot of parents will use the word well, that's your policy, when really that's just a procedure or even it just might be a practice. When we look at the research on schools, that terrible
things have happened, there's been one overarching theme that continues to come up over and over again, and that's the person got in the room or the building or the school through a prop door and unlocked door or a door that there was a rock holding open. And I use the word policy especially on something that is so nuanced to this very carefully and very strategically. But I do think we need to add a policy that the Superintendent ensure that no outside door for any reason is ever propped open. To communicate to all levels contractors
that often are the ones that prop doors open inadvertently because they have to go all the way around to get back in the front of the building when really they just got to fix that one sprinkler head. But there be no doubt that this number one cause of the school security issues has no place in Academy District 20 and to communicate at all levels of District 20 that this this can never happen for any reason ever. Outside of that, the number one way to prevent these is continued relationships with students. Continued relationships of trust that students have continuing
to use Safe to Tell, which has been a great resource for many threats that we've had and I do think it is time to start starting to start to to consider the Evol Express system if you went to the Pepsi Center if you've been been to the Denver Performing Arts Center, if you've been to some large venue that you got in fairly quickly without like having to go through the metal detectors it It uses AI technology to detect weapons that are hidden somewhere in in somebody's body and somebody's bag in somebody's backpack We would definitely need to shut off the facial recognition software that is is a part. Of this program, but it's available for that option's available
for it, but that's the how the Pepsi Center allows somebody famous to come in and for the crowds to get through fairly quickly or the Avalanche game. It allows you to get through fairly quickly because it's using technology to analyze that obviously this is not cheap but we we have great grant writers in D20 and we have a community that I feel feel is very supportive of keeping our kids safe. I think it's time to start looking at that technology to improve our safety in schools in addition to that policy change that we just be unbelievably clear. That there's no reason to ever leave a door propped open because that as what research continues to show, is the root cause analysis
of how these people get in our buildings. Student achievement is a priority for D20. What is your understanding of student achievement in D20 and how would you support our district to increase student achievement and growth? I was a teacher in the district for 11 years, so I'm very familiar with student achievement in the district, especially in regards to math, which is what I taught. Academy District 20 has been accredited with distinction for 16 consecutive years by the State of Colorado. It's something we're incredibly proud of and obviously we want to keep going. However, there's room for growth, especially in the area of math, and I want to talk about, we'll refocus that, I think
need in the district. Boeing, we all know we we all know the struggles that they've had lately putting, putting the safe airplanes in the air and having the confidence of the the consumer. Boeing back in the 1990s was strictly an engineering company ran by engineers to engineer the best best planes and people. Pay top dollar for the best planes because they were the best plan, safest plane in the air and you knew you'd see stickers Like if it's not a Boeing, I'm not going because Boeing had done such a good job engineering. They've been so laser focused on
the 1 success criteria they had and I think we need to to refocus that in District 20 by prioritizing the classroom Shmokers said in his book, Focus, we are going to focus on on what the immediate and dramatic impact we can have on learning and there is one attribute that has a two to three times effect size. Than any other measure and it is having a highly effective teacher in front of that classroom. It is far more effective than any other measure that any district or any building can take and reprioritizing that
we want to draft in the first round when it comes to getting our staff in our buildings. So I do want to clarify a technicality real quick. Highly qualified is like the state minimum for a teacher like now you count as a teacher for our our district towards that highly qualified number. There are a variety of ways to get it, but kind of think of it. Pilot that just graduated pilot school like they meet the bare minimums or a surgeon who just graduated graduated from medical school. Are they legally able to operate on you? Absolutely. Are they legally able to fly a a 747? Absolutely. If you see that at the front of the cockpit
you looking for the next flight probably if you see that if see that, if you heard your surgeon just graduated yesterday, are you letting them take the knife under you? Probably not. You're probably seeing what other hospitals are covered by your insurance while you're running out the door. A highly effective teacher is a teacher that changes lives. A highly effective teacher is a teacher that has mastered their craft. That's what makes the difference to the classroom. That's why people move to Academy district 20. It's why they pay $200,000 more for a house than they could buy in District 49 or District 11. We
need to return to that being the laser focus of our district. Becky mentioned a number at the last board meeting of Four Point million in savings from jobs that had never been filled just. So you're aware what that means for students at roughly figuring each employee's total compensation cost of the district is 100 $100,000, that's 3.5 million instructional minutes. We need those 3.5 million instructional minutes to have a highly effective teacher in front of in front of that classroom. And excellence attracts parents when parents go to a
a building like for Choice Night, what they're looking for is that aura of excellence that their students going to be somewhere that's going to take them to where they want to go. So as we look at the challenges of declining enrollment, putting that prioritization on the classroom, being laser focused on that classroom is how we increase student growth and achievement And then also we clearly articulate down to the classroom level the specific goals we want to achieve because even when I was in the district, many of our goals were we're going to get better at math. Well, when I talked to my team, we're going to get better. Well, where are we going to get better? How
much better? Like even just giving the goals to to the level of specificity makes it far more likely that you're going to achieve it. Smokers said. What gets measured and clearly defined is what gets done, and that's a defining attribute to how I would approach increasing academic growth and achievement in our district. D20 is a policy governance district. What is your understanding of policy governance and the importance of the board ends? What role would you as a Board of Education member, take in accomplishing these ends? When I started learning to drive, I kept going off the road and
I was lucky that my grandpa was teaching me how to drive and I was a very very immature driver. And in South Dakota, where I grew up, you get to, you get a a full driver's license at 14 years old, and we're not talking like you can't drive your friends, you can't drive after hours. Like, go get them, Tiger 14 years old. Please don't wreck when I was starting to learn how to drive though though, I kept. I kept making these little mistakes 'cause I kept looking like right there, right to my left, right to my right, and finally my grandpa said, stop the car, pull it over. He said you gotta look down the road you you gotta look at the horizon, you gotta look what's coming when
you're starting leadership, you're looking at these little things around you know, what assignment are we gonna give tomorrow? What's the budget gonna be be for that? Well, policy governance is looking down the road. You're solving the long term issues of the district. You're You're making minor adjustments. So that the challenge is 3 to five years from now there's policy to address them when they come So policy governs is setting that long term goal, not those short term nuances like that parent that you mentioned earlier in the nuance one. Those issues are
just not what the board deals with. The board deals with these very high level issues and your legacy on the board is policy policy. I believe one of you said that at the intro meeting a couple weeks ago. So we want to be laser focused on those board ends because those are the outcomes of what we want our children to do and And the policy governance again is looking down the road. So it's taking the look at the risks of three to five years. So we're not looking like what math test we're going to give next week. We're looking at like what does the risk of declining enrollment come for three to five years down the road.
That next board would already have that policy in place before the issue comes to them, so for example, one one of my understanding of policy governance that we want to do is we want to say like we are going to decline enrollment our Our demographer says we're going to decline enrollment people are having fewer children so at at some point there would be a challenge of what schools are we going to have stay open in our district and we want to have that conversation now and put those policies in place now so that those people people three to five years from now down the horizon down the road. Already have that in place to make those decisions when
that policy challenge comes up if we wait until that that issue's right in front of us, then it's going to be so impassioned. Like what, Denver dealing with right now, which really shows a board failure to to see what their role is in the conversation it's to to set really that next board up so the policies in place the challenges of today have already been dealt with especially because then they're they're dealt with in that rational mode as opposed to to like that immediate mode when it's right in front of you. What role would I take in that number one like I I said, making sure that we're looking to the long term, not the immediate issue of
of the day that we're not looking at like why did that school have poor performance on a certain issue, but we're looking down the road to what are the challenges that we're just just starting to see and what policy might we want to have in place for that challenge so that next board set up for success with that. All right, this is question #11 I think we're going to make it The global end statement identifies knowledge, skills and characters and character as priorities across our district. How will you support support the district's continued work with character education? And this is where
I think I can go back to that first question. What's the lens I can bring to the board that that somebody else may not be able to? When I learned how to be a teacher, I went to the University of Minnesota because I was changing to from a math major to now being a teacher. I got hundreds of hours of math I've taken so many math classes. Is it the advanced calculus and I could prove every theorem you've ever talked about in calc? And then I got hundreds of hours of how to teach math and I got 0 seconds of how to teach character the only only reference point I had is an educator of how to teach characters after After I became a dad myself and now I was dealing with the challenges of
how am I going to raise my kids with characters that me and my or characteristics and character than me and my wife want to instill in our children. So one of the things that I think I could lend to the board is I hear you when you say we want to do this. Teachers need trained on how to. There's not a character building class that they take in college. To prepare them for how to do that and there are experts on it and that's why I again go back to we want to draft in the 1st first round. When you see that teacher that's got that whole package, they're a a great teacher in their subject area. They're masters of relationships with kids and when they see their students not going down the path that
that they would want them to and making a mistake lying or cheating or not doing what would be appropriate that they're they're confident of having that conversation with the student and redirecting that conversation. And those master teachers are really hard to find. And as a department chair, it feels criminal when they tell you, no, I don't want to work here or no, I can get paid $5000 more somewhere else 'cause that marginal difference of their ability to change the direction of those kids is worth $5000 every day of the week. So going back to the question, number one is provide training
on how teachers, especially new teachers, 'cause we get so many teachers now that are coming out of the lens of an alternative license like they got no training on on how to be a teacher. They just have content from when they went to college. So they're trying to balance of how do I balance this job? How do I get kids to understand this content? And then we also want them to have character teaching moments with those children they're going to need need training on that. We're going to need to bring people in that have that as I I mentioned, drafting in the first round is vital because that whole package is really hard to find and very rare to have. Think of the teachers that
made a difference in your life that had that whole package that could combine to you. That's not every teacher's classroom you walk into into. That's the teachers that have gotten the content down, the mastery down. The learning down, they are truly masters of this art and then an aura or sorry an expect a level of high expectations clearly communicated across the district Character is learned in an environment that there is a lot expected out of you when there are low expectations and President Bush talked about the the bigotry of low expectations when the No Child Left Behind movement started like we can't teach you character if we're not
expecting you to do something that you didn't even think you were quite capable of yet. But that's those master teachers have as that ability to do that. And then we as board members also have to model that expectation at our meetings we have have to have high expectations of everybody who works for our district. That's how we that's how I would support the board ends of character education. Very good. Thank you. How Will you work to build trust and confidence among all stakeholders and Academy District 20, give an example of how you have created this type of culture in another setting. Absolutely. And the answer is
is listening. We can disagree, but I will be glad to listen to you out In fact, several people in the district know because I've sat on the other side of the table. Disagreed to give an example when at at DCC last year when I was teaching teaching math, I was the department chair of the classroom next to me had four different teachers and I live next to to these people. I know them because they know my son, they know my daughter they work with my wife, they're friends with our kids and yet they're truly disagreeing of why does my kids why did my kids teacher quit? Why do does kid not had a teacher this year and I'm the face of the department of
department of mathematics at this school. So number one is listening like hearing out out just like I talked about that parent at the grocery store part of it is. And say I'm glad you have high expectations for us us. I'm glad that you expect us to deliver a great teacher in front of your student. And then #2 reassuring them that while we may disagree on this, I will work as hard as I can. And nobody will outwork me on learning everything about this issue I can can. I mean, you can see the binder I brought today. You can see the outlines I have for all the questions. Often times I get made fun of it my
house for over preparing for things. I will not get out worked. I will not. I will learn everything I can about the scenario so I can bring all that knowledge to the table. So having the confidence that we may disagree, but I will learn everything about this issue I can and then I will listen to I will will hear you out even in just the two weeks since finalists were announced, many people managed to find my cell phone number email address and wanted to talk. And many of them had a very specific issue that they want dealt with in the District and 1st I listened. I said what do you want to talk about? What's the issue I did explain to
to them like Board of Education is working at this level and here's how how you get a hold of the people that you're building that can make the change that you're that you're looking for. But first I heard him out and then I said I'll look into that too. And and I'll make sure that administrator follows up with you. Thank you, Mr Beckman. We have 10 minutes, last three questions. What role do charter schools play within the public school system? What would your stance be as a Board of Education member regarding support of charter schools? Yeah, charter schools are a part of the culture of choice that exists both in
District 20 and largely throughout Colorado. Colorado has these outliers that when you try to paint Colorado with a certain brush you always have to say, but my Colorado is this way. But they're very fiscally fiscally conservative. Colorado is this way, but. Colorado greatly value school choice and charters are another another choice In fact, many, many, many, many times I've been asked to get involved in a a math science charter school that people want to start in the district That's another choice that they might have in the district, but charters are another choice. District 20 is a tradition of support that I would want our district to continue for our charter schools
That's based on the percentage of District 20 taxpayers, students that attend those schools. We would want to continue doing that My kids have greatly enjoyed school choice from going to DCCA school I was working. The time to my daughter attending school in the woods school choice is part of our character of who we are as a district but with with all of our schools, we also have to make sure that high expectations for both academics and financial are met. Give an example of how you have built strong community partnerships in your past and the actions you would take as a board member to connect with community partners in District 20. So this one I'm going to take
take the last part first. The last, the second part is how would you do that? Listening, making relationships with people, hearing their concerns about our district and knowing that I'll take action while while I'm in the boardroom. An example is when I moved to Colorado, I got an offer to teach in several districts in town and and I was shocked at just how much lower teachers were paid than they were in Washington state. Then luckily I was taken aside by a principal named Jim Bailey, who is at DCC at the time. He spent 1/2 an hour talking to me about the tax structure at Colorado and why very few dollars find
their way down to students. And one of them would he was talking about was property tax values. Then I got my first property tax statement in the mail which was triple what we were paying in Washington IN in addition to in Colorado we pay income tax and I'm like what are are you talking about? Low tax? But as we as a district also need to inform half of my my property tax bill goes to a metropolitan district. Which I knew absolutely nothing about. I called my realtor, she knew absolutely nothing about. I stopped by the realtor that sold me the brand new construction house that we bought and she said I have no idea what
that is and I said well why is it half of my property tax bill then? So I had to dig into what is a a metropolitan district? Why are they allowed to tax me this much? Why is so many of my tax dollars going to this metropolitan district which really at the end of the day ends up being reimbursing the developer for cost that they had of developing my neighborhood. However, I needed to know more about this 'cause if it's half of my property tax bill, which is less than half of what the schools get, like why is there so many tax dollars going to this? And as you'll find out, very few metropolitan districts of
resident controls. My neighborhood has one of them. In fact, we have the second in El Paso County morning Butte Metropolitan District, that is now fully resident controlled. I did not intend for this to become a community outreach, but as we figured out the the challenges of that and other. Other people who lived in metro districts got a hold of us. It ended up being this community of support that we shared resources and shared information about what a metropolitan district is. How you can take your metropolitan district and have residents in charge of it instead of developers in charge of
it. And how you can make that district more financially responsible because at the end of the day, you're the one paying the bill. So that ended up being an experience where I shared resources, made community connections actually met several people that I ended up having their kids in class. So we actually had met on a financial level before we even met on an academic level, But that's the kind of support of sharing resources that develops relationships in the community that develop trust in our district. And that's what I would intend to do as a member of the Board of Directors here as well. Good. OK, Mr. Beckman, last questions, a little more open-ended. Is there anything else
that you would like for, like to share with us that we did not ask And is do you have any questions for us? Sure Number one, I want you to know I will work incredibly hard to understand and prepare and learn about the issues that we face as a district. My kids attend here. I I live here, I've worked here. We've had deep roots in Academy District 20. I greatly care about our students their outcome, and I will work as hard as I can. To prepare to be the best possible board member, I will ask the questions to ensure that we have the best outcome
for our students as a member of the Board of Education, as a board member of Morning View. That's one of the things I learned is a lot of it is just asking questions of what why did we make that decision? Help me understand how this decision was was made. Why is our income going down when it seems like our income should be going up? I will ask the questions to ensure we get the the absolute best outcome for our students because largely in a policy. Model, that's what we do and we do that so our communities also inform like here are the challenges that are in front of our district. In addition, I have that long term vision I greatly thought just
preparing for today. What are the challenges that this board during these next six months can take on to ensure the next board that's elected in November and the board after that are set up for success with the right policies and I I do think one of the challenges we have is preparing for environment of decreasing enrollment. As excellent as we can be as a district, people are just having fewer kids and there will be a time and a conversation that we need to talk about. Do we have the right fit of number of buildings? Because the more buildings we have, that's also that
operational cost that affects our ability to pay our staff better and and pay our debts off sooner. We as this board need to prepare those policies so that next board board, that next board is set up for success. So I'm very aware of what being a member of a policy governance governance model entails and prepared to take on. The challenges that I think the district will face in the next three to five years that we can set up for success. And my questions to you, it's going to be the same one as I started off with this, so it's a softball. Do you feel that you've been able to accomplish your goals, your wise for being on the board while you've
been here? Great question, does anyone want to start off sharing? I think that's a yes and a no, which you probably saw coming. We all come in with big ideas and things we want to get done, and I'm gonna change the whole world in the next year. I'm gonna turn this whole ship around and blah blah blah. And that's just not how it works. There's 5 five of us and the Superintendent and a large community A a lot of competing ideas. So some things that I believe I was hoping we could could get done as a candidate myself, we have. Summer's still on the table and we're we're driving that direction
There's no. This is turning around a battleship when you're trying to make big changes, big organization. A lot of moving parts. As the only appointed member of this board, I didn't have to prepare a platform to run a campaign as regardless of who gets chosen they'll have to do that in the next 5 to 6, well earlier than that next few months. I would say as the only educator on the board as well. In terms of goals, I think having a teacher voice and giving educator voice to the board is
something I have accomplished. Big audacious goals, I think at this point seeing through portrait of a graduate work at some some point, someone mentioned tonight. Board ends and taking a look at character traits and just how many of them there are and going back to our last meetings and talking about last two meetings. Our board retreat and looking at that crosswalk of that work to that's to be determined and that's in our near future and we're really excited about that. I'm really excited about that. I can't
speak about for the whole board. I am personally excited about that work. It was unexpected to have to work and find a new Superintendent that wasn't foreseen when I came on the board, but I think. That situation helped manifest this wonderful partnership, this team, one we have. To really laser like focus on our vision, on the desires of the community. Excuse me? So there's a lot of little
things, mostly administratively, operationally that we have worked as a team to help direct that vision, those outcomes to Superintendent Happer. And I think that's been a real big success and probably about out of time. Yep, out of time. Thank you, Mr. Beckman, really appreciate your time and efforts and your family's attendance. Thank you. Let's take a quick 5 minute break to hit the restroom or whatever and we'll come back and debrief. All right, we are back from our break. This is our time to debrief and talk, or we can go straight into a nomination
if someone wants to appoint one. Anyone have discussion or want to go straight to nominations? First of all, just want to if they're listening online, thank all four of our finalists for their very thorough. Preparation. Just really wonderful to see their heart for students, their heart for this district. Awesome ideas. I have some stars by on every one of the finalists my notes with some great ideas that all four of them gave
gave us. I really appreciate that. I really was. As I went through everyone's applications again this morning. And then the interviews reiterated that I was really floored by Ms. Payne's. Focus. Expertise, I mean. Just so extremely extensive so. I didn't expect a few days ago when I had had first gone through them, to feel quite that strongly about her. I agree, I think her experience and level of professionalism and it throughout the
nation but also internationally with what she's done and could bring to the table is incredible and I think would be such a tremendous asset to this team at this time. So I would agree with that. Whenever I do things like this, I go back to how I taught kids to write. A thesis, right? So an introduction paragraph for sure. So I use a funnel and start broad and then get really specific, which is the way my brain works I've gone back to I also reread applications. I know Nicole, you had shared that.
Today and the need this is a six-month position, right, and what is our need on the board right now so this is like where we're we're and having having a diverse board is important The most successful boards are diverse in nature. As someone who was appointed, it's information via firehose right? So those first couple days are clear calendar, meet with everybody. Bring a notebook and get it all figured out. And I had the benefit of being in this district for the past 16 years, right? As both a parent, volunteer, teacher
para, et cetera. I'm gonna stay broad for a minute. I think the most important thing personally to me is a heart for kids. We heard that from a lot of the applicants, right? I think in terms of the onboarding process and how quickly we can get somebody up to speed that that's actually just that's a fact. We need to make sure this person's ready to go I think everyone's capable. I think having knowledge of the district is important and it's also gonna give you an edge right? So having worked in it, having been. Part of it around parents all that again all of our applicants have that and 1 shape one
form of or another and then prior board work work. I think it really helped me to have been on a school school board since 2021. Like I've been no policy governance that's how we operate. Again, a lot of our candidates know, applicants know that piece as well. So now we have to get more specific right? And I think we could go down the path of OK every single answer to each question and split hairs. Overall, I would agree that it's hard
for me to leave a national security school security expert on the table. I would also like to say I mean as we we look at each of the applicants, we've got a security school security expert, a clinical psychology psychiatrist, psychologist. He's psych. He's a doctor, psychiatrist and veteran, a strategist, statistician and an educator. Right. And each one of them brings just a unique set of skills to the table. What is the need? And I'm asking this of the board, what is the need for the next 6 months to help round out our board?
I don't disagree that it's a six, it obviously it's a month appointment. And we can't control what happens in November I think, though, if you can look at long term, is there a candidate who could do do both that would be the most efficient use of If I if I say that correctly, if there's a candidate who could possibly fulfill both I I think that would be Most effective for this board?
First thing that comes to my mind of what our need is on the board as a board one of our candidates mentioned the positivity just produces better outcomes. So really someone who's gonna be a part of this team with positivity and the Team One spirit? Absolutely, yeah got out for that. This is actually this is a very very difficult call for me. And hopefully the four candidates are listening all All extremely impressive. All very well prepared I
I don't know that I've ever and I've interviewed a lot of people. I've hired a lot of people people, have fired a lot of people. I don't know that I've ever had four candidates come in and sit before me in an interview situation that were as impressive as those four. They really knew their stuff and you make a very very good point, Lauren, Mrs. Yanez, about about the diversity of thought that we have in front of us So Mr .Waldrep being a clinical psychiatrist, I have no idea what what that world is about. None whatsoever. Completely confused. Mr. Beckman being a math teacher, I tried to
avoid him when I was in school, didn't want to be in his class I do OK with math. I'm not great. And Mrs. Czukas and I are fellow West siders. I share in her passion for some of those things. So these are extraordinarily close when I look at what does our our board need moving forward. I think we've already taking some steps to begin hardening our schools and not having soft targets because the last thing Mr .Beckman's point, I believe it was Mr. Beckman who said the one right and the one thing that every parent cares, the
most about and that we have to deliver is that their kids get home safely every day. Couldn't agree more. We've never had an incident like that in District 20. To the best of my knowledge in the years that I've lived here. Never would want to have anything like that. And Mrs. Payne coming onto the team and and adding that leg of strength is very powerful. And I would have no difficulty supporting her nomination. I think nominations are now in order for an appointment to the Board of Education. Does someone want to
nominate a candidate? Doesn't call right inventing. I would like to nominate Mrs. Susan Payne for appointment to the Board of Education. 2nd. OK, Mrs. Payne is nominated for appointment to the board of Education. As many are in favor of Mrs. Payne for appointment to the Board of Education, will, as their names are called, answer aye. Those opposed will answer no. Mrs. Ruckman, roll call, please. Mrs. Konz, aye. Mr. Wilburn, aye.
Mrs. Yanez, aye. Mrs. Shandy, aye. The ayes have it. Just wanna make sure I'm saying everything I'm supposed to say. The eyes have it and and Misses Payne is appointment to the Board of Education. We need a motion to approve Resolution 219-25 approval of appointment to the Board of Education. Whereas at special meeting of the board of Education of Academy District 20 held March. 20th, 2025.
Thanks. Oh sorry, I did say March because it says March. I apologize. All right, May 20th, 2025 a vacancy on the the Board of Education was declared. All right, let me re-read that because the vacancy was made March 18th. So let me start over. Whereas, as at a special meeting of the the Board of Education of Academy District 20 held March 18th, 2025. A vacancy on the board was declared. And whereas the board
was solicited interest within the district community for potential candidates to apply to fill the vacancy And whereas the board has accepted applications and interviewed candidates and is now prepared to appoint a person to fill the vacancy now now therefore be it resolved by the Board of Education of Academy District 20 as followed. That the Board of Education hereby appoints Mrs. Susan Payne to fill the vacant Director position on the board and that the
Secretary of the Board is hereby authorized to cause a Certificate of Appointment to be delivered to to Mrs. Payne and to send a duplicate of the certificate to the Colorado Department of Education and that Mrs. Payne shall take and therefore sign the oath of a director within 10 days from the delivery of the certificate. And that Mrs. Payne shall also sign the affidavit acknowledging that he that she is aware and will comply with the confidentiality
requirements and restrictions applicable to executive sessions as required by Colorado Revised Statues 22-32- 108(5)(a). Moved. Second. discussion. Roll call, please. Mrs. Konz, aye. Mr. Wilburn, aye. Mrs. Yanez, aye. Mrs. Shandy, aye. This meeting is adjourned.