all right I'm going to call the meeting to order thanks for being here tonight we'll start with roll director Assad Lucas here director Batistelli here director Goldstein here director Marsh Holen here director Potter here all right i'm going to um
entertain a motion to approve the agenda with a little flexibility because we're going to kind of go a little out of order so moved second director Assad Lucas hi director Batistelli i director Goldstein i
director Marsh Holen i director Potter no okay all right let's rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we are going to honor some very important spellers um we are going to recognize the Adams 12 state spelling bee
participants we have quite a few of them so uh Miss Leisel Reid is here with us and she and I are going to give out the awards board members if you want to come down on the floor with me and congratulate these young spellers you too
[Applause] okay we'll have spellers come up so everybody can see them but um so every year hundreds of thousands of students across the nation compete in spelling bees at various levels including
thousands here in Colorado and to get to where all of these fellas got to you have to first do a classroom competition then you have to place either first second or third in your school competition then you have to take a written test in order to go to the oral
B at the district level you then have to place in the top 14 at the district level you then have to take another test to qualify for the state level and so only 17 students went to the state oralbe this year on March 8th and six of
them were from Adams 12 huge [Applause] accomplishment so Shervatza Moragan and then I'll give you your
certificate i can't I can't I only have two hands so I'm going to give you a certificate okay and then the board members would like to also congratulate you SA Ma Aia Mutha Kamar it's because of the uh beautiful font they use
congratulations Siobhan ready congratulations Sahil Sanami congratulations Reese Blair yeah that's me i don't know if you quite want to shake this hand so shake the other hand you know what i
don't know just gonna do that that's notless and the last fell who's not here with us is Leavana Sethi i also want to recognize the um people who come and they help at the spelling bee
so our district spelling bees clock in at over four hours on a Wednesday night at studio school and so I want to recognize Lori Bailey who is the judge or the judge this year i want to recognize Suzanne Carol um who is the
prouncer as well as Susan Schuler who is not here another judge and then Hope Garcia who was our very very important record keeper for the evening so thank you for all of the volunteers and helpers if you'll all meet me in the back I have some
additional um gifts just a quick question Lisa i don't know that you identify the schools that these students attend i sure can so Shiman and Shatza attend Stargate Charter [Applause]
sahil Adia and Levana attend Holstrom K8 where's Dr erlick and Reese attends Prospect Bridge [Applause] you go
congratulations [Applause] okay now we're going back to the order of the agenda well one second with superintendent update so uh just a few things that I'll
share quickly one is that a number of us on staff have been working very actively around some legislative issues on school finance and Gina Lirer our CFO and Aaron Oberg our director of finance have been devoting a
lot of time and energy to that and really it's a technical issue that um in the end as we've changed from a school finance act that had been in place for 30 years to a new school finance act all the cross referencing hasn't quite uh been dialed in and so there's big
implications about what does this mean in terms of allocating funds to our charter schools ironically we just had a lot of students from our charters here tonight and I think we finally had a breakthrough today and that we're going to work with the legislature to get some technical amendments in place so that
there's the right clarity for finance folks to make decisions about how to allocate those funds for next year and then there may be some broader policy discussions that come in future years so I just thank Gina Erin and others who've been involved in that effort it's time consuming and it goes well beyond making
things uh make sense in Adams 12 but statewide so we're lucky to have folks uh who are leaders at the state level i'll share that today we did some discussion uh some analysis of what the Mellan survey after the election tells us about our mil levy override election
outcomes and the Mellan surveyor said that really the core issue that uh they see in the results is tax sensitivity and tax concerns um but that otherwise we're not seeing feedback about the package that we had in any significant
way being off track or not aligned to interest and values of the community i do think in the months ahead we're going to work pretty hard to figure out what should be part of a possible mevy override package for this November we'll do some engagement some stakeholding some surveying to see are there some
changes that should happen because certainly six months ago we weren't foreseeing the significant reductions that we had to make this year in part because of declining enrollment and other changes in school funding so that's a piece that we're working hard on it's helpful for you all to know that
as we look at a new Thornton High School campus part of what will make that campus uh come to life in the way we envision it is acquiring some additional land that currently the Thornton Economic Development Corporation owns and unfortunately as we've done some uh basic environmental testing
we've discovered there's some asbestous on some of those parcels it seems to be a common issue with lots of the land we have interest in uh that was true of some of the property over by Washington Square a number of years ago i think it's been fairly common in the course of our community for some people to pull
out asbests floor tile from their homes and dump it somewhere and when that happens and it's discovered there's a lot of remedial things that have to go on so we're working with the city of Thornton staff to take care of that and get it into a good place lots of final
budget decisions being made right now especially at the secondary level middle and high schools as school principles have developed their school-based budgets and there have been a lot of tough decisions to be made about having folks who've been outstanding members of our team and served our community well
being in a position where they're displaced and then sometimes entirely losing their job for next year and so that just acknowledging that very real stress and sadness in the system is an important thing for you to hear those are highlights from me i shared with you
some other parts over uh the earlier work study session and we'll continue to keep you updated this is a time of year when lots of things move pretty quickly thank you okay board of Education comments recognition awards and vision director Potter
I don't really have any updates since we met last week however I want to say thank you to the Westminster Chamber of Commerce for inviting us to attend their business awards gala one of the art teachers at one of our schools was nominated to win an award so that was exciting to see him up there and kind of learn more about his mission and what
drives his work um and then as a parent I was able to attend um I don't know exactly what it was called like the pre-approval night for um future forward Washington Square and learn more about the construction program as I have a freshman son who's very interested in that and I can't help but leave that
building every time just feeling so proud of the work that um everyone in the district has done to support CTE through all of our grade levels um I know even my my kindergartener is always excited and she goes "One day I'm going to go to the big the big fancy school is what she calls it." Um and so there's
just so much excitement around all the opportunities that we offer our students and I'm just so grateful for that and the continued dedication to creating more pathways so thank you thank you Director Marsh Holen thank you so this is the time the board gets to
recognize our students our staff celebrate achievements and I wish my comments could be that tonight wish I could graduate congratulate the art show participants and winners which I do and I wish I could call out the creative prom proposals that I have
seen and I wish the I could send my sincerest celebrations to our seniors getting their military acceptance their career offer letters or their college enrollment but unfortunately these times call for a different type of recognition so my first recognition
tonight is to our transgender students there is nothing wrong with you there have been too many assertions made that there is something wrong and I'm here to say clearly there is nothing broken inside of you for being who you are we
see you and we stand with you my second my second recognition is to all our students from kindergarten like my son to seniors like director Assad Lucas's daughter i was in seventh grade in Westlake when our presidential
election ended in a tie and Mr eman's history class was filled with uh uncertainty mr gil paused orchestra to talk to us about the historical implication that this was i was in Mrs
likes uh 9th grade uh English class at Legacy when the second tower hit on 911 and I was in Madame Griswald's French class when the final plane was brought down in Pennsylvania i was in Miss Dumas's 10th
grade history class when we entered Iraq and declared war she was my touchstone on how I felt during those times so students I know what it's like to live in a country that's in upheaval and you should find your people find your
classmates find your teachers find your counselors and talk to them because it's okay to be scared during these times and it's okay to talk about it my third and final recognition is to the adults that are interact with our
students whether it be our custodians our bus drivers our teachers our sped teachers and the leadership here at the administrative level as well as my forward former wow fellow board members we see your work you're appreciated and
students depend on you some assertions have been made this week that are so egregious they shouldn't need to be called out but here we are my mom faced her second bout of cancer two years ago never once in my family did we think
the doctors treating her cancer were cancer sympathizers to the therapists doctors social workers we know you're here to use your talents to help people heal and we
appreciate it board member Assad Lucas uses her talents every day in her professional life and her personal life she serves our students in the community student safety is a top priority for all the
members on the board and to suggest the contrary is incredibly offensive i'm sorry Director Assad Lucas that a small minority has lobbed these accusations against you to our other therapists counselors and mental health
professionals this is certainly not how we see you those are my recognitions i hope the political grandstanding can come off social media and out of this boardroom and we can continue to celebrate our amazing students thank you
President Goldstein thank you Director Marsh Olsson very well said director Bastelli so I will mention the art show because I think our elementary kids um deserve that recognition and I saw some really
beautiful artwork from our kids so promising uh such a demonstration of the importance of arts in in schools um to help kids express themselves i also want to express uh my thanks to um Director
Assad Lucas and Director Marsh Hen why do their names have to be so long um for being the representatives that they that they are for all of our kids um and so I have some remarks to I want to take a moment to talk about the public comments that have been made around the Adams 12
um particularly policy around bathroom and facility usage with regards to transgender youth um I want to speak specifically about the safety issue i'll begin by saying that it's my belief that we're a board member to have a hypocratic oath and I suggest we include
that in the future it should be something along the lines of always striving to ensure our learners can learn one of the ways to do that is by helping them feel safe in the last meeting the safety of girls was a dominant talking point um among a
few public comments and I think it's understood by everyone that we should keep girls safe heck I was even a girl myself at at one point believe it or not um I didn't do I wasn't very good at it but I was a girl that said I feel compelled to remind everyone that the board should be
obligated to be concerned about the safety of all of our kids um whether that's cis boys and girls LGBTQ undecided or in the case of my 13-year-old son oo yuck no thank you no
loveydovey stuff um we've talked about our sis girls sharing locker rooms and bathrooms with transgender girls what was implied is that sis girls are in some sort of perceived danger based on this even though the data and the facts don't bear that out what is borne out in
the data is that transgender kids in general are at higher risk of violence and trauma overall particularly when they are forced to use their sex assigned bathrooms so I'd like to paint a data portrait of the obstacle our transgender kids face since we're
talking about data and data is important and facts are important here in Adams 12 we've had zero cases that I know of involving a kid who was assaulted or harassed in a locker room or bathroom by a transgender child or adult we've also
had our bathroom or locker room policy in place since the state mandated it a few years ago luckily we don't have any data to share about transgender kids being assaulted i think for that reason at the national level though researchers
at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data from 3673 transgender youth in grades 7 through 12 and what they found is that when transgender kids are forced to use
their birth sex assigned bathrooms they are 2.5 times up to 2.5 times more likely to be assaulted again I reiterate the board needs to care about the safety and well-being of all of our kids not just the kids we
prefer because we align with our parents' values i'm open to suggestions that help keep girls and assist girls and transgender kids safe all of them i'm open to those suggestions so
long as we also humanize trans kids and we don't treat them like secondclass citizens forcing them to get dressed in segregated areas under adult supervision is dehumanizing so to our sis girls and
boys I'm committed to keeping you safe to our transgender girls and boys and everyone in between and undecided and like my son Gross I have no interest um I'm committed to keeping you safe too because that's our job we keep kids
safe and I know that in this current climate unfortunately it's sometimes a difficult task thank you thank you Director Badiselli director Assad Lucas good evening everyone and thank you for
being here um I usually don't get emotional i mean I do I do get emotional but about this stuff um this is what I do day in and day out
and I completely forgot about about the sympathizer comment i mean we all know the internet is an incredibly toxic place um and when you're an offender therapist you realize how incredibly dangerous it is too
um bathrooms are not a problem in our schools they are inc they're very safe minus well with problematic sexual behaviors but we do have an issue and what we should be talking about instead
of not real phantom issues is issues with vaping and keeping our kids safe from drugs bullying vandalism those are the real issues
happening in bathrooms so when again I had all these comments ready to um share and and I'll still share some of them but I think you know one of the
biggest things I think I really triggered people from last week of my comment was saying how the most prominent traits of an offender the most common um type of offender is an
adult white straight cis male i get it it's hard and especially if that's how you know you identify just because you identify does not make you having offended behaviors what makes you having offender behaviors is if you
commit an offense um I can I understand how I mean I can't I can't because I'm not I'm not that I don't I don't have those traits so I but what I've been
what I've heard in my years of practice is you know afraid of that stigma and afraid of uh being labeled that then what I ask if you are truly afraid of that and worried that you know
being an an adult straight white cis male then let's work together let's let's bring safety community safety this is all I do and it is exhausting seen some days
um and ensure that our our kids are safe our community is safe um another subject that was brought up was people pretending or claiming to be transgender just as well if that's
happening they're not transgender they are still a a cis male or cis female but most likely a cis male not transgender so let's address the behavior let's address the problematic sexual behaviors and
um ensure community safety we just laid off 150 educators in our district we just impacted whatever statistical amount of relationships that is for kids we need to be talking about that we
need to be focusing on that school funding fixing a broken system with funding so we do not rupture relationships meaningful impactful
relationships for our kids those are the issues we should be addressing again I have no problem continuing to share facts and I
will do it i'm I I just it is my ethical obligation but it's disheartening that we continue to be sidetracked or distracted or deflect real genuine issues for
kids that matter so I think I addressed most of my comments that I wanted to um let's move past this let's just
again we need to be better for kids we should always want however we find however we age into our society and the issues that we may inherit from the previous
generations let's do better let's leave a better society for our kids and let's ex let's set the expectation for our kids to do the same for the generations after them
that is the least we should be doing as leaders as adults working together so thank you all for being here [Applause] tonight thank you Director Assad
[Applause] Lucas i think that my thoughts have been expressed very well at this point but I do want to I look out and I see a lot of people that I know i see elementary educators i see mental health providers
i see secondary teachers some that I've worked a lot of you I've worked with or have taught my children my two I have three children that have gone through these schools i see retired educators who still take the time to care i see
staff members who are here to do their jobs and do it well we have a great we have we have great legal support in this district that make sure that our policies are kosher for lack of a better term we have academic um people who are
in charge of making sure that our kids get the best that they deserve we have elected officials in the room that care too and I appreciate that because that's we are Adams 12 i've been a part of this community for over 40 years and I've
seen it go through a lot of changes but what I still see is that sense of community that was there 40 years ago or 40 plus years ago and I hope I continue to see that on a celebratory note I had the pleasure of going to the
congressional app challenge that the STEM schools had on Saturday um there are about six teams or even singles that put together a an app a phone app and it's part of the congressional challenge that every congressional district is
invited to participate in and I remember back in the days when Representative Pearl Mutter Congressman Pearl Mutter would come to North Glenn High and be a part of it and they'd come to the board meetings too and and tell us about it and I had the um I had the pleasure of
spending time with Rep congressman Gabe Evans and he he came it was it's his congressional district and gave out the awards for the apps there were um a real big theme on um oceans on these apps you could um click on a sea creature and um
on some of them and you could you could see how they affected each other so there was that theme of the oceans there was um a mental health app that one um person submitted and they all showed they showed us the apps and how they did them and everything and then they got
their awards and then Congressman Evans took the time to take a tour of the STEM program at North Glenn High School and see all the cool toys that the kids have there and to show what a public school has to offer so I appreciate that so um
that's all I want to talk about tonight okay now we will talk about public comment good evening the board welcomes public comment to learn about the preferences and concerns of the Adams 12 fivestar community each speaker will have three
minutes please use the microphone and state your name and city of residents before beginning your comments please give any handouts or information you would like to share with the board to Lee Koko a threeminut timer will be set for each speaker please keep an eye on
the timer speakers will be informed when time has expired and we ask that you end your comments at that time our first speaker is Kathy Zeleleski hi I'm Kathy Celelesque i work at North Glenn High School however I live in Arvvada um I had something else
prepared but I'm not going to do it um I just want to thank the board members who are actively working to protect all of our students and working to make sure that we can do the best that we can um because as a lot of you have said it has been a rough time and I agree that we
need to be focusing on what we need to do as a district especially with all the losses um so thank you to those of you who care about all our students and who want to do right by all our students thank you thank you Kathy our next speaker is Thomas
Scoville thomas Scoville Thornton i don't know anybody that thinks there's anything wrong with trans kids and I resent the suggestion that I do or any of the people I've been speaking with do that's a low
blow adams 12 is government and it's generally the case that government cannot do something good for one person without doing something some harm to someone else like when we spend money to help someone by
spending taxes taken from someone else sadly government tends to be sloppy in minimizing the bad part your policy on transgender students as an example we have a long-term cultural
norm of segregating children by sex in bedrooms and beds we all observe this with only occasional exceptions for the youngest children and rare exigencies life has a dignity which we should all respect this bedroom practice
is important for teaching children to respect their bodies and persons to respect the bodies and persons of others and to require the same in return dignity requires boundaries children need to learn these boundaries and and schools need to help them in that
learning sadly Adams 12 has cast this cultural norm aside and school staff now decide who sleeps with whom on student trips your guidelines for supporting transgender students on overnight trips says "In most cases a transgender or
non-conforming student will share accommodations with those who share the students gender identity this alludes to the cultural norm of segregating sleeping accommodations but substitutes gender identity for sex this trashes the norm by ignoring
the facts of biology gender identity and sex are not the same and putting male plumbing under the same sheets with daughters granddaughters and nieces as an avoidable peril any action will have seen and unseen effects
you see value in tending to a tiny few and virtue signaling to the advocates of a non novel gender policy you seem to care about the significant problems of playing with the physical safety and mental you care you seem not to care
about the significant problems of playing with the physical safety and material and and mental and emotional health of everyone else this policy is absurd our next speaker is Rose Eder hi Rose Edigger uh mother of five
Thornton resident and my oldest is 23 she came with me today and my youngest is in second grade at Sky View um first I want to say thank you to our commissioners our board of directors excuse me um I know this is a volunteer
position and I know I hear from a lot of you your parents and even if you're not a parent you have a very busy life and um I recognize that and I want to thank you for the time and the love you're putting into our
community um it's very meaningful and we appreciate it and we appreciate you i do and my household does and I um also want to say thank you to all of you for coming um and I think what it shows me
is that we all share a value of the dignity of our individuals in our community um each human being has dignity and each human being deserves love and I hope that we can each take
the time to listen to our neighbors and our children no matter how they identify themselves it's important to listen to them and to hear them and to understand what's their challenge what's their barrier and what they need and that's
our role as the adults in the community is to provide that to them and to help them feel safe as you all have shared um and also I'd like to to ask the board or anyone here and just share my concern about today's climate uh the threat to
our democracy and how can we support the school district in ensuring our students and their families are safe and not deported um not grabbed by who knows who at this point and taken
where um I'm concerned for our students and my community members who I love and um I support the work you're doing and I support all of you for coming here with me today and um thank you and I hope to
be more engaged and um that we can join together in showing the love that a community can share its neighbors and support its neighbors and speak out and um keep those negative bad experiences
from happening to people who we love in our community thanks thank you Miss Ediger our next speaker is Kathy Henson okay uh good evening Superintendent Gdowski and Board of Education i'm Kathy Henson i live in
Thornton my boys went through the Adams 12 school district K prek through graduation graduation they're both in college now and doing well i am a former Thornton City Council member and a current Adams County Commissioner and tonight I'm speaking in my personal capacity i just would like to say thanks
to all of you for your continued work in the trenches of public education um I've said it before and I'll say it again public education is the cornerstone of a free and civil society and it is essential for a healthy and functioning democracy and I'm here to thank you for
the work that you do on behalf of all of our students i caught the not all of the commissioners um excuse me director comments but the ones I did here regarding keeping all of our students safe including our LGBTQ plus community and making sure that we are providing a
setting in all of our schools where all of our students feel safe and valued and seen um is is most essential to kids being able to access their education and really get the most out of it which is what we owe them is the very best shot
at the best public education we can give them i'm really heartbroken as we all are over the funding cuts to our district it reminds me of the first years when Mr gdowski was the superintendent and uh year-over-year when my kids were in preschool and it was 10 million here and 9 million the
next year and over and over and we lost essential staff members we lost interventionists we lost specialists we w lost special ed we lost paraprofessionals we lost tenur teachers and here we are again and I think if anybody is really interested a couple of things if somebody's interested in
getting involved in the district I highly recommend the five-star leadership academy i did that i went on to serve on the materials review committee and then five years on the finance and audit committee where I got a very deeply uh humbling appreciation for
the work that is done by everybody across this district every year we ask you to do more with less we have got to fix Taber so we can pay our teachers what they're worth so that we can hire the staff we need so we can keep feeding kids lunches at school every day and
have the materials we need and the curriculum and the facilities to give them the worldclass education they deserve i am here to offer you all of my support in that in any way that I can help bolster uh the Adams 12 district i am always here for it um we are with you
i'm I'm speaking for my family uh in standing up for the rights of every student in our schools i know you do that we see it we love it we are here to support you that is Thank you for doing your job on behalf of our students and
our democracy and your support for public education if anybody wants to support kids then let's fix the let's fix the fact that the only place that our state can take money from every year to fix whatever other messes we've gotten ourselves into is by shortch changing our students on their public
education um your time has expired thank you very much you know where to find me great to see you all again thank you Commissioner Hansen and thank you for what you do for our county our next speaker is Kyle
Lucas my name is Kyle Lucas i'm from Thornton um I'm a professor of psychology and I've taught a human development course for over a decade and so I've spent many years thinking about human development
and what optimal human development looks like i recently read a book called of boys and men by Richard Reeves and as I read it I thought of all of you up there and wanted to recommend it to you uh this book talks about the challenges
that boys face and men in our country um and in our communities a lot of the book was related to education and how boys are falling behind girls in many aspects and so this book u highlighted a
lot of real world problems that I thought were important uh to address uh there's real data in there um and as was echoed earlier I don't think we should be spending time on problems where there is no data or research to back it
up we do have other problems um in bathrooms as was mentioned i have a middle schooler and she talks about all the time vandalism vaping bullying etc so one of the best ways in my opinion to
combat all of this um going back to my psychology background there's a very famous study by Albert Bandura which was about modeling and how adults model behavior to children and particularly he
talked about aggression and how children learn aggression by simply watching adults be aggressive and so my point is is that as adults I think we have an obligation to rather than model aggression on the internet posting or in
person that we have an obligation to model maturity communication conflict resolution and when we disagree about policies to be able to sit down and have mature adult conversations with one
another to find common ground to address these real world problems that children actually face so um to echo Lori about building community and how that community has
existed I think we can do better and this is a call of action to myself because I don't do this very often but to all of you that I want to build this community i want to model to our children this uh responsibility and
maturity to have these kinds of conversations and so let's take action real action not just coming here and talking or posting on social media but really building that community thank you yep
thank you Dr lucas our next speaker is Liz Wilson good evening my name is Liz Wilson and I live in Eerie so I'm one of those few people that had the the good fortune to choice into Adam's 12 so thank you for
existing um we came from St brain another great district but we're really happy where we are um I wanted to come up here to say I have seen an adult embarrass harass and intimidate
LGBTQ per children in person and every single one of you on the board knows who this person is i will not stand silent while people pick up on these attacks to win
schoolboard seats these attacks are disingenuous these attacks on trans kids trans kids about pronouns sports locker rooms dress codes etc are weaponized political distractions if you want proof see me
afterwards look up Lance Wallno and Christopher Rufo some people who keep attacking one member of the board are sincerely terrified of trans people i
feel compassion for you and pity that that is the most important issue in public education today for them of all the things to be worried about in today's world whether the very very very few trans kids in our district will do
something to my daughter is a very low priority i can assure you I would rather her spend the night on a school trip with these trans kids that I know at her school than some of these sis kids that
speak hate and write anti-semitic and racist things on bathroom walls these trans kids are afraid because they know gay and trans people have been
bullied beaten and killed for existing some people make noise about this for political reasons they're doing what they've been told to do they are circulating talking points
from extremist groups such as Moms for Liberty some have been manipulated into thinking that this is a problem i ask you to focus on what is important this focus on trans issues is disproportionate the NCAA said there are
10 or fewer athletes in their system that are trans focus on the right things not wedge issues designed to destroy trust and confidence thank you thank you Miss
Wilson our next speaker is Laura Garcia Pasco okay thank you wow I don't know how to follow that i was going to forego my whole speech because nobody's going to like well some people aren't going to like what I have to say but I am a neighbor of yours and I deserve a voice
as well i am not here to say who is right or wrong and I need my glasses most people I know family friends are kind of freaked out about the issue of boys and girls XX,X XY trans girls trans boys
comingling where they shouldn't be co-mingling some of y'all are trying to circumvent many of the issues by just imposing the will of one group over another i'm here to let you all know that out of my very large close-knit
family many of whom live in Adams County I have only one grad niece in the Adams 12 school system many have chosen charter schools private schools and many are homeschooled in fact I tell anyone who will listen if you truly love your children you will get them out of the
public school institutions please forgo the lollipops and the fancy pants and do what you have to do to make that happen so I'm here so why am I here and who am I i'm telling you this i am third generation of Mexicans and Spaniards who
love being American who loves this nation and this board here is an arm of the government and you have a duty to protect all the children i may be a lone voice here today but trust me when I tell you that I have I am speaking for
many and many of us hold and uplift our girls in our traditions like kinsmenas and our girls deserve their own spaces and to compete against other girls where sports are concerned and I also want to point
out when you impose the will of the few to others you impose trauma on those and the cycle continues i just want the trauma to stop thank you for your consideration our next speaker is Becky
Bean thank you so much um I want to first say that I am a member of the Thornton Arts Sciences and Humanities Council as well as holding a lot of other leadership positions but I am speaking in my personal capacity so first of all I want to say the most sincere and heartfelt thank you
to each and every one of you for continuing to stand up for LGBTQ folks and their families um I am a member of the LGBTQ community i was also raised in a Christian conservative home the only trauma I ever felt was because they did
not support me it took me sorry I'm trying to be calm but anyway it took me until I was 32 to stop hating myself every day because of the trauma that I
experienced i never came out to my father because I was literally worried he would kill me he purported to be a Christian man and he would kill his own child before he would let the world know that she was a member of the of the
LGBTQ plus community so your support matters everything that you do to support gays when they're young matters i don't want to see young folks come up in this world with that
same kind of trauma and fear i'm a proud public education graduate i went to K through 12 in Thompson Archuj i went to Colorado State University and the University of Illinois because I had to move there for work so no shade on
Colorado i like it here um so if you value public education I want you to keep showing up here each and every time you can and showing your support for these fine folks and I really and truly just want to say again
thank you and thank you for your time thank you Miss Bean our next speaker is Jessica Troy uh good evening um I originally came here tonight to maybe just vent and
express my dismay and rage about the budget cuts and about my children losing teachers that they have developed relationships with and I'm super super pissed about that but then when I got here and saw what other people are here
to talk about I thought maybe I ought to change what I'm talking about and talk about uh standing up for LGBTQ plus kids i am the mother of one and this is a really big issue for me as well um I'm not quite sure what direction I want to
go at this point because it does kind of seem like the people here to stand up for the LGBTQ kids vastly outnumber the people who are here to crap on them so maybe I don't know i don't know which way I should go here
um uh I I will say um you know keeping our kids safe from sexual abuse is super super important it's a very personal issue to me and I know from
unfortunately uh very personal experience that the vast majority of children who are abused will be abused by their own family members and I also know from personal experience that the ven diagram between the people who freak out about trans
kids and the people who cover up for the abusive family members that they know good and well about has an awful lot of overlap so it's incredibly triggering for me personally to hear these discussions in these public forums and
it's it's I'm sorry it's it's made up this freaking out about trans kids there's hardly any trans people it's 2% of the population right it's a tiny portion of the population and the fact that we are distracting from very
real issues with this conversation i am so upset about all the teachers who are being laid off i am so upset this is all happening because of a law that was passed when I was 9 years old because of decisions made by people who are dead
now by voters who are dead now my kids are paying for that and all of us all of us are paying for that we should be asking why we are living in a society that wants to cut funds to education this is absolutely insane they want to keep us dumb so that we don't know when
we're being exploited that's what the problem is here and I I know like all of us here as individuals don't have the power to do anything about this but I know there's legislators here i know there's stuff going and I have not been able to go
anywhere with the Democratic party for the last 10 years without hearing everybody say this is because of Taber and nobody's doing anything about Taber and I think it's high time that we made time has expired people afraid of not doing it thank you
thank you Mrs [Applause] troy our next speaker is Jesse Meyers thank you how do I follow that um my name is Jesse Myers i'm a resident of Thornton um I am also uh
president of the Thornton Arts Sciences and Humanities Council but I'm speaking on my personal behalf tonight um I um would just like to thank the the board members uh who um who express their
support for the LGBTQ plus um kids and I agree with almost all of the sentiments that have been expressed here today um but I also just want to point out um how incredibly weird and creepy it is that
these people think about our children's genitals so much um it's it's really really bizarre and disturbing and probably warrants some therapy um because it's not normal
to think about children's genitals all the time and I can guarantee you that none of us in here uh who are speaking um in support of these children we don't go into bathrooms and wonder what's in
people's pants um it's very weird and it's a sickness and uh if you're thinking about kids genitals all the time you should probably get some help thank you [Applause] thank you Miss
Myers our next speaker is Dennis Fogle hi Dennis Vogle City of Thornton um I have three boys all went through the public school system in Adams 12 two in
college one of which was non-verbal and could not read until he was 10 he is now graduating from a university because of Adam's 12 schools so
the crap that is being laid upon our public school system by some people is just nonsense just wanted to get that off my chest as far as our trans
community holy crap the amount of obsession somebody stole my thunder with what our kids have in their pants is disturbing and a little weird i will
echo that trans kids make up less than 2% some studies say.7% of our school population they are not a problem you being obsessed with them is a problem
trying to force trans kids to go to where you think their genitals make them more appropriate in a bathroom just adds to bullying and assault of these vulnerable kids and attacks on our schoolboard
members is tantamount to online bullying because you're just making up and then throwing it out there as red meat facts matter some people seem to think that they can sit there and make up their own
facts and then get people pissed off pedophiles are not kids they don't go into our school bathrooms because we screen everybody who goes into our schools and make sure that they're not
sex offenders doesn't matter if they have completed any sort of therapies that's still on their record and they don't get jobs at schools you dumb asses so trying to make up that
they are is bull and it's just you trying to bully trans kids focus on what matters the issues today Medicare Social Security Medicaid school funding that's what
matters not bullying transfers your time has expired thank you thank you Mr vogel our next speaker is Gabriel Cervantes hi my name is Gabriel Cvantes
i am the youngest of six who went through all Thornton schools so thank you Adams 12 for producing five rock stars um but thank you so much you're so much better than Jeff Co i want to say that um I am a multi-generational
Mexican indigenous person because apparently that matters uh my wife is from Mexico which apparently that matters um but I want to express my frustration and how upset I am because I
was just in an Apac meeting across the hall celebrating with my relatives and figuring out how we can provide better support for our indigenous students and I had to just come here i didn't want to be here for this kind of conversation
this is a stupid conversation i'm sorry what frustrates me is that trans people have existed for 10,000 years trans people will continue to exist for 10,000 more years and if you are going to say
that you are proud of your heritage specifically from Mexico they acknowledge trans people and I think that's something that you need to be aware of if you're going to talk about being Mexican so I agree we should absolutely protect
our children all of our children that was what was said we need to protect all of our children and that includes our trans students more than anyone that includes our more our most vulnerable students we need to protect them and
this idea of segregating them and they're not allowed to talk to boys and girls no matter how they identify when this has really only been a system for a few hundred years is a ridiculous notion let people be who they want to
be if you want to pursue the ideas of liberty then let people make a choice about how they live let people do what they want to do we've never said sis people can't exist in the spaces we've never said straight couples can't exist
in their spaces we want people who are proud to be who they are to exist in these spaces and that's all we want so I'm sorry but this this entire argument is stupid and I'm going to go sit down and then I'm going to go back to my meeting so thank you all so much for
your time thank you Mr cervantes our next speaker is Cody Leblanc thank you good evening my name is Cody Leblanc i'm from Fort Lupton uh just before I start with what I had prepared I wanted to thank uh President Goldstein for the
conversation about the Congressional App Challenge uh in a previous life I was the director of constituent outreach for Congressman Kenbach former Congressman Kenbuck and I oversaw the Congressional App Challenge it is truly an amazing program that is offered to our youth especially as we advocate for more STEM
programming and additional resources for our students um I am a former school board member uh from a neighboring school district as I said I don't live here and I don't have children enrolled in your schools but I do pay close close attention to educational policies across
Colorado what you do here matters because it shapes the culture and standards for all of us i recently did view a public statement made made by someone in the district with influence over students and policies and in that statement she offered what can only be described as sympathy for these sex
offenders questioning the legitimacy of registries downplaying offenses and focusing more on the complexity of those labeled as offenders than on the devastation experienced by the victims is something that's truly heartbreaking to me let me be clear this isn't a
nuance it's a pattern of reframing predators as misunderstood that kind of rhetoric sends a message that public sympathy for offenders is more important than accountability and more urgent than child protection that mindset is dangerous enough on its own but even more so when
paired with your district's current policies on these bathrooms and locker rooms quite frankly I don't care about any student that's transgender or not using whatever bathroom they choose to use to me I see much more issues with the fact that this policy can be
extrapolated and cause so many additional problems when you have guests and teachers i mean it is not very common as much thank goodness and thank God that we see teachers getting arrested for pedophilia as often as we used to it does still happen though and
these policies scare the heck out of me allowing any adult to ac access sex specific spaces based on self-declared gender identity no safeguards no questions and no accountability cannot continue to happen it is not an
inclusive policy it's a reckless gamble with student safety comfort and trust as a former schoolboard member I understand the pressures that you each face but I also know this the first duty of a school board is to protect its students not to appease political activists whether that's what you
consider me or not it is not to push social experiments and certainly not to cater to individuals who demonstrate more empathy for offenders than for victims there is a line the district has c crossed it with this policy i urge this board to reexamine these policies reenter the conversation on student
safety and ask yourselves a simple question would you be comfortable explaining this policy to the parents of a child who is harmed because of it if the answer is no then the policy doesn't belong here thank you our final speaker is Representative Phillips
thank you wow um I didn't get the memo that there was a policy or or anything so um I came here for something else so I'm Representative Dr jackie Phillips Esquire that's that's a lot of hats but um education is my jam i represent
Colorado House District 31 that's Thornton not all of Thornton but most of it first of all I want to apologize that I had earbuds in before i was literally in I'm on the education committee and we were literally in committee still and I had to stay on until we could vote and
the good news is you guys we voted out of committee a bill for dyslexia for dyslexia screening there's some good news for us tonight we're kind of like the school board we get beat up a lot as well so it's kind of nice when we can actually do something that people clap about um I
just wanted to do a quick introduction and um shout out to the school board thank you for your work and I I did hear some things come up tonight um the school finance bill today uh was passed on second reading through the House that's good news for most districts in Colorado that's not great news for Adams
12 and we have worked relentlessly um to make this bill be good for Adams 12 and we are not done yet but um I want to do a shout out also to the other representative Shannon Bird because she's the other one that has also been spending a lot of time on this and of
course Superintendent Gdowski thank you so much um we're still in the fight for school finance for Adams 12 but anyone who wants to talk to me about any issues please just reach out and you don't even have to write me a nasty email what would be super nice is
just email me and go "Hey let's talk about this issue." I will be happy to meet with you as I do every single weekend at the churro's place on Hiron lots of teachers especially because teachers are angry right and I can tell you nobody wants to be the representative from the school district
that had to fire 160 teachers okay happy to talk to teachers i'm happy to talk to anybody even a I thrive in conflict i'm an attorney i don't back down from that and um and I'm happy to talk to anybody so reach out and uh and we'll get together and have some churros but
tonight I am here for the kids from Horizon High School and Mushrooms thank you thank you Representative Phillips um and we'll get to that in a bit um it's on the
[Laughter] agenda all right actually it's next on the agenda recognizing Horizon High School students with House Bill 25-1091 which was the designation of a
state mushroom okay we have a state flower we have a state bird let's see what else did I learn in fourth grade um state dinosaur state tree state um mineral and
we didn't have a state mushroom but Dr for Representative Jackie Phillips conjured up a bunch of students from Horizon High School along with Greg Sanchez their teacher and they got the bill passed so they're going to talk to
us a little bit about it i just want to say I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the bill signing i don't get invited to too many of them but I did get invited i was out of town visiting my dad um so anyway um I think you guys can come up to the podium and did you get the um
PowerPoint uh sure okay you have to email it and then uh folks the students from Horizon High School come on up along with um Representative
Phillips Aid I believe roxanna All right well we're getting things started here and we're kind of in some heavy space right now and uh I think the mushrooms will will maybe lighten things up a little bit this is a celebration
for for a kingdom the kingdom of fungi so we'll get you going and so my name is Greg Sanchez i uh I am a product of Adams 12 myself starting with uh first grade Cherry Drive go Cheetahs um it was a brand new school
when I first moved here um this part of Thornton and uh went on to Northland Junior High at that time graduated from Thornton High School student taught at Thornton High School and now I've been at Horizon for for my 29th year going on my 29th year so thank you for uh
everything Adams [Applause] 12 and so I'm filling in some space here so um I I I'm part of micological community as well as a as a social
studies teacher and I've been a president of the Colorado Micological Society of three times um and I like to start meetings with a a little humanities and and I got a a short schoolboard meeting haiku to kind of set the tone for
us and so here it goes noble new symbol Agaricus Julius the emperor's law it's short it's ha coup so there we go all right so I'm just going to give a little context and background i want to let the students have a chance to to
speak on this on on this topic because without their support and without their voice um this wouldn't have happened okay so we do need to acknowledge uh the voices of our young people that can make a difference in our in our in our government
there's my poem all right so as we talked about state symbols um I mean this is a civic process all right and and so in our in our government um in order for a new symbol to be introduced or or uh identified designated it has to
go through legislative process all right and and it's a long process and I teach civics and I didn't know how it worked and I learned okay and so that's that's a good thing all right so it was a huge learning opportunity for me and and one of the inspirations is actually some of
the history of Adams 12 that some of you might not realize and and so in 1982 um a teacher from Mawne Elementary School uh Ruth Sado uh and her class of fourth graders um worked to get the
state fossil uh Stegosaurus identified as a new symbol uh my wife was actually in fourth grade at that school at the time and and she remembers it well as uh but uh this was was something that helped me kind of just reinforce the fact that hey Adams 12's got some
history here and maybe this is a tradition we could continue all right and so thank you Ruth Sto and McQueen Elementary for for starting it um as far as our background through Horizon High School I I did introduce this myself all
right again I I teach social studies we're coming off of COVID and um you know it was right before break in 2021 um and I'm starting to think of how can we what kind of things can we do to help students engage with civics and and so
um at that point there were only three states that had state mushrooms texas just recently in 2021 uh designated a mushroom for their state and so if Texas could do it I'm thinking hey why not Colorado all right and so in 2021 I
reached out to then Representative Caraveo did not get a reply till later in January after my third attempt i I emailed her twice i called her once and and to give her uh some grace she's a pediatrician and it was COVID so that's
okay right november 22 comes around i I contacted Representative Shbini um and again it was a little late the timing was wrong uh but August 23 uh we did continue some talks about sponsoring a state mushroom and developing a a bill
uh Representative Charbini attended a a school uh a meeting at our school with students to show his interest in sponsoring this bill unfortunately he resigned that session and the bill was not introduced come to the present December 2024
Representative Phillips was there to listen to us she attended a meeting with our politics club students and and seven of them are are here with me um and and this is where she committed to sponsoring the state bill with the help
of our politics club students and so um uh in in January 20 uh January 23rd 2025 Representative Phillips and Senator Kyle Mullica um sponsored co-sponsored this bill to
introduce a new state symbol and so some of this came from the the the natural world the the environmental side of it and so we have eight animals represent the animal kingdom in in our state we have four plants representing the plant kingdom
where's the fungi all right and and and from a amateur micologist perspective fungi is probably the most important kingdom out of all of them and because if you have no fungi you have no plants you have no fungi you have no animals you have no animals there's no us and so
um as a symbol this is a very important symbolic symbol because they can't vote and they really don't care if you know they're there because a lot of times they're not they're underground but um it's our purpose to to help raise awareness for the for their importance
um fungi is in a lot of places all right it's becoming more and more common and a lot of things are misunderstood and there's a lot of misinformation out there but uh mushrooms are present and so I'm going to skip to our students because that's really what I
want you to recognize and and going with this process it was really intended to provide a real world civic learning opportunity and and and to show students you can participate as active citizens in our government and you can shape
legislation and so um I was honored to have seven of our students join us in this effort and I want to give them some time to uh to speak as well if you want to go So
uh this was like a huge opportunity because Tell us your name please uh my name is Davien Bedford and this was a huge opportunity because I was born tongue tied and I took speech therapy for around five years or through elementary and it's been like a struggle
to even have my voice heard and this was a great opportunity that made me learn about mushrooms but also taught me how a bill is signed and it was just a great experience [Applause]
i'm Delila Viano and I'd like to give a big thanks for letting kids actually come in here because I've been to one and a half board meetings today and they're really cool and thanks to Mr sanchez for letting us actually have a chance to do the mushroom because I know nothing about them but it was really fun
to actually get into the politics of it cuz I've never done anything like this and I've read so many National Geographic magazines and still there's like nothing about mushrooms in them so getting to actually talk in front of important people and get your voice heard as a ninth grader is really cool
and I really enjoyed this whole process because now I'm over my stage fright so that's pretty good and I just really had fun with this entire process so thank you [Applause] I'm Cortagia Pocrell and I was really
happy to be here because I to for the mushroom I really thought it was such a cool thing for my voice to be heard as a ninth grader and being young so just thank thank you to everybody my name is Logan Berdick and I'm going to be honest I had no idea we were
speaking today so I have I have nothing lined up or like planned out but I'm going to throw a few things a few uh like speed thoughts out there uh I was in Mr sanchez's uh freshman year econ class and that's not civics but it was still like relating to some sort of like government and ever since my freshman
year which was 2021 he's been talking about this mushroom bill and so it's super super awesome to like finally actually you know four years down the road get it through get it like passed get it like it's real now which is super awesome and although I didn't keep up with it through my junior or sophomore years from freshman year to senior year
it's a total like it's mindblowing and it's super fun and it's also really cool to finally get like a chance to be like a civic like person which is a silly thing to say but it's like I used to go by my life and I was like "Oh I'm just a little dude walking around you know?" But now I'm like a dude walking around who also has like a voice in some
government that like I have an impact i have an effect so does so do all of my like uh peers colleagues if you classmates that's a good one um that you might call them but it's just super awesome and so I wanted to say um go check out this mushroom it's you can find it places
yeah it'll be on the website there's a website um near like the forest near like mountains yeah you can go you can find these near the forest near mountains um anyways but yeah go check it out super fun go on a hike amazing here's Trent Sanchez
oh thank you for introducing me Logan um so I'm Tren Sanchez and I am a am in my senior year of high school i joined uh politics club when I was in my junior year of high school i joined because of my concerns for the current political
state of our country right now and um as I went into 12th grade uh not to use uh a relation for clout or anything but um Mr sanchez is my uncle
and and um and I I've known that he he had he had a fascination for mushrooms ever since I was a kid and it's kind of cool to watch him fulfill this um ma
major uh to to create a major symbol in our state that is Colorado so yeah thank you Trent i'm going to make this brief and if you know me that's not my strength um first of all there there were barriers along the way um and I'm
glad that Mr sanchez did the shout out to the former representatives um Caraveo and Charbini because then I just I came in just in time to be able to hit that soft pitch so I was just lucky but also early on there was an email from an
Adams 12 administrator um not in the not in at Horizon High School that Mr sanchez shared with me that actually said um no this has nothing to do with curriculum so like you you can't proceed with this and we were lucky that you know we did some conversations and were able to move forward the second big
barrier is you guys people made fun of this and at state ledge you know it was all this stuff about I referred to this as the most important piece of legislation of this session and so then there's all kinds of social media like always you know that that said um oh what are you doing oh what a waste of
time and even DPS even Denver public schools put up something and don't worry we made sure they retracted it and they did but the reason why this was so important for me it I mean Mr sanchez is super into the mushrooms it wasn't about the mushroom for me it was it was about the process and it was about you know
we're always talking about getting kids involved right in politics and so it was about the kids being able to see that from years ago when they started that process all the way to coming to committee they testified in committee they got to see it's on the House floor now it has to go to the Senate there
were amendments in the Senate which always not the best thing for when you work in the House but the amendments on the Senate ended up being super fun because the Senate amendments were about this mushroom was formerly known as Prince and so then they made an
adjustment we had to come back to the House and it was super fun that's why in the picture I'm wearing a raspberry beret for anyone who's my age and um and then we started off everything was dearly beloved we have gathered here today to talk about a thing called life
if you know Prince you know the music so there was so much fun with that okay you know it was kind of all those these different you know Prince jokes going around so that was great but the biggest shout out for me of course is to the kids and to Mr sanchez thank you
are we okay with time i've got just Oh we're fine is there anybody has any questions or comments up here i I have comments so first of all I'm with you Mr sanchez i'm reading a book called Gathering Moss yes it's about moss yes and I can say without hyperbole that
it's the best book on moss you'll ever read um so the second thing I was going to say is that you're already doing better than Oklahoma my home state and I can poke fun at them because I grew up there because their state floral emblem was the mistletoe which when you think about it it can't be a floral emblem
because it's actually a parasitic fung fungi so you're doing much better than them you have an actual mushroom and everything but in all due seriousness what you've done here is fantastic you have a group of uh high school students who thoroughly
understand the legislative process we have potential future political candidates in front of us right now whether they know it or not um the other thing is the mushroom may seem like a small insignificant thing but when we look at all of those state emblems we're
sending a message that we value our state's natural beauty resources and biology and even if it's a small mushroom formerly called prince or whatever moss we have here in Colorado maybe you can tell me um it
matters it matters the way we frame things the way we look at our world the way we value it matters so I thank you for that thank you and thank you for recognizing that yeah and you same I think
just these issues that we think are important um and teaching kids that there's things that are so much more important because without them oops we wouldn't have life
like you said um and so so exciting that you got them involved thank you so much for what you do thank you for your dedication to kids um education everything and thank you
kids for and students for um taking charge with this and getting involved this is this can be really intimidating and you guys nailed it so great job good work
i would like to add you know this is an incredible project and it's just so wonderful that you were able to take them along on this journey and I think a different thing that was taught maybe unintentionally was the importance of perseverance and you did not give up i mean we had one student that shared like
this was something you were focused on a long time ago it took you multiple representatives and you did not give up and I think that's an important life lesson that goes along with everything you guys learned through the process that I just am so grateful you were able to share with with all the students and that example that you were able to set with all of our community in Adams 12
and I want to say a special thank you to Representative Jackie Phillips because I know that it is a very very busy legislative session and you guys have been down there late nights and weekends so for you to make time to bring our students and our staff under your wing and include them in this adventure has just been it's been really meaningful
and it speaks a lot to the kind of representative you are and we are honored to have you serving our Adams 12 community so thank you thank you i'd like to echo everyone's um I some of you might know um work down at the capital a lot um in my job job and
so students I think you have um way above a lot of CEOs that I have to explain the bill process to so maybe you could do that for me and that would be great you guys are far ahead of them um and you should very um seriously consider you can testify anytime on any
bills remote or in person and um your voice is important it's very important so um I appreciate that and thank you um Mr sanchez for I think really what we try to show when we talk about school funding and when we talk about public education is the ways that we reach kids
in many different levels and I too was a kid that was not great at reading and writing and test taking and so when my teachers went outside the box um with their educational lessons that was vital to me um so I really really appreciate
that and Representative Phillips I know how hard it is especially in these last few weeks of the legislation so legislative sessions so I really appreciate it as a former biology teacher I appreciate the fun the fungus kingdom getting some
attention i guess my question is when you were testifying for this bill did you get any push back questions because I know that happens a lot when you're testifying just wanted to say uh we got not like super like we didn't get a lot of like
questions against it but we did get questions on how did we choose which fungi we would pick and how if any of us actually seen it or not that was a big one but uh it was a very
like clean process because it didn't require any funding there was support from it and it was more like a baby bill it was attached to like the bigger board meeting on there so that's all I really
have to say about that question because I know how it can be down there and um I'm sure that you guys understand the process a lot better than some of the legislators down there too and we won't name names but sorry President Goldste wanted to respond to your
question about was there any push back so um on the when I went to do the bill on the House floor there was in fact another representative that asked um two challenging questions and seriously um he asked um well he actually stated that
um this seems like an is this eotterrorism this seems like eotterrorism and then the second question was is this a land grab and so my response was uh with all due respect Representative I believe you're thinking about a different bill and then we called for the vote and it was unanimous
sound was good did you guys get to watch the floor work on it or No no yeah i If only the school finance bill could have passed this easy well yeah and and yeah one of the things I I just want to touch on that that was mentioned um you know
the perseverance side of it it it's worth it to me and and I think you know from the start part of my intention was also to help help show students civic engagement doesn't happen overnight and sometimes you got to stick with it and and if you don't like something do
something about it you know don't just argue about everything do something show show that you're willing to put put up some put up put your put your put your work into it you know and that's part of what we did um but in terms of the legislative process I I do have a few
things I need to acknowledge um and and initially my my my intention was to include all students of Adams 12 and I and I I did have to apply for permission was not given permission i wanted them to be part of the choice in the selection and and so that was not an
option eventually um and so uh the the choice kind of was narrowed down because Utah beat us to one California beat us to another that we had and so we we wanted to go in a different direction and so um as far as the the process I I
just want to acknowledge this i mean there's a lot of steps here all right and and even you saw us started in 2021 that was just when it was in its infancy and then going through the steps was a whole another deal but um as far as the uh the selection um I want to show the
students there again real quick this was at man this was a a teacher defining moment just watching students share themselves and I really didn't coach them they they spoke from the heart and they realized this this is this is important stuff um but I but I do have to acknowledge a
joint committee made up of professional and amateur micologists throughout the state um and they worked very hard to help with the uh taxonomy and all the the the justification and the rationale and so um if you want more information
about that uh this was documented in uh a publication for the North American Micological Association and this was before it got passed but they were uh some of our our joint committee members were just documenting the process just kind of explain hey this is why we chose
this one so thank you Mr sanchez quick question or maybe students so I don't know if this is myth or reality but when I was a kid my brother and myself and our friends always thought that it was illegal to pick a coline because it was a state flower are there any
restrictions on picking this new state mushroom no that was I don't believe that was ever part of the discussion i think that would have to be drafted into the legislation itself and and that was never the intention to be honest you'll be lucky to find this one uh it I mean
it's there for sure but you know when you look at this diagram here let me let me go back up um when it fruits you got to be there because it's not always going to pop up when you want it to and so it does it does uh grow near our our
blue spruce which is another state symbol that we have um you have to be in the high elevation uh but there's so many factors moisture humidity temperature and luck so if if you want to know where they are I I can take you out and and we could look i think you
ought to organize a trip count me in uh when Representative Phillips came to an early legislative meeting with the board maybe November December I suggested the King Bit and I think she said Utah already has that I think is my recollection and I think getting folks out to to see these things in person uh
would be a great opportunity so if you organize that count me in okay I'm in thank you guys this is great thank you it's great to have a little levity in the room um pictures with us
or All right um we are going to take a 10-minut break so uh Yeah all right we'll uh readjourn here onto proclamation AsianAmerican and Pacific
Islander Heritage Month i will entertain a motion to adopt the proclamation declaring May as Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Adams 12 five-star schools as presented
so moved second any discussion director Assad Lucas i director Bastelli i director Goldstein i director Marsh Holen i director Potter i i will on to minutes i will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the
work study session and regular board meeting of April 9th 2025 as presented so moved second any discussion director Assad Lucas i director Batistelli i director Goldstein hi
director Marsh Holen i director Potter i on to monitoring reports operating limitations policy 2.2 treatment of staff i will entertain a motion to acknowledge that the board received a monitoring report as of April 16 2025 for the
period April 17 2024 through April 16th 2025 of the superintendent concerning board policy 2.2 treatment of staff and finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable supported by data that is relevant justified and
complete so move second hi Miss Shepard good evening thank you good to see you tonight and uh probably better not to be up here in front of the entire crowd it's a little nerve-wracking i
admire the people who got up and spoke spoke uh I'm here to present uh the treatment of staff monitoring report to you there are seven items in this uh report and uh I I think it's a fairly familiar one to you and so I will move
through the just some high points of this year's results and entertain any questions that you have certainly um so in the first uh part of the policy where the superintendent is charged with protect protecting against wrongful conditions such as nepotism or
preferential treatment uh we have some custom questions that we ask in the Panorama culture and climate survey each year and um the survey was given slightly earlier this year right after the winter break in January and so we had uh our results back and uh um saw
very positive trends for all these custom questions you see a series of tables there on pages two and three that show since uh the the beginning of asking these custom questions what the general favorable responses are and um
we're in the uh 80% favorable to the question about um staff leader relations and um a positive trend to uh the question about connection to the larger vision and mission of the district and
then um as for rights as an employee not being violated and my supervisory person displays fair treatment those favorable responses are both n3 and 90% respectively so and positive trending so I report compliance in that uh first
item um the uh second item has to do with uh being clear about performance expectations and evaluation timelines and so we have uh you utilized the state model evaluation system for many years
uh this year we do have a bit of a revision in the training process and so at the bottom of page three there's a paragraph that talks about the training for principles and APS which took place um via the uh the Colorado Department of Education's required evaluator training
and that's per Senate Bill 22070 so that's just a slightly different process but as we have done annually we have trained our our evaluators to be sure that we have consistency in their approach to that process so I I do report compliance in that item
the third item uh has to do with um internal grievance processes and um we've got a custom question in there which shows a generally uh favorable trend um talks about if I had a complaint which was not resolved by my
supervisory team uh I I know that I have an option to take a grievance to the board of education after exhausting internal processes 87% of our people are saying yes I I know that I agree or strongly agree with that answer um I do
collect and track the responses from people there's a free response text box there and uh for folks we've been concerned and monitoring for a number of years uh the any perceptions of retaliatory or fearfulness in this space uh you'll see that we have fewer overall
responses only 365 this year and of those uh large percentages are people who who respond but they respond with the words NA or the letters NA or leave it blank you know leave it blank or a question mark and
so there are a few who do say that um there they have a fear of retaliation these numbers are not or a fear of reprisal or more commonly a perceived waste of time or a lack of trust that it would really make any difference um one
of the larger response groups is the 17% who say "I I don't know what the processes would look like i would need more clarification." And so answers along those lines so you see the the compilation there but generally speaking the majority of people feel like they
they know and they would be able to make a complaint ma known and and um and so I I do report compliance in that item as well the fourth item has to do with um not allowing reprisal against staff and so
we have some data reported here that gives you some specifics about uh 8400 which is our uh non-discrimination policy section and any complaints made in that area um we do up we do annually
train in the title nine uh sexual harassment training uh area and we have um some dates for those trainings this year included in the report for you and um and so we you know I am Meg Brooks
our title N coordinator who's just recently left the organization had uh shared with me that there were four complaints that the district staff filed related policy 8400 three resulted in no finding and one investigation is ongoing so that's what I have to report to you
on that that item um the fifth item has to do with um appropriately training and equipping staff for foreseeable emergency situations so you see a summary here compiled by Anthony Muk our our director of security he's got some
links here to uh threat assessments and other information in this in this category we do report compliance on that item the sixth item has to do with um acquainting staff with the superintendent's interpretation of these
items so it's a bit of a circular item we do report compliance in that area and the last the seventh um item talks about ensuring that there's an assessment of climate and culture of the district and that is the big panorama climate and culture survey process that
I described occurring in January this year and you'll see a table of trends over time participation rates and uh I would note that this year's participation rate uh among uh non-instructional staff it's that second
column you note it's down to 38.3% % we did some pretty significant restructuring of the of the categories this year and so the numbers those folks had opportunities to take other surveys but the numbers look a little uh wonky and I don't think it's really that that
many fewer we also did have some diminishment of of participation we've been giving this survey for many years and there's a little bit of fatigue that occurs but some of that um drop is due to reorganization so um but I do uh want
to point out that the favorable responses in those in those areas uh in the big table on page nine when we have a national percentile to compare to our district is at 60th 70th 80th percentile compared to others
asking the exact same questions across the nation so um and then where we don't have a national percentile to compare to you do see an increasing positive trend in every category this year so so that's you know that feels
good um of course this was given in January before some of the really hard work we've been doing in the last month so um might not look the same today but uh our principal surveys similar process to years past we have a a instrument
that asks uh for feedback from our principles and assistant principles on the um support from cabinet and they give us um some pretty transparent feedback and we have good participation rates as shown there
um and I would just point out to you uh that that in this in general everything is is an improving trend and a positive trend i would I have noted in item three of the compliance statement that the learning services um increase you know all of our cabinet
feedback was positive and um and an increasing year-over-year with the exception of learning services and Megan and I have talked uh at length about and at cabinet we've talked at length about the work that we're doing there and we had been hearing feedback
from principles uh with some some feelings about the um the value out of professional learning and also the support they get from their executive director and so listening tours and work to engage and and understand those concerns was happening in the fall
before this survey was given and so the survey you know reiterated the the concerns that they have in those areas and so work is is happening to address changes in professional learning to um ensure some greater coherence and
alignment for the support of principles from their executive directors so I know some really intentional work is happening on that learning services team to address areas these areas of focus that we knew and recognized were were needing some attention and greater
greater attention and um so we're confident we're going to see a different sort of result next year and I think we're already hearing some feedback that indicates positive reception for the efforts that are being made so um superintendent I don't know if you have anything you would like to
add in the way of color commentary so I'll just acknowledge that I think this is the last uh monitoring report that Milo will present in her career i think is it seven years is this your seventh year this is my eighth year eighth year mhm so after eight eight years of outstanding service here and
lots of years of outstanding service to public education Mila's nearing the end of her uh time of service and when I think about this broad caption of treatment of staff the really strong results that we see in here I think have a lot to do with Mila Shepard it's so
important uh in setting the tone in terms of an organization's values and the way that they do business to have somebody in the HR seat that everyone in the system sees as a fair and honest broker who's going to call it as objectively and unbiasedly as they can
and that they're not beholden to the superintendent or the board or this association or the other and Mila's very much been that she's willing to say I don't think so uh to me and to some others she says it to Dave Lley to Paul
Williams and also sometimes stands with them especially our association leaders on occasions when we've had principles make decisions that aren't in the right lane and so just the trust and confidence that folks have in Mila in terms of being fair being reasonable
being willing to admit mistakes that she's made her team's made that the system has made um just tremendous respect and credibility and I think you're leaving the culture of our system when it re as it relates to human
resources in a really positive place and we're grateful for that thanks Milo thank you Chris questions or comments um yeah to echo what Chris said thank you for all of your amazing work i'm not going to say like end of service like you're a bus or something but thank you
for your time and dedication um however I do have a question and I think it's more for maybe President Goldstein and Chris is there a time that we can discuss i pulled up the attachment the threat assessment data and it is alarming to me that that is an increasing area like we're seeing more
threat assessments and more um full screens and and FOS and all the things in there um and hearing that safety was a a kind of a common theme tonight I would really like to dig into that a little bit more and see what are we doing in that space what you know is
that going to be impacted with some of the cuts that we just made what is what does that look like um because the panorama data was fantastic there was improvements in a lot of great areas but this is one of those that kind of snuck in there that was not so great and maybe having Anthony come in and talk to us
would be the right thing sure we could bring a few different people there's actually a woman who's fairly new to our team is it Olivia uh who would be great to join in who's got lots of experience in that space in higher ed and has served us well the
last two threat assessment folks we've had uh have started right out of the gate with really high intensity uh sorts of situations with students I think for you all to meet her to hear more about her work we could also pair it with suicide risk assessment work that we're doing which is something uh that we take
very seriously too if it's the pleasure of the board we could probably make that happen at work study in May if not the first meeting the second meeting and I can have Bo get some people huddled up to do that i think because of graduations we decided to cancel one of those work sess
the work session during there's a graduation right before it so keep that in mind and I'd also say if you're up for it I think doing it in public session would be just fine too um it's nice that we start earlier these days and I think our broader community I mean
they can always listen into work study but they might have strong interest in this topic as well well and I don't know I know some of it is like private we don't want to share it with everyone like our tactics and stuff around how we keep some of the students safe so that's why I don't know whatever format is the
best I think would be great especially seeing some of our neighboring districts recently have had some pretty um terrifying struggles I think as recently as of yesterday and so you know having safety on a front of mind I think is important so thank you i just want to say that one of the last
things I did before I retired was to help hire you and I got the bonus of coming back and working with you so thank you for your years of service could I go back to some of Courtney's comments before we move on and that is we can definitely have a public session
on publicly available and appropriate information on suicide assessments and threat assessments if we wanted to get into some details about security issues then that would be a proper executive session topic
so I'm just going to ask you ahead of time what questions I am allowed to ask and which questions I'm not allowed to ask so that we don't we don't spill any secrets not that we have any secret you can ask questions they may say that's not a matter for public discussion or
something i don't know yeah my gut is most everything that board members will have interest in I think we can do in public session just understanding how the protocol works who's involved uh some of those procedures I think we can share meaningful things that'll hopefully reassure or prompt some
questions that allow us to be more responsive okay I'm call vote director Assad Lucas I Director Bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh Holshin I director Potter I okay on to the consent agenda i
will entertain a motion to approve the personal actions as listed resignations and termination wait no joint one sorry to approve the consent agenda items E2 and E3 as presented so moved
second any discussion director Assad Lucas i director Batistelli i director Goldstein i director Marsh Holen i director Potter i okay future agenda items our next meeting is May 7th which happens to be
the last day of the legislative session too by the way um we'll have some board committee lays on reports mil levy oversight presentation and consent agenda and then we'll skip to May 21st
the graduations after the graduations okay any discussion anything for the good of the order tonight okay I'll call the meeting ajourned