##VIDEO ID:8WTfc4l-M7g## e e e e e e e e e e e [Music] good evening everyone I would like to call to order this meeting of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education for Tuesday January 14th 2025 happy New Year to those I have yet to see board members May attend and participate in board meetings by electronic means in accordance with board policy bmea and state law Laura can you please call the role shavez here medler here nnick here Quin L AA here Raj Paul here Sergeant here anger here thank you now i' would like to have everybody turn their attention to our screens for our land acknowledgement this evening [Music] the Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral Homeland and unjustly in Legally taken territory of the ud pin arapo Cheyenne Apache Navajo and 48 other tribal Nations historically tied to this land who have called This Land home since time and Memorial [Music] we acknowledge the atrocities committed here including the painful history of genocide forced assimilation and efforts to alienate the indigenous inhabitants from their Homeland supported by the policies of the United States [Music] government bbsd is aware of the many indigenous peoples past and present and their dignified Nations and cultures who care for this land with strength and resilience BBC recognizes the histories of the land in Colorado and the survival of many nations that carried their oral Traditions into the present it is bbd's responsibility to educate ourselves our community and our students so that we can embrace the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples and actively stand together to address injustices in offering this land acknowledgement we affirm and honor the history wisdom oral traditions and resilience of indigenous people and recognize the responsibility to care for and appreciate this land together I would like to remind everybody that the mission of of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging meaningful and engaging learning opportunities so that all children Thrive and are prepared for successful civically engagement lives at this time is there a motion to approve this evening's agenda mov by Jason seconded by Beth Laura can you please call the RO Chavez yes medler yes nnick yes Quin Lin waa yes Raj Paul yes Sergeant yes uner yes motion passes next I am excited to hand the meeting over to Dr Anderson who is going to introduce our student moment for this evening thank you board president at Raj Paul um board members the goal of our student moment is are introduce uh the Board of Education to amazing students who are showing leadership in their schools or communities tonight we're excited to introduce you to Noah carmelli who caught our attention after this Facebook post by her school I got the wrong let me get so on a monthly B basis she organizes opportunities for teens to volunteer a community food share in Lewisville and has kept thousands of pounds of food from ending up in the landfill no we're going to get this Facebook post up but until then why don't you take it away I'm going to stop you right there on the microphone there's a little button with a person if you can push that now we can hear you sorry community service Noah Carelli I have I have done a lot of community service and volunteer work in the past year a few examples include teaching at my synagogue Saturday school joining njhs and helping to lead my school's Builder Club the service work I'm focusing on in my presentation today is my work at Community Food chair I organized a group and times to work with other youth in the district to help save food from going to waste and distributing it among community members who are in need together with many other hardworking people we rescue 12 tons of food a day that's like 12 baby elephants student leadership as a student I took every opportunity I got to contribute and Lead my community during this project I took advantage of the resources provided to me by reaching out to the volunteer coordinator through email I then Co contacted other students from my own school and others to join me in volunteer in around twice a month I I coordinated a group of students um to volunteer with me and then I led by example by volunteering every time despite scheduling conflicts me and my friends have helped in rescuing around 20,000 lbs of food from landfills volunteer process each time we volunteer I email McKenzie rert the volunteer coordinator with possible dates mostly Thursday afternoons then she confirms our resered time slots for volunteering next I contact other students with dates once I have enough volunteers to fill our Reserve slots and complete the work required of us I email Mackenzie again with a list of names through this process we're lucky enough to get the opportunity to serve our community when I told my sister about all the emailing I'd been doing she said so that's why you're on your computer on your all the time themes and messages from education the reason I was able to do this work is because of what I have learned so far in my educational Journey a few things I have been taught about are the importance of compassion community service and empathy when I volunteered I'm inspired to do it because of the compassion and kindness that have been shown to me countless times because of all my teachers who help show me what is important I know what a big impact kindness and empathy can have on a person a school or even an entire Community significance to community community food share is very important to many people their significant contributions include Distributing enough food for 22 ,100 meals a day Distributing 75% or more fresh or high protein food and serving over 50,000 individuals in the Boulder and Broomfield counties Community Food share is significant to me too it's important to me because when my Rabbi took me in my Hebrew school class about a year ago it was one of my first real world volunteer experiences moving forward moving forward I'll continue volunteering at Community future and seek out more volunteering opportunities I've learned a lot from this experience and invite you to do the same you can find volunteering opportunities at that link right there okay thanks Noah how impressive thank you so much for all you do for your community and I love the fact that you have asked your friends to join you uh and that's the power of volunteering and of leadership so congratulations board members that concludes today's student moment no I want to second that and I appreciate your values of empathy um community service and compassion and and and sharing those with those around you I think and presenting tonight really leads sends a really really great example for your peers across the district so thank you for that board members we will now move on to the work session portion or of this evening and tonight we have one work session topic which is the review of School attendance boundary areas policy JC which Rob Price will be presenting you want me to take it good evening board president Raj Paul board members uh this evening's presentation uh will be an overview of a commitment that we made uh to this board about a year ago when we touched the School attendance area policy JC which was uh that we would review these attendance boundaries once every 5 years uh with us today we've got Rob Price and Glenn SRU we're going to talk a little bit about what's in the policy talk to you all about some of the impacts in regards to changing boundaries give you some context and then walk through some some of the unique nature of the boundaries uh that we have here in bbsd as a reminder uh to the board and to our public this has not happened um in 40 years and so uh we uh we look forward to presenting and having lots of discussion with the board to kind of figure out next steps on where we want to go and with that I'm turn over to Rob Price Dr Anderson thank you uh good evening board and happy New Year it is good to be back and uh diving into School attendance areas I feel like we have been talking about this for some time we started on this conversation with the previous board back in October of 23 and then uh you came right in and updated the board policy I believe in February of 24 right out of the gate so I think good work has been done to ground us and as we're uh thinking about it U moving forward Dr Anderson had done a great job of detailing what we're going to be talking about tonight I would just say this is a discussion we've put some slides together to really get some feedback from the board so as we're going through feel free to stop us let's engage um really we're going to be looking for Direct ction talk about next steps as we leave uh tonight's board meeting and thinking about when we bring this back to the board in March so um with that uh all of this work is Guided by policy JC as I mentioned updated in February of 24 um as a reminder uh you know this but if if the public is watching the board holds the authority over attendance boundaries um this is the start of that five-year cycle as Dr Anderson mentioned um we have a number of key considerations in the board I'm just going to go through a few of them student density in an area relation in relation to the capacity of the school um balance of enrollments between schools maximizing pedestrian access efficient use of transportation and Facilities uh fiscal responsibility among the other things that are listed on this slide um and these considerations are important um for tonight and as we move forward as a staff as it really guides our analysis of attendance boundaries so we want to make sure we're thoughtful and that we are all understanding that this is what Glenn and I and staff would be using as we're moving forward to think about what possible scenarios possibly to bring back in the future um I do want to talk about limitations of changing boundaries and again you have seen some of this information in previous presentations so I I hate to be redundant but I do want to make sure that we're bringing others along in this in this conversation but um changing boundaries we can address certain challenges but there's inherent limitations to doing so uh changes we can only affect the resident population not overall enrollment we know that other factors affect enrollment like uh open enrollment on our district program options Focus schools uh through the district play a significant role in enrollment at particular schools uh we know boundary changes can be extremely disruptive to families they affect S siblings they can have some impacts on longstanding ties in the community um a lot of families buy their house based on where their neighborhood what their neighborhood School is right so we need to be thoughtful on that uh there can be unattended consequences when I think of um just some new challenges we could run into some transportation inefficiencies that we might not have thought about uh or again um that community of uh division that we weren't thinking or planning for uh boundaries alone cannot fully address systematic inequities across the district there's a lot of things that go into that and then as we all know uh it is likely that not all stakeholders R will agree with what we come up with so I think that's important to talk about so I I just added this slide uh we've been bouncing ideas on this just to make sure that we recognize the limitations um help set some Rel istic expectations as we're going through this process uh and I'm sure there is more that we could add to this uh in thinking about it um as Dr Anderson mentioned just for some historical context we don't believe that the district has done a comprehensive districtwide attendance boundary review in over 40 years uh some past adjustments have really been peac meal addressing specific schools or neighborhoods um but we all know that the district R's demographics or housing patterns enrollment TR uh Trends have adjusted or changed over the past four decades um however I do believe that this review will allow us to look for some possible inefficiencies among a number of departments and our schools and some potential imbalances uh across School attendance areas so tonight um these are observations that have came out in board conversations and then just a few that we have looked at that we are bringing forward to you uh but I do want you to know that um some of these came out in that October 223 2023 meeting uh the non-contiguous areas and Glenn's getting going to get into detail on all of these so some of our attendance areas are disconnected uh creating some logistical challenges so as we're bringing these up not all in alignment with board policy when we talked about those considerations the dual enrollment area areas we have certain zones that overlap multiple schools we have split feeder patterns where we have students from the same Elementary School often going to different uh middle schools we'll talk about that and then as we're thinking about declining enrollment uh holistically we have several elementary schools that have fewer than 300 resident students uh just questioning the program viability of those schools and again please understand you got open enrollment and other factors that impact that Resident students only being one piece of the puzzle uh with that I will turn it over to Glenn Glenn srew our district senior planner thank you there you go oh we both do it I hit it that's right there okay um put together this map to kind of give you a big overview of these are the elementary boundaries and in the blue lines there uh and with that overlaid municipal boundaries in the different colors so we can see how the communities relate to uh our elementary boundaries and also to see where the duel and uh non-contiguous areas which are circled on the map there and I'll go into more detail on those so the first one is the uh uh dual area for uh be creek creek side and Creek Side Mesa shown here uh from what I gather looking through past files this probably comes from the early 1980s uh with a round of some school closures and consolidations that um uh basically the uh dual area for um bar Creek Mesa probably was the old Paddock School attendance area which is now where monor is located uh and there were some discussions about splitting that up but apparently this was the resolution was to turn it into a dual area that we see here the creek side one to the north was probably a similar uh discussion related to UNI Hill that was part of uni Hills when it had an attendance area when we look more closely at these uh we can see Bear Creek now has about 35 Barre Creek Side attendance area has about 35 students uh that's down from about 41 in 2018 so it's remained relatively consistent uh over time uh of those 35 uh students 22 are going to be Creek seven are attending Creekside uh and one is attending monor which is another school in that immediate area uh that doesn't have an attendance area uh and five are attending other uh schools in bbsd uh the bigger of the two though would be the uh be Creek Mesa attendance area currently 143 students that's down from about 200 in 2018 um of that about half go to Bar Creek and about a quarter go to Mesa um and 16 go to monu uh which again is is within that uh dual area and another 15 go to other schools uh the 16 to monor is uh monor actually is pretty scattered has kids from a lot of different places I think Creek Side is a little bit higher uh but but between you know 16 is one of the higher of the group but most but monor doeses get uh kids from most of the schools in certainly in Boulder in uh in Lewisville and some of the surrounding areas as well before you move on I'm just going to pause at the end of each one of these and then if you have questions feel free to go so with these dual enrollment areas do we provide transportation for students that are outside of the walkable bikable zones from each of those to their school that they chose for example example if you live in Bear Creek Mesa and you are not walkable to the school in which you chose do we provide transportation for those two areas we only provide transportation at Creekside so we have one bus from those areas going to Creekside otherwise they're all within walk distance to Mesa or Bear Creek so the creek side seven students may get busing okay busing okay and then Alex and the um I'm uh I'm really interested in this discussion my own I'm myself live in the be Creek Mesa neighborhood and familiar with the Dynamics um as we continue with this I guess I'm really interested in combining data from multiple sources sort of on a regional basis so I know we sort of have the dual enrollment areas but I think to understand what's going on with Mesa and Bear Creek especially with like the long range planning and declining enrollment I'm really interested in and seeing the data from the Open Enrollment the total enrollment in the schools how much is coming from the dual enrollment zones versus the rest I'm also really interested in understanding I mean I believe some of the uh things to take into consideration Bear Creek I believe has our lowest free and reduced price lunch population of any school in the in the district and so is there stuff that's in the dual enrollment zones to Bear Creek that's increasing the access to Bear Creek from low-income families so I want us to take into consideration not just the geography and the numbers but um uh but how many people are exercising open enrollment uh what's the likelihood that someone would not get a choice in the next few years because if we do much to adjust attendance boundaries when everyone can still just choose and no one's being denied then this is all a big paper exercise that has no meaning um and then I'm also quite sensitive uh to the people who do live in the creek side and be Creek and in the be Creek Mesa dual zones or any of the Dual zones for the decisions families made and picking their homes right so I know people it's one of the top considerations of when they buy their home is where can they go to school so this is not this is these are decisions we should make with great care but we should also take them with considerable bit of humility because whatever we decide families exercising choice that we endorse are going to make it potentially moot so if we're going to get into this I'd like to do it with a big picture and then finally I guess I would I'd be most interested in looking at this from kind of a regional perspective so I don't think it's as helpful to look at be Creek in isolation from Community monu or creek side or Mesa as much as it is to say what is the deal with our enrollment our choice in Southwest bowler right so I I think a regional characterization of all the data would put us in a much better position and then it's not just the attendance boundary we look at but other things that get at ultimately like how how many families that could be having be automatically going to Mesa are choosing to go to Mesa and that would inform the discussion of what can Mesa do about this so anyway I think the more we get into one topic like enrollment areas on its own actually the less we know about what we need to do with the problem and the more we're we're not necessarily using our time well like I want multiple topics brought together to deal with the issues in a region if we can and I think that like gets to the very end of what other pieces of information do we want as a board and um I would agree with some of those like so noted elenia and then I think I saw Beth uh just to piggyback on that I would like to see um just the basic information of where because I think Community monitory is a piece of this puzzle um I'd like to understand where the students are coming from that attend community monory if we could have that what this is lending itself to is coming up on February 11th we present our dashboard and the good thing is is we have a lot of this information that's going to be at your fingertips to be able to pull out to help us make some of these decisions so the timing is working out in our favor right now I don't have a I also want to piggy pack I appreciate all the points you just Rose as well as the point that you wrote Rose linia the the lens at which I'm looking at this in addition to all the points that were just deed is I'm thinking a lot about access and you brought it up already Rob around the the concept of busing and transportation so for me I'm going to be looking for data or information around how are our students accessing our schools um because I think that plays a lot into the choices that families are making um I hear it often in conversations I have with parents for example around Middle School choices it it needs to be convenient I need to be able to get my my kid needs to be able to independently get to school Etc right so I'm I'm pretty interested in that piece as we talk through this just wanted to share that thank you um yeah thanks just in the category of things we would like to know more about it I apologize this I don't think this is further down but you I know this particular situation because my kids go to Creekside or one one kid goes to Creekside now um and you know this is a example of you know Creek Side as I understand it is at capacity and you know m and be Creek are under enrolled and so you know here's a kind of small snapshot of something where you know we could really you know possibly look at some alterations with the boundaries and i' I'd be curious to know where else in the district you have kind of a you know a snapshot where you have one school that's you know imbalanced and you can see it with the you know some of the slides down the road that say you know have the attendance numbers but not the kind of regional picture of like you know these this is an under enrolled school and here's the neighboring schools and so we're you know that I think I think that at least for me it's helpful to think about it in terms of you know kind of a not a neighborhood solution but a kind of section of the community solution and so you know I I don't know how we show that but maybe in versions of this map and piggybacking on that I spent some time over the weekend looking at our Aur the back of the Aur which shows capacity and enrollment for each school and cross reference that with our open enrollment Matrix to show like where our who's going and where are they coming from and how that movement occurs much like what you're saying like that big picture because there are a handful of schools that if everybody that in those boundaries wanted to attend they would not physically fit and creek site is one of them and their boundaries are dual enrollment and non-contiguous and kind of fascinating and so I think that again jumping ahead because we're just throwing our like what do we want to see but I think that is would be an interesting overlay as this three bigger zoom out View and it is fascinating when you look at the school in which that is the case or you know triangulating all that Dr Anderson board members and I think as our community as a whole begins to think about what it is we're trying to do you will understand a massively complicated ecosystem that we have here uh one of the other limiting factors and I know rob you spoke to this on slide um three is uh we don't know what happens when you change attendance boundaries cuz we've never done it right to the extent that how that would then reshake out distribution of students when you have seats no idea um and and you'll hear you'll hear Glenn uh when he speaks to things he'll say things like I think in the 1980s this is what happened there's no historical record of some of these things um and so uh you know how they got there little f we we you know making some conclusions where they're at you know the thing that I think about is you can have a sense of folks who don't choose that choose another school but of the percentage of folks who are at their neighborhood School how many made that conscious choice and how many just went there because they didn't know to choose or not like I think that that's a blind spot for us as we think about this so um I do believe that today's presentation for our public and for the board will be bring to the service the surface the complexity of what it is we're thinking about uh again I've I've worked in other school districts attendance boundary changes are always contentious uh but at least when you're doing it you know what you're going to get because that's where you're deciding what kids go to what schools so you know if you go through the I I just think this is going to be interesting I think that we're going to need to know what more information you want I think that at some point you know we'll think about how do you engage the community like like we may need to be seeking more information before we understand by changing these things what will they do and what will the impacts be uh but I just kind of wanted to take a moment to just recognize that we kind of think we know why things are the way they are um and we don't necessarily know what will happen if we make significant changes uh but we do know that we have some schools that have more kids where if all if you everybody in the zone decided to show up to school they couldn't fit them and we have other schools that might not have as many kids in their Zone but lots of kids choose them so just as complicated as this can be uh not to blabber the point I just think that it's it's interesting as we begin to dig into this um which is why you'll see more discussion tonight than here's our clear path forward to change attendance boundaries right for folks who are move who have moved here from somewhere else who don't know how this works like it's just super complicated Alex um I just want to add one more layer of complexity to the whole thing too I I do think um while our charter schools and other Focus schools are schools of choice uh we need them sort of stuck into this geography too to understand it as well even when they don't have the um enrollment areas and I think one thing I can add too is on the Open Enrollment matrices there are columns for the Dual areas so uh you can see where students are are are coming from and going to from there actually Glenn I sorry one question and this just gets the real the layers of complexity where we have a lot of focus or choice or charter schools in the same area that we have a lot of density of our neighborhood schools and so your you're thinking is that those schools remained during time of consolidation and school closures and then we kind of cropped up as Focus schools or Charter Schools um like I'm trying to there are a lot of schools in the same pocket and they do pull from each other but the rationale for why they remained or like how that they went from a NE most of them went from a neighborhood school to a choice school or a charter school is that my is that true um what limited information I saw was talking about school closures it was actually all preliminary information I didn't have any of the decisions in it so I think there's an assumption that um that those schools did move on to some certainly I think uni Hill uh moved on to some kind of uh you know nonboundary related uh programming at the time the other schools I'm not 100% sure if they were vacant for a while or how that exactly worked so the other dual area we have we don't have anything at the middle school level but at high school is uh the boulder Fair View area shown here on the map uh which is in the gun barrel area uh still no real details on on this one as well and where it came from uh you know I think both Fairview and Centaurus interestingly is also the other new school in the area we're in the early 70s so I don't think this is that old so not sure where it came from but it is a sizable area uh currently has about 257 high school students that's down from about 300 in 2018 um 86 are attending Boulder high and 129 are attending fair viiew and 42 are attending other schools can you tell me if there are um I guess we don't need to know today but I'd like to understand if there are any students asking to go to I guess it's a larger question it goes back to what Alex was talking about there are all these layers of complexity but there's also a really basic question which is if people are open open and rolling and they're getting into the school that they want to get into I want to be mindful of what we're putting into this um I think the overlayment of charter schools and choice schools is important and that's why I asked for the community monu piece um but when I look at this I wonder if it was all a fair viiew area or all a boulder area would those remaining students be able to open en roll into Boulder or Fair viiew well I mean they'd be subject to current open enrollment policy and and space availability and and those types of things so right now both schools are their home school and they're guaranteed to to go to the school of their choice I guess I'm asking maybe a little bit more about capacity or if we're having to deny people from going to either of those schools right now what happens in our open enrollment because as far as I understand it people generally are getting their first choice for open enrollment other than some of our Charter Schools yeah I believe I'm looking at Robin back there and she is nodding her head yes so it looks like major are getting First Choice yes and I would say as a reminder that you know these are decisions for today and for tomorrow right to the extent that the issues in front of us at this moment now we've changed the policy so at least it won't be 40 years till we look this again right uh but for every five years and I think that as we think about the new open enrollment numbers uh I mean ultimately if if whether it's bold or Fair View if there are students that live outside of our boundaries that are getting open enrollment preference in there anybody who lived within our district would have a preference prior to that as a measuring like a like like something to measure against if that makes sense and so we'll you know as this evolves we'll have a good sense um and and then also you know board members you can think about if there are adjustments and changes that need to be made when are they go into effect right so uh I I do think that you know there's some forward-looking decisions that that could be on the table potentially not maybe impacting folks you know necessarily right this moment but you know you know when these things go in effect is a decision was in the perview of the vard as well likewise with my other question about the dual enrollment areas can you speak a little bit about how Transportation works for these students so um two buses serve this area one that serves Boulder High one that serves Fair View both both around 35 to 40 kids per bus so there's really in this area really no Transportation efficiencies to be found because either way You' be transporting those students if it just went to Boulder high for example you'd have two buses going to Boulder high so we fill up two buses so uh two buses and then we have some supplemental service from RTD uh that we've talked to you about at the beginning of the year so and then on that slide the other 42 schools that those folks go to off the top of your head are they out a district in District uh in District um fairly evenly distributed uh a little a few more in New Vista has a little higher concentration of about 15 kids otherwise um it's fairly distri you know five here six there yeah h can I see your hand up yeah and this is something I think uh Beth brought up too I mean and I know uh Mr Price that you're deal with the complexity of Transportation but I do think of you know 80 kids on buses is is uh 20 cars that aren't on the road in the area and so you've got you know fact that it's dual enrollment and kids are going a long ways away on our buses is better than it not being dual enrollment and they're assed somewhere they don't go and they all get in cars and go to the same places so like at some level there's some rationality to how it got put together that probably made sense logistically and transportation wise while making the families happy in the neighborhood the next areas are non-contiguous areas so these are another part from the 1980s uh this one shows uh a two areas within the Coline attendance area that are going to Whittier the circled areas those are both essentially mobile home parks uh the history of this I don't just kind of word of mouth has been it was a destratification effort from the 1980s uh to uh distribute some of the concentrations that of of uh lowl populations in Coline um but that's as much as I've heard um but we see the on the right there the numbers uh right now about 113 in those two mobile home parks are attending it's been declining over time but mobile home parks tend to kind of go up and down uh more than other types of housing stock that we have uh but uh we do see the majority continuing to go to Whittier where transportation's provided uh and also Coline doesn't seem to to to get quite the uh the number of students that Whittier does uh there's no transportation for them but under the other category uh uni Hill is really the the predominant school with that in transportation is provided to them the other non-contiguous area is in Whittier and shown here uh and that area goes to Creek Side this one's bit a bit of a mystery uh more than the others uh I don't really see the rationale I think most of those students appear to be uh CU graduate housing uh there's some private apartments in there as well uh at the same time it's not all of the CU graduate housing so um for whatever reason at that time those students have been transported to Creekside and again now we're seeing very low numbers from there I think that has something to do with I see a lot of scrape offs in that area and remodeling I think they're rebuilding some of the some of the apartment building so uh they're not really available for use so the numberers gotten very low but even during uh the high so we can see here it's its highest parts were in 25 26 total with most of those going to Creek Side Alex um I guess I have a pitch to make as a person who earned a PhD and CU Boulder to all those aspiring PhD students who need a dissertation topic we would love to have a history of the attendance boundaries uh within Boulder Valley over the last 50 years and their creation of uh different schools and programs and why they happen because we seem to have lost the records so' be a great dissertation that we would slurp up in a minute so Glenn I have it um with the side and with the one previous so in this area they get transportation to Creekside but not Whittier and they seem pretty approximate to the actual location of woodier so it's within our walkable distance and same thing I'm wondering about the side before if that's why though they seem like it's further away from where Coline is I'm wondering about that our arrows just not correct on that so we provide transportation all the way to the school not is that what you're asking yeah no my question was why does it only Transportation only go to Whittier and not go to Coline if it feel if it looks like it's a similar distance between the catchment areas why was that decision made well because essentially that is considered to be in um in whittier's attendance area the circled so it's their home school so they get transportation for it Jason on the next slide The Graduate students that go to Creek Side it looks like there's two this year sorry one B one there we go uh are those is there a bus that s brings two kids from the really okay seems like a area of efficiency now when we just when we talk about buses understand we have multip tier system so it's just let's let's just say we would get rid of transportation that doesn't mean we take one bus we take a route off does that make sense it's one part of the run that would pick up kids take them to the school they still have another tier to so it's not like you're saving a bus if you were to eliminate that I just want to make sure everybody understands the routing happy to talk more about routing terminology if we need to although just on that if they if they're for example as Whit ear you know is physically closer and you take that out of the Creekside Zone they would be within walking distance of woodier which would accomplish a number of our goals so just a question on that yeah lania I think at our next presentation for me an understanding I I don't understand all the busing terminology and nor do I probably want to understand all that Transportation terminology what I would like to understand is where our efficiencies could be made and because other than safety and walkability which are also really important and I would like to see that as well safety walkability and then you know the cost savings as we're looking at declining enrollment and as we see the budget cuts coming our way um those seem really important this next slide is looking at the split feeders that we have in the district at least between Elementary and um Middle School uh so the the dark lines are Elementary again in the multicolored areas are the various uh Middle School boundaries throughout the district uh and we have also put in yellow the small schools those are neighborhood schools only for Elementary uh in the darker bigger red ones are the neighborhood schools at middle school so when we look at this out east it looks like we have pretty clean feeders the the elementary lines mostly match the colors of the middle school with a few exceptions um if you take Heatherwood to the north and take that eastern boundary and extend that down at the high school level that would be Centaurus as boundary so that would be one incons inconsistency in the East uh otherwise most of them are um are pretty solid the real issue with with feeder systems is really in Boulder um with Creekside being part of three separate Middle School boundaries uh we also have um Coline part of both Centennial and Casey uh Whittier parts of Casey and Manhattan uh and then when you go to the high school level uh Casey and Manhattan are also split between Fairview and Boulder High yeah this I find really fascinating and even like you look at Douglas when Douglas splits into high schools or sorry plat like you get three different elementary schools colliding into plat and then those get divided into like four different high schools in three different towns and part of me really wonders and this is a wondering that we'll never know and the complexity but when we're reshuffling our students every few years what does that do to a sense of community and how does that contribute to our open enrollment patterns because you know my friend across the street or that my best friend from kindergarten through fifth grade ends up in a totally different middle school and then will end up in a totally different high school because he lives two blocks away and so I think looking at these feeders and how they in our boundaries can better align some of these to have that sense of community and to have that sense of Co consistency for the folks that that is important to is worth thinking about I think about the surgeon general's warning um topic on the pandemic or epidemic of loneliness and how Central Community is to people's sense of well-being and mental health and if we're consistently reshuffling kids because and they can't open a role because they need transportation and whatnot what how does that impact their choices that they might make it's just an interesting to look at how how many times some of these kids have to switch Dr Anderson I do think that we have evidence of that as we as we kind of did some of our um our polling of our community around why do why parents choose schools besides their home school this idea that they wanted to go where one of their friends went I mean that came up so that's that is you know and it is it's interesting if you had cleaner feeder patterns would more folks choose their homeschool dissertation topic Alex if you're if you're you know if we're filling up the the Halls at University of Colorado Boulder so and as a consideration I would be interest as far as entertaining ideas how can we better align some of these feeder patterns I think that is for me something worth exploring along with all these other pieces Alex yeah I totally agree and I and again I think we're adding complexity but I don't know what to do with it um my own children went to community monu and we lived across the street we were like the closest Family to the whole school and I spent so much time driving my kids to their play dates in Erie um before they were done and then they weren't uh connected to the kids in the neighborhood who were going to Bar Creek and Mesa which was solved in middle school so I I do think there are social dynamics kid- to kid issues to Beth's point there are Transportation efficiency issues but the other reason I'm actually interested in the CU thing is to give due due credit to the destratification effort in Boulder in the'80s and 90s because we have highly segregated housing patterns um by income and lots of unaffordable neighborhoods and uh low-income families and other places and some of these historical things we've done were in order to uh provide some diversity in our schools and so I would hate as we lose if we we have so much complexity that we pile on to lose some of the intentionality was there Community monory still I believe has a limit on the number of people from South Boulder that go there or at least I don't know if we lost that one or not because they were afraid it would become as low in f frl as Bear Creek is and we paid for about eight years uh all the time my kids were there for transportation from kids uh from North Boulder for law income communities to go there and that's why they had like 28 29% low-income kids and a lot of English language Learners um so there the intentionality that we've lost historical traction on was destratification effort to make some of our schools not be um uh totally absent of children of poverty and have opportunities spread throughout and we put Transportation into that intentionally is an historical thing so I think it's uh I don't want to lose sight of what the goal was there I don't know that it's achieving the goal I don't know if it's working as planned uh put it into modern transportation and open enrollment what does it makes I was always frustrated the bus that brought kids to community monasi could basically have turned around in the parking lot at bar Creek and let kids from North Boulder have access to all three of our South boulders schools none of which have very high proportions of low-income kids on their own but Community monor was the one where we spent $70,000 a year to make it be more diverse so like there's a great deal of intentionality here that was also about um uh destratification that I don't want to lose this next slide is a little different it it this is looking at uh the number of Resident students in each of the schools from 24 enrollment uh so you can see the line the number on the top there the number of students for each School the red line in the middle at 300 that's approximately two rounds you need about two 300 students to make a two round school so that's just kind of a marker to see where um uh uh to see how different schools compare uh versus a two round uh we also on the left side circled the um dual enrollment schools be creek creek side Mesa since they're a little bit you have to really kind of pull them out a little bit since you also have to add in the Dual areas on the top into those kids so they don't quite compare looking straight at it but if you take those students out on the left side we also circled uh five schools in red and those schools are the five smallest uh um resident attending populations schools in the district and it's interesting when you look at those and you note that of those five only two are uh projected to reach the engagement phase in five years so this gets to what we've been talking about with open enrollment and these other factors affecting enrollment a low population doesn't necessarily correlate with a low uh enrollment for the schools uh the other thing we looked at was if you if you take the six um uh projected schools to be an engagement two of them are actually bigger than 300 so including Heatherwood which is the current one so again we see those effects of of open enrollment on and and other factors on our enrollment uh in the district and and really I think when you look at it this way uh you walk away thinking that you know um make getting bigger populations in the schools benefits some schools but not necessarily all of them yeah just for how to interpret this so if I want to understand how many people uh have a an enrollment right to Bear Creek is it the first three or is Bear Creek the third one the total of the others um so you Bear Creek uh Creekside duel uh Bear Creek Mesa duel and then Bear Creek um so in total does Bear Creek have the 100 70 or the more like 300 that have it as a right so you would look at it well as a as a matter of right it be Bear Creek would be be Creek plus the other two Duss together but how I often do it say in the uh open enrollment Matrix is you base it on their choice so the kids in a dual enrollment area if they choose bar Creek then you consider that part of their neighborhood area um uh but that's a little different issue I think for what we have right here here is you know they can go to either school so it be you know they could do both yeah I I guess the the thing I'm thinking about as we layer over the Open Enrollment data like I'd be really curious to know for the roughly 300 a little bit plus of the families that that don't have to choose to get to be Creek like how many go there and same for uh Mesa um to get a sense and that way we can understand what the attractiveness is of the schools to the families who have that as the first option and that would be a useful thing to understand in terms of how the community is judging the quality of their neighborhood school but if we when we divide it up this way it becomes I think harder to understand what the families are choosing to do and I think in a previous side they're disproportionately choosing Bear Creek or I mean overwhelmingly they're choosing be Creek over the other two schools and so how does that Flip Flip question is like impacting the other schools um and their enrollment and then just again there's this element of not everybody's choosing like we say hey this is school year Zone 2 some people just go and if you it's funny because we you know we were having this conversation and preparing for this conversation with the board and we had a Cabinet member say well why do we have attendance boundaries at all like do you just open the schools and let folks go and you know we we got into this discussion of you know the need to have a neighbor neighborhood school and you know the value so I do think that uh we'll all we'll be able to get more information and we can get you more information on all of this I don't know that we'll always we'll have all the information because some of it is just elusive piggybacking on that a little bit um post this open enrollment window I've been hearing from families like we talk so much about Open Enrollment that some families forget don't know how to just apply to their neighborhood school and sometimes these combined areas again they're feeding that they're feeding that cycle cuz now I have to choose and what does that do and then do I look everywhere else too because now I'm looking at two do I look at 10 and how like it's an interesting school choice laws create interesting Dynamics for school districts and boundaries are somewhat nebulous and and some degree really important for that sense of community and belonging and you know having that anchor in your neighborhood so it is fascinating but that's an interesting anecdote I've heard lately like how do I just apply to my neighborhood school I'm like well just like we always did guys you just you know but we talk a lot about Open Enrollment and so it feels like the it's taken a a big seat at the table well you know as we think about this and as we think about combining these efforts uh you could make a attendance boundary changes and then at the same time make open enrollment preference changes does that make sense so uh say you had a dual zone school one of these Dual Zone schools you could Zone it for one school and then anybody who lived within that zone you could give them an open enrollment preference but you clean up the attendance boundary right you know depending upon as we get to the end you know what are the things what are the problems we're trying to solve like what are the things that the most important right we've got things that are in policy there's things that have been standing practice um uh in in the district and so I do think that we have tons of things that we can think about and it's just it's not oh we're just drawing this line here drawing that line there it is all interconnected but you there's potentially other things we could do if there's a benefit to cleaning up some of these boundaries that then you could then say to our community yes but like as opposed to having an attendance B like a dual attendance Zone we're going to run this zone for transportation efficiency for sustainability for being able to walk into school we're going to do that and for these you know for X number of years or till Infinity you have this open enrollment preference uh that would then for the in the near future so I so just as you know as we're opening our minds to what all of this means right just kind of want to put that on the table is just just to be thinking of these things together I'm just going to jump in here real quick just that it's been said several times but the the complicated picture right what this doesn't show is Charter Schools it doesn't show any of our schools that don't have attendance areas right so Focus schools Charter Schools uh 70% of our our students pick their neighborhood School 30% on average attends you know or open and rolling to another school so um I do believe that the dashboards that we will be presenting in February will help us a great deal to answer some of these questions that continue to come up uh so I think it's just a timing perspective when we have that information um but I I do believe and it's been said this is extremely complicated to bring all of this together in a slideshow uh to present it all at one time so this is helpful and a similar slide uh this time with births um which is you know could be a data point that we would look at uh in any consideration in the future um the births are you know I think it's good at giving a relative um difference between the the attendance areas in terms of the number of births and young families starting uh and gives insights into future K but it is missing that migration piece and what happens in 5 years I know one thing that happens is some areas may have a lot of Apartments people have their babies there but then in five six years they've usually moved on uh to to a different place so that can so doesn't always reflect itself uh perfectly but it is an indicator and can be useful um uh when looking at boundaries uh on this one we also added the circled the five schools that had the smallest populations um on the left um and of the um and of the five smallest resident populations we can see three of them did have lower births too so it does provide some insight with that and one last consideration too to keep uh our eye on is uh future residential development um because you know things aren't static and we do have the potential of having significant numbers of new students uh coming down the pipe in some areas uh even though we are declining in enrollment overall um this map shows out some of the primary ones actually if you look at the little red uh polygons scattered throughout that's all new development in various stations but the significant ones we can see up in the on the right side Parkdale of course and Erie coming online but even north of that is a pretty large area that Erie has designated for future housing occasionally I get calls from developers uh whether that's inquiring on that property about development status uh so so far nobody that I know of is building on that property but that could come down down the pipe and it's almost would almost be as big as as Parkdale uh that's the last really big one uh that I think we have in the district uh let things change uh the other areas to keep our mind on is CU Housing coming up in South Boulder in particular um the South Boulder campus uh annexation does have consideration for a fairly large number of units um but of course how that will actually impact us will depend on the types of units and things like that but that is an area that could affect of course Creek Side has a lot but Mesa around there and some uh some other schools that could use students um could be something big uh and lastly um CU is also looking at uh or it's purchased recently uh property in Lewisville as well and they have expressed interest in putting uh either graduate housing or um employee housing there and I think paying attention to what kind of housing that will be as we saw with that um noncontiguous border with graduate student housing that's very little few students come out of that so if these are graduate student housing I think the anticipate if we can say well the current graduate student housing does not produce very many students future graduate student housing with delayed births probably not going to be a a big generator of students but if it was Professor housing or staff housing it that would have I would assume but looking at those Trends would be important the type of folks would be that you know the potential for students would be higher yeah I think both the type of units will be dependent on that and I think those two categories um would be important and along those lines you know not looking at this in 40 years and thinking about destratification and types of housing the housing stock has changed drastically in 40 years and so you know as we think about that I mean Dem demographically the types of housing the cost of housing in the last 40 years the landscape looks nothing like it did and so um taking that in consideration when we think of like well destratification in the 80s you how does that what would that mean even today if the house costs like $2 million now and it used to not Alex yeah I was just going to add one other wrinkle on it um when we think about students I think when I think of student housing I also think of uh grad students with babies and so as long as we're in the preschool game then that's different than being in the elementary school game so all right just uh we've put together just a summary slide to um highlight what we've talked about tonight great feedback so we thank you for that I guess I would just ask is there anything else the board would like us to add and then I do believe we'll have a great conversation in February when we're talking about the dashboard and how the dashboard informs this work as we're moving forward uh but if there's anything else that we haven't talked about that you would like to see us bring back in March now would be the time to tell us that kitty I will start with you thanks excuse me I decided to wait till the end because a couple of my questions got answered um but I have a couple of comments um some concerns I've heard from board members are about Transportation efficiency and I've heard this brought up before at you know in different context and I just want to say that since I've been on the board that's not something that we as board members have ever had to worry about because the folks who are working on this already have this at top of mind so I don't know if that helps anybody but um we can just I think assume that that's going to be addressed and we'll hear about it um in terms of never having changed boundaries you know in 40 years the only thing we really have done is opening new schools and that does change boundaries and that happened when um one of my kids was at Fireside was when Monarch opened and it was difficult for families now fortunately the principal had a very thoughtful process for this and he engaged families and sort of did closure type things now whether every principal would do that I you know I don't know or whether it would be appropriate I don't know um and then the other thing is just something Nicole mentioned about shuffling kids say every five years now I think and I could be wrong I think I heard when we you know brought this up before is coming up with some plan of not forcing people to move their children right when if we change boundaries but you know giving them you know the grace time to when their kids are out of school or go you know go to the next level so it won't wouldn't be as disruptive and if we didn't talk about that then I think that's something we ought to talk about it and um that's all I have thanks Alex yeah I guess I would um in the observations I would just add that I think in order to accommodate uh like the charter schools and focus schools and stuff I do think and this is also I think true for the the lra I think trying to get a or neighborhood based discussion of this analysis would be really helpful and I think the more we think about schools as the unit the sort of harder it is to put it all together but when we say let's look at this neighborhood I think it it'll be a little easier for us to sort of make sense of it one thing I would like to understand a little bit more have our public understand is the impact of these choice schools we haven't talked about the choice schools at all and where they're drawing students from um I think that would be a very interesting look at um I also think one thing I wonder about is that Community cohesion the ability I mean for my kids it was great to be able to walk and bike to school every single day that built community that was a great way to get some exercise in the morning I some of our boundaries make it nearly impossible even if the school is close Crossing South Broadway Crossing 36 crossing boundaries that cross Foothills Parkway like what impacted is that having on on um the cohesion of those schools or are people making those choices to choose one school over the other so they don't have to cross those big physical boundaries so I would be curious to understand a little bit more about that and then [Music] um we talk about every board meeting but fiscal implications of any decision and what would that look like and how are being how are we being the most responsible with our taxpayer dollars that we can and ideally of would love us to have some be able to speak to in the future why our attendance boundaries look like they do and we no longer have to hypothesize and say well I think they look like this because of this I think if we have some just clear um guiding principles and we can speak to why the boundaries even if they don't change like we have some rational reasons too so if there are other pieces of information that staff need to throw think that would be reasonable or appropriate to for us to look at that haven't already been mentioned by the board I would love to see whatever else um you feel like is appropriate and the degree to which capacity comes into play I'm not really sure but at this point but it's something that I'm always wondering about anything else board members Dr Anderson so to to begin to wrap this up uh first of all want to thank Glenn want to thank Rob for their and our team for uh being thoughtful on how to boil the ocean so to speak and try to bring all these things see you all in a way where we could have this discussion which was the important First Step we're going to have on February 19th you're going to have a good sense of our open enrollment Matrix we're going to have a good sense of the dashboards we're also going to have our list of schools that are engagement and advisory that's coming on on February 19th the 11th um and and we we we're going to go back and watch this discussion as a team to think about the other information that you might want to consider I mean because the reality is if you look in policy JC and this is where it gets hard um some of these priorities could be competing so if you said just draw the boundaries so they're compact or just draw the boundaries so you balance the enrollment between schools or just draw the boundaries to make sure that we're using efficient Transportation or just draw the boundaries um um like like any one of those we could go and probably do that anything in between will just have to continue have more conversation and direction if that makes sense um and so uh so our takeaways and Rob and Glenn you tell me if if this is what you've heard is that there's some other information that's interesting to consider that we need to kind of you know put all that information the information that we can gather um we will we will begin gather and then on the 19th other information needs might come up in relation 11th I'm sorry Rob the 11th I I know we didn't okay um so on the 11th other information might come up and that would prepare us for bringing something back to you in March which is more of a here's the information you talked about let's start to hone in on strategy and Direction and is this how is this combined or separate does that make sense s board members ises that feel like that you where we're leaving this conversation great news lots of options challenging news lots of options so uh I appreciate board members your time and I appreciate staff for for the work that you put into this work session thank you Rob and thank you Glen uh we will now take a brief break so we can reconvene the boardroom e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I would like to reconvene this evening's meeting and the next item on our agenda is a superintendence report Dr Anderson take it away thank you very much board president Raj Paul members of the board good to see everyone and good to see everyone here in the audience hope everybody had a wonderful winter break um board members as you know we kicked off our second semester last week and it's just nice to have everybody back and learning and back in the swing of things uh now before the holidays we had uh it's one of my favorite events of each semester and that's where we celebrate the graduating class of the transition program here at the Ed Center so for those who don't know bbsd transitions program provides a bridge for 18 to 20y Old students who require additional time to achieve their IEP identified post-secondary goals and providing a platform for their success into adulthood some of the students plan for for the future included attending college gaining more independence by getting a driver's license becoming a dog trainer volunteering in their community and more I just want to um reiterate to all of our transitions graduates from Winter 2024 we're all so proud of you excited for the amazing things you're going to accomplish and take just another moment to thank our amazing staff at our transitions program uh the work that they do with those students is lifechanging and if you've never had a chance board members to to go to a transitions uh graduation put that on your must Todo list because it's really inspiring so last week um board members as you know we kicked off this semester by opening New Vista High School's new building and the school and District staff rolled out the red carpet for students I think we have a video to share good morning so grateful to see you today this is the day they've been waiting for this moment is for you to come enjoy your new school building [Music] n Vista students were welcomed to their new school in a way that feels just right for them with balloon sculptures of course and marimbas taking the place of the traditional drum line but perhaps the most priceless moment was when students walked into their new Commons for the first time I think it's a great school I like the way it looks I think it's really cool it looks looks actually pretty yeah it's cozy yeah I can imagine myself learning here pretty impressive it's a I think it's definitely worth the wait this is way cooler than I expected so would love to take this uh opportunity to thank our bond construction team contractors and of course our incredible staff at New Vista High School for making the midyear move happen as many of us were enjoying the winter holidays all of those folks were hard at work transitioning moving to from the old New Vista to the new New Vista uh and uh and doing that a way that where kids just had an amazing experience on day one uh you know it's it's just it's uh it was fabulous to to be there on that first day um and and just to see this building that was built specifically for new vista's special brand of programming and mind you know for so many years board members and folks in the community would know this as well is that is that the folks our our team at New Vista our teachers and staff ended up just being in other places that folks didn't want anymore and whether it was at Paddock that now is community monu or whether it was in uh the small building the out building on uni Hill as I believe where they started uh to then Baseline and and for them to have their own building built specifically for them was just a magical it's just a wonderful thing I cannot wait to see what they do with the space would love to to also take this opportunity board members to um to to thank both our current board and past the past board members to help make this moment happen these photos were from a uh a visit to the building in December and his construction workers were still working uh to finish things up we're fortunate to have so many of you as well as former board president and now colle Colorado State Board of Education member Kathy Gart former Board of Education vice president Lisa Sweeney Moran to join us on the tour I just really want to again thank the board for its leadership on this project uh for seeing the needs of our students the special nature of V New Vista and advocating for change at a time where schools like New Vista are closing across the country um and we are leaning in and building new facilities it's really really wonderful also want to thank our taxpayers without their support with our bond in 2022 none of this would be possible so thank you to the taxpayers um within the Boulder Valley School District for your continued support and uh I would encourage folks if you ever get a chance to go check out New Vista you'll want to do it it's amazing amazing place that's all I have for my board comments for this evening or my superintendent comments rather board members any questions for Dr Anderson I do have one one question um as asked for members of the community when deconstruction is going to begin and what that might look like as you could see in that picture that was shown the old building is blocking the view for our new students but members of the community run there were wondering what that timeline is for taking that building down assistant superintendent of operations Rob price would be happy to answer that question to give everybody a sense of when that's going to happen so great question uh abatement has started now so they're going to be starting on the south and closest to Baseline they're going to be working their way towards the north the hope is is that we are done uh with demolition by the end of May early June time frame so abatement when that starts you won't see a lot of activity because that's all happening indoors and the demolition will start from the south work towards the north when we're done with demolition May June time frame then we've got to build out that site work so build the parking lots all the Landscaping get in the turf field Etc we expect that to be done by early October yeah if I could I would just make one other comment on a new Vista I think Boulder Valley has so many amazing Innovative schools our our Focus schools and our choice schools and everything and it's sometimes people think that an innovation is something that's pretty cool but it probably won't last and I just like to point out we have all these 20 and 25y old institutions that are pillars of our community that have maintained the Fidelity of their Innovation for like decades at this point their Innovations are lasting longer than our buildings and I and I think we just really have to give our hats off to the school leaders and the staff and the community for helping them stay different like you would expect a district to creep and make try to make a school like New Vista become more normal year after year and Boulder is a place that protects us Innovation so long that it outlives buildings and I just think that's a great Testament to our leaders and the schools well then the next item on this evening's agenda is public participation the board respects the rights of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of the schools the board does not endorse the comments of any speaker and reminds all those who speak that you are responsible for your own speech speakers will each have two minutes to speak you will see a yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining and an orange card when you have 10 seconds remaining if you run out of time or would like to share additional information you can always email the board this evening um portion of our agenda has been designated to off for opportunities to hear about comments regarding the groet ban Elementary chart application but since we have no speaker signed up on that topic we'll move on to our open public participation our first speaker this evening is Giana Marsh who is attending virtually we're missing the clicker so I'm going to time it on my phone you can take it the clock down if you want so we will listen for the Chimes of Laura's phone this evening is Giana online she is jna we're ready if you are you're muted maybe we'll move on to our next speaker and then loop back for when GA is ready so our next speaker this evening is Trevor odow that is where you should be and then just push the button with the person icon to turn on your mic is it working and all good okay I don't want to take too much of your time so this will be quick hi my name is Trevor odow and I am a member of the sunrise movement specifically within Boulder Valley School District in the past this board has been uh exceedingly helpful in our local uh campaign efforts however we are now moving beyond local efforts and attempting to expand to a Statewide campaign in order to achieve significant successes in a timely manner we are looking for help with networking um we would greatly appreciate any and all support from the administrators and board members um that is available in the past this board uh these board meetings have proven to be an effective way of receiving support and completing our goals uh as such we are here again in an effort to acquire any and all support that the board is willing to provide um the voice of every single uh board member and administrator can be very helpful and very impactful in our uh in US trying to achieve our goals so please consider assisting us in our expansion and networking efforts uh and that's it very very quick and very simple do I turn the button off now yes yes you do thank you Trevor our next speaker this evening is Kinsley Walker all right hi my name is Kinsley and I go to lville elementary school one thing that I notice at pickup and drop off time is that parents idle their vehicles so much idling releases pollutions and toxins which is harmful for children's lung and brain development there's also environmental impact due to idling because every minute someone spends idling it wastes Fuel and it m greenhouse gases bvsd we are asking for your help to cut down unnecessary ID please help us enforce no ID zones so that we can live longer and healthier lives we also can cut down on climate change and parents can save a little cash on gas and maintenance thank you for listening I appreciate your support thank you Kinsley our next speaker this evening is ashn Sha hello and good evening my name is Ashna Shaw and I'm a student at Monarch High School and a resident of Superior Colorado as a member of bbsd Sunrise movement Hub I'm here to ask for your support with our current Green New Deal for Colorado schools campaign I want to say thank you for all the work bbsd is doing to implement the green New Deal resolution passed last year as someone who has witnessed the impacts of the climate crisis in my own community I know the importance of the goals we are advocating for safe and clean school buildings climate disaster plans climate curriculum and Pathways to Green jobs young people like myself must be equipped to exist in and fight against our changing planet and that starts at schools not just in bbsd but across Colorado therefore we are currently working to expand our goals Statewide through a series of policies that reflect the principles of the green New Deal for public schools by collaborating with state legislators and departments to provide all schools with the resources and programs to allow students to face the climate crisis Isis because of bbd's leadership and support of the initial Green New Deal resolution we are asking for your assistance in extending this initiative Statewide specifically we hope to collaborate with the board and District administrators to help build relationships with other school districts across Colorado together we can ensure that the green New Deal for Colorado schools becomes a Statewide priority thank you for your time and consideration we sincerely hope to have the administration's continued support in ensuring Colorado students regardless of their District can atttend safe climate prepared schools thank you thank you asna our next speaker this evening is Daisy Mell hi my name is Daisy Mardell and I'm in fourth grade at Louisville Elementary School I care about our worlds and idling is not okay to idle cars here are reasons why my first reason is that um for children it it hurts their lungs and their brains and it can seriously affect them my second reason is that honestly like it's trapped inside of the world and like you can never get it out and then my third reason is kids can't do anything about it it's like you just can't do anything about it but you guys can and so I hope that we're able to have a healthy world and I hope that you guys can make a rule or a policy or a law or anything that could help um create a so people can't idle uh near schools thank you for your time and listening I really hope that we're able to have a healthy world thank you Daisy our next speaker this evening is lilliam Brian hello my name is Liam Brian I'm here as a student at Lewisville Elementary School to tell you that we think bbsd should have a no idling policy and we need it to be in enforce now I noticed that some parents and adults at our school are not following our note idling signs we need systematic systemic change many people think restarting a car burns more fuel than this is false if your car needs to stay put for more than 10 seconds you should turn off the ignition a lot of people in our community idle without even thinking of it I suspect that this is because they don't realize how harmful idoling is to the environment for example my parents idled without knowing how much greenhouse gases it released into the atmosphere then I told them what I learned at climate action after that they reduced how much they idle daily in conclusion we are the children who will experience the effects of your choices please listen to what we have shared today if we can educate and inform our community about the harmful impacts of idolina I know they will make the right decisions help us and idoling do your part thank you thank you lilam I am going to go back I saw gaana Marsh pop online J are you there hello um hello my name is hello my name is Jonna Marsh I'm here as a student at Louisville Elementary School to tell you that we think bbsd should have a no idling policy and we need it to be enforced now I noticed that my school at my school parents are not following our no idling signs we need systematic change people think that restarting a car brns more fuel than idling this is false if your car needs to stay put more than 10 seconds you should turn it off turn off the ignition the combined effect of your pickup car idling contributes to global warming global warming is real for us the Marshall fire was caused by colado um worsened by Colorado's drought conditions um caused by global climate change my school could have burned down in conclusion we are the the children you serve we are also the ones who will experience the effects of your choices please listen to what we have shared today help us and idling do your part thank you for listening thank you our next speaker this evening is Laura stanet hi my name is Laura sanette and I am a mom of two daughters four and seven um we open enrolled in bbsd this last year um my younger four-year-old is enrolled in her third year at Balan and my older daughter at Aspen Creek and I'm sure that all of you are aware that to get your child any sort of mental health evaluation whether it be ADHD anxiety Etc the weight list is 3,000 children long and sorry on top of having a 3,000 CH child long weight list there is also a maternal maternal Mental Health crisis in this country as well so not only are children struggling the moms are struggling and we have moms we have dads we have grandparents yes but mostly the moms um I am a perinatal yoga instructor um a doua as well so I have been through my own mental health struggles the last handful of years trying to support myself and now I'm supporting my kids that have anxiety so the same things that I struggle with my seven-year-old struggles with and the difference is that at balwan we have been held so deeply and cared for so deeply by these humans and I put my kids in preschool so that I could have the time and space to go to therapy to go to yoga to do the things that I need the difference is these people have held us and supported us and done everything my kids needed my kids enrolled there my kids not enrolled there and the other the other school that we attend has been a very different story so please hear them please help support this cause because it matters and matters to the kids and it matters to the moms thank you thank you our next speaker this evening is Nicole Myers does not appear that Nicole is here so we'll be moving on to John Meyers the next person in line then is paty mckinty hi good evening um I was actually hoping my daughter here would go before me but um I'll go first um so um my name is paty mckinty I'm here on behalf of my daughter Mila and as a 27e uh resident of Baler County I've also been a public lands management professional for 25 years and I'm here to speak about the no idling policy um along with our Louisville Elementary teachers parents and students here I do implore you to enact a no idling rule at bvsd campuses I will say that you know I see this as something that could be staged like the plastic bags where it's signage education and then enforcement so that people kind of ease into it um you know President Jimmy Carter's recent passing really highlights the fact that we've been alerted to this climate catastrophe crisis since his presidency ending in 1980 that's 45 years of virtually no action um as with the plastic bag policy there will always be a handful of complaints from the community but the impact of mitigating pollution are huge and people quickly adapt our communities such as Johnstown other communities such as Johnstown Vil and Aspen have enacted Citywide no idling policies it's not UND it's not impossible to do uh it just takes time and commitment and education please let this policy start with bbsd and grow to include all of our communities for all of our health and for all of our children um according to uh many climate scientists the top three individual for each one of us uh climate actions we can take are one to transform our transportation emissions two reain in our power use from fossil fuels and three eliminate food waste these are things every one of us can be actively doing on a daily basis and it would have an impact addressing and enforcing and idling policy would be a catalytic move to advance the climate health of our community we do need to act now thanks for hearing this thank you our next speaker this evening is Jennifer mriy good evening can you hear me I would like to pose a question how many members of the board are Boulder natives raise your hand how many of you attended or graduated K through2 in Boulder Valley School District how many of you resided in the city of Boulder or count the county of Boulder before the year of 2000 okay I ask these questions because it provides context relative to the past present and future of our community I am a boulder native and a proud graduate of bvsd admittedly I am late to the discussion regarding the former Baseline Junior High School building and its future still I am here for a Mor to ask or appeal for a moratorium on the reconsideration of its destruction we've all witnessed the catastrophic destruction caused by the wildfires across Los Angeles County that Community is devastated and grieving the loss of many historic architectural structures that have meaning to the local community and Global Citizens who associate those Treasures like the Will Rogers Ranch and Pacific Palisades public high school fondly to their visits to Southern California what's my point these structures and many more have been lost inform the story history and culture of that Community just as the old Baseline Junior High School informs the history and story of Boulder I attended Southern Hills Junior High School and Baseline was our rival but I have many good friends who uh who uh attended Baseline and that the bvsd board would ignore the wisdom and expertise of preservationists within the boulder Historic Society and Destroy what in 1953 was considered Innovative forward moving architectural gym is angering and disheartening man and Americans are so quick to tear down the old and favor the new the charm of Boulder its beauty flat arm views and welcoming comments that led you to move here is being destroyed at warp speed replaced with ginormous soulless concrete boxes that primarily sit empty and scream communal dissonance I don't begrudge the district's building of this new structure with the exception of its size and scope given Boulder's declining School population but I do question the board's judgment for its willful deliberate destruction of a consequential piece of our City's history Beyond its architectural significance the school hold holds great social and historical import to our community and the nation a year before the Supreme Court ruling of Brown versus Board of Education Baseline integrated without incident in 1953 Jennifer and the building should be held up as a beacon and a reminder of the ongoing progress and fight this nation is engaged in to make you thank you you are welcome to submit the rest of your comments to the board via email board members there was one person that was accidentally omitted from our participation list list this evening so it will not be on your list but MAA Bellinger are are you in person sorry ma can we get on that there you go hello my name is MIL bler I'm here as a student at Lewisville Elementary School to tell you that we think bbsd should have a no idling policy and we need it to be enforced now I noticed that at my school the panther parents are not following the existing no idling signs we need systematic change it's up to you to do your part and act we decide if we live uh to decide if we live in a world where we regret the choices made in the past or in a world where we can be proud of taking care of our home plan in our hometown I just want to remind you that there is no Planet B and we need to take care of our environment now in conclusion we are the children you serve we are also the ones who experience the effects of your choices please listen to what we have shared today um help us end idling do your part and save the community thank you board members this concludes our public comment for this evening on behalf of the board I'd like to thank everybody who took their time to attend um in person and virtually this evening to share your thoughts and experiences and to those little ones at Lees uh a big um shout out for How brave you were to get up here and talk and it just shows the long Legacy enduring um work in our district to really do the right thing for our planet um whether you're in high school or whether you're in elementary school we we do care a lot so thank you all for being here we will now move on to the next item on our of our agenda which is board communication board members who would like to begin Kitty yes thank you um first I want to say thank you to everybody who came to speak to us and I want to Echo what um board president Raj Paul said about our students being so brave to come and speak to us I continue to be impressed with how articulate excuse me articulate our students are and to the young lady who said kids can't do anything you are absolutely wrong because you are doing something right now um high school students in the sunrise movement did something really important last year so don't ever think you can't do anything because making a case to the adults in charge is really important and um sometimes you can embarrass the adults into complying when you know more about the harms their um idling is doing than they seem to so good for you thank you for coming to speak to us um I want to also thank the young lady who came and spoke about her volunteer work with Community Food share and how she's getting her um classmates and um other folks to help so good for you we can certainly use as much compassion as possible in our world right now and also for the kids who are concerned about the environment the you know the sunrise kids and the folks from Lewisville Elementary we are going going to be entering a time where we're going to have government in charge that does not believe that climate change is a problem and so it's even more important for you to keep speaking out and keep speaking truth to power and for New Vista I also want to thank the taxpayers um I can't thank our taxpayers enough we have been able to do so much for our students for your students excuse me because every time we come and ask for something you are willing to pay for it and our students are the ones who get to benefit from that um I remember when New Vista was at Paddock and I know Richard Garcia one time said it started somewhere before that so New Vista has a long and storied history and you know Alex was right about this in being an enduring thing it's um and so I'm just proud of the school I'm proud we're able to provide our students with a building that will enable them to be 21st century Learners and that oh the other thing is I am unaware of any kind of designation of the old New Vista building which was originally Baseline Middle School um having architectural significance so I'd be interested in finding out from Folks at the district if if there you know if this is something that has come up in the past thanks Jason um yeah I'll just Echo Kitty's comments as well thanks to the students I'm sorry they're not here but it was great to hear them and um just their strong leadership um i' just speaking for myself I'd be curious to what actually is our policy on idling and and enforcement and so for another time but um thanks to them for raising that so and the only other thing I'd add um I don't have usually a lot to say at board communication because I have uh three young kids and I feel like all we do is shuttle them around but I was able to go to the Dak meeting this month um and it was a great experience I've not served on the Dak like many of you um served on the sack for a number of years but I really enjoyed uh with Dr Anderson being there to be there for the discussion uh they covered the uip and um strategic plan metrics that we covered I think in December uh and um really great discussion great to see kind of the back in Action then I really enjoyed being able to sit in on some of the the Committees and the discussions there so I think I'm coming back in March I'm looking forward to that um that's all thanks jge thank you um it's you know Happy New Year everybody it's great to be back it's exciting energy you love seeing the students here and the work that stuff that they working on and just so motivating uh I want to Echo Kitty's comments to thank um our community for the support um I've been able to see some of the work that's been resulting from this bond by serving the bond oversight committee uh we were at the senturus engineering Wing at the end of in December I got to see New Vista as it was coming through and then as it was completed in December before they move the furniture in I know there was a whole lot of work to get that all in and a very tight window so thank you to everybody who participated in that um but but also kind want to thank everybody for the community for the foresight in terms of approving this Bond when they did I know at the last election there was 4.6 billion um in B that was approved across the state and so we're positioned really well to to be able to deal with inflation to not have the competition and to be in a great place financially as as we as we're kind of doing this sort of work and I know we're moving to phase two projects there's a lot of excitement across our schools and there's a lot of work that's coming out of there so um it's just excited to be in that position as a school district to serve our students here so uh it's you know 25 2025 lots of Promise a lot of work but a lot of Promise so so I'm grateful to be here thank you Beth yeah it's really great to be back in 2025 there I agree with you so much energy and um similar to what Jason said I'd love to thank tonight's uh public participants so great to see the energy I think all of us were smiling and enjoying the as as Kitty said bring us you know keep us to task I like I liked that that was great language um I don't know what our idoling policy is I'm looking forward to get getting some more information on that and it seems like a a great thing so thanks for bringing that bringing that to our attention and and that's it Alex yeah um as one of those kids with sensory issues for whom car idle exhaust meant to puking out the window all the time I'm totally sensitive to our uh brilliant young uh student Advocates and their suggestions and I I look forward to following up and see what we can do to make um Elementary or anybody's time next to the car is more pleasant and less toxic so hats off to them as always our student Advocates are um articulate poised and impressive and um putting us uh in our place also I look forward to figuring out how we can share um our green new deal with other districts Statewide I think that's a great idea both for the district and for the cause um I also want to give a shout out I've worked in Charter School authorizing for a long time and I really have been impressed by the staff uh at bbsd that have been involved in both the review of The Grow of application and the preparation um for the peak to Peak review in particular Dr gagos for uh her leadership and her work on this and kudos to the support from the Colorado Association of charter school authorizers I think um the material that we as board members are getting in order to consider our decisions as top-notch and that's a reflection of an investment of trying to get to the heart of the substance of these questions so that we can tast stay totally focused on what's in the best interest of our kids and what our community wants so I'm I'm just really impressed by what we've been prepared with and then um I just want to say uh I had the pleasure of working with Rona willinsky when I was at the education Commission of the states in like 1992 for those you don't know she's basically the founder and creator of New Vista and I think it's amazing to see the legacy of someone's leadership like that so hats off anyway ARA did a great job that concludes Bard comment for this evening so we will now move on to our information items we have two information items this evening the first of which is the Grove Elementary Charter application Dr Anderson would you like to do the introduction yes um board members so this evening I'm going to I'm going to turn this presentation over to Dr gyos uh and this is the conversation in regards to the Grove Elementary Charter application and welcome McKenzie Khan hi McKenzie how are you good to see you from CAA who's here with us as well and I know that we've got lots of folks here from um from Grove Charter Grove Elementary Charter so so Dr gagos want turn it over to you good evening noes good evening uh president Raj Paul members of the board Dr Anderson it's our pleasure to be here this evening and um we did hear from one of our community members on community input during public comment and so there will be a second opportunity for that as well and so this is an overview for you all just to get to see what we have in store for you all we also have binders there for you if you prefer hard copies so they are there for you if you already have one um that's perfect otherwise we have um hard copies for you all um Chris will uh do the honors and be able to hand that out to anybody that would like one so um today we did have our first community meeting to gather additional information via public comment so thank you Laura for um coming here this evening we appreciate hearing from you um tonight we'll also be able to um review the timeline for the CH Charter authorization um application process uh we have gone through as Dr medler uh mentioned a very uh rigorous process and so we'll go over that timeline with you and then um The Grove Elementary team will have 10 minutes to do a presentation and then the board will have an opportunity for questions of the applicants I do want to give a huge shout out to Dr McKenzie Khan she's the executive director of caka she is a leader in the nation in Charter authorization and so we're very lucky uh to have Dr McKenzie Khan here with us as well who has been instrumental in making sure that um this process has been pristine so thank you so much Dr Khan and also I want to give a huge huge shout out and thanks to the DC reviewer committee subcommittee and also bbsd staff reviewer subcommittee as well so Bard as you can see here in front of you this is the charter application timeline that spans from September 1st to January 28th you can see that on September 1st we received the intent to apply for Charter School within bbsd on October 1st we received the charter school application um we did um on October 15th had that Charter application deemed as incomplete um by CA and on the 28th um we were in a cured Charter application um that that excuse me it was deemed as complete at that point and so then uh from October 30th um through December 20th we had an application uh review conducted by bbsd District review subcommittee and the DAC review subcommittee um and again my hats off goes goes off to those two teams that did a very comprehensive and thorough analysis um we did have a applicant capacity interview that uh occurred on December 2nd and that is available for you to um watch if you would like that's uh linked in your folder that you all received and then on December 9 um we received written response to follow-up questions that um we had as review committees and um and so now that brings us to January and um we um have received the applicant response which is also part of your um packet that you have we have two opportunities for public participation one was this uh board meeting and then we'll have another one on the 21st and um we'll we'll be able to hand it over to the Grove team here shortly and then we will be taking board action by uh on January 28th so unless there are any questions about the process itself and the timeline I will hand it over to the Grove team does anybody have any questions for myself or Dr Khan board members I know for the vast majority of us this is our first time looking engaging in a charter review process so if there are questions about the process feel free to speak up okay thank you all right so I'm going to uh pass it over to the uh Grove team oh also I I do want to mention we do have uh one of the members of The Grow team Grove team participating virtually and so they will be able to um be part of helping to answer questions as well so just wanted to mention that really quickly push this button to go forward okay okay I'll be right thank you thank you would you like us to hi my name is Debbie I am the executive director of bwan children center we're going to look back 65 years to 1963 when five Broomfield families fought for an equitable opportunity for their children with disabilities who were shunned from the educational system through extensive community support and advocacy the foundation for exceptional students was born and bvsd actually gave Cole Cottage to serve as the educational home until the philanthropist Mr Balan donated the money for the current building to be built and balwan children center was born fast forward to now after uh balwan children center has become a national leader in inclusive and social emotional Early Childhood environments families again are advocating for an in inclusive engaging responsive educational program that looks at children through a lens of strength and creates an environment of authentic engagement thus we bring to you Grove Elementary at balwan a Project based social emotionally infused school that is a school for all our community support is one of the reasons that Grove is the best of what Charter Schools offer and why it's so important for us to create a public charter instead of a private school a public charter provides the opportunity to extend our values of equity and inclusion even further and it's clear that this model has resonated with our community needs we have support not only from Children and Families as demonstrated by our intent to enrolls but also community members Community Partners and elected officials as shown by our letters of support and founding board members I myself was a bell Swan Children's Center board member and have seen this school work miracles in the lives of so many families including my own and I had to jump at the opportunity to transition to The Grove Elementary founding board to be sure that the need and desire for this school can be continued on through a public elementary school as you can see on the map shown on the slide in our geographic area east of Boulder there's only one bbsd charter option and there are 11 Charter magnet options in other districts in our geographic area this map also shows an obvious need for an option like Grove Elementary hi I'm Rebecca hubber and I'm Vice chair of the founding board I'm an educator in communication leadership and organizational culture and as we started exploring how to meet this need and passion for an elementary school the very first question that we asked was how do we translate and continue what has become known over the decades that Debbie talked about as the BOS Swan mag it's a little hard to explain in words but it's that sense of warmth and belonging that you feel the instant you walk in it's how all the children feel seen understood and celebrated for their authentic selves and it's how these kids show up in the world this is such a real thing the BOS Swan magic that my kids in an ele elementary teachers in another District have commented that they can always tell a ball Swan kid when they come into their class these are the kids that are so empathetic and curious and insightful and holy themselves and that kind of well-being is more critical now than ever before as we know you recognize from your work in youth mental health the crisis is real and we know these kids aren't showing up in middle school and suddenly developing issues the problems are starting earlier and so must the solution and what sets our approach apart is that it's completely holistic and relationship driven with every system and evidencebased strategy supporting well-being and growth is not a 20-minute lesson it is a lived reality embedded into the fabric of everything that Learners experience our guiding principles cultivate the conditions for everyone to thrive not just intellectually but emotionally and physically and socially and not just students but staff and families and Community inclusion for us isn't defined as accepting people with identified differences although we do it's about every single individual in the Grove Community knowing who they are and knowing that they belong we call it magic but it's actually science and the outcomes are profound we all know the evidence that well-being and social emotional competence support better academic performance and Real World skills that's a given so we want to expand the definition of achievement in school where yes kids meet metrics but much much more than that they are fulfilled compassionate humans with a strong sense of their values and strengths as well as awareness and understanding for others we call it success Beyond standards and Sarah's going to tell you more about the innovative ways that we get there hi I'm Dr Sarah Simmons a local school psychologist with over 10 years of experience supporting students in schools in special education and a founding board member I'd like to now focus on why we would do it this way and most importantly what difference it makes for students staff and community at its core this is about whole child whole Community Education an approach that goes beyond academics to support students social emotional and cultural development by embedding un design grounded in social emotional learning we create environments where every student can Thrive regardless of their starting point this isn't just an ideal it's a practical framework for Equity ensuring all students are equipped with the tools they need for success for for kids this approach means empowerment and belonging personalized learning plans tailored to their individual skills and goals allow them to take ownership of their learning fostering Independence confidence and resilience they're not just learning for a grade they're developing skills for Life teachers also benefit in profound ways they shift from fac from facilitators to guides and mentors partnering with students in their Learning Journey this student-driven approach empowers Educators to focus on deeper more meaningful engagement our emphasis on community and cultural responsiveness ensures every CH child feels seen and valued when students recognize themselves in the curriculum and know their voices matter it transforms their experience of Education from passive to to active Project based learning takes us a step further promoting higher order thinking real world problem solving and greater knowledge retention this is about building on bbd's strong Foundation to elevate our work together as Governor paus said in his State of the State address we need to clear the way for these students to get back on track by making it easier for highquality and Innovative schools to start and operate in Colorado supporting students whether in a traditional District or a charter school and giving parents the ability to choose the best option for their kids at Grove we know what to do daily to make this Vision a reality will there be challenges absolutely but we have the essentials and Decades of proven success with this model we want to conclude by highlighting areas for Grove collaboration with bbsd first school districts are working diligently to support all students and bbsd is no exception we applaud the adoption of a groundbreaking neurodiversity policy Grove Elementary would be an active and experienced partner in implementing practices related to inclusion including neurode Divergence we also support bbd's efforts to provide in school mental health support and Implement a brave and forward-thinking electronic device policy Grove's approach to social emotional learning and belonging promotes whole child well-being as described by Sarah earlier so that children transition from elementary school to middle school with greater resilience and self-awareness and more tools for navigating social situations second we understand concerns regarding declining enrollment and we would be an asset in this regard we have seen that our model resonates with homeschool families many indicating they would consider Grove Elementary as an option for their children I would also reiterate that there is only one bbsd charter school around Broomfield leading many families to look to other districts for Charter or magnet opportunities finally Broomfield has seven school districts and families from all of them enroll at bwan many of the many of them seeking to continue the approach Beyond preschool finally this is not an easy time to work in education the challenges facing school districts are complex and don't often have clear answers bbsd is doing a great job engaging the community around policy whether is the SRO neurodiversity incorporating restorative justice or device policy we see alignment in our approach to engagement in reexamining practices that are in need of change or Evolution across these areas we have an opportunity to work together extending and enhancing bbsd efforts we we have no political or religious agenda Grove offers the very best of what charter schools are intended to provide a Grassroots driven opportunity to grow an Innovative yet evidence-based approach that addresses a systemic need we are parents community members and Educators who saw promise in this approach for Meaningful Learning and Development during the elementary years for all children thank you to you the board bbsd staff and the district accountability committee for the time and intention you have dedicated to to our application and your passion for bbsd children thank you okay board members before we take questions I should have had our team introduce themselves so before we go to questions I'm going to invite them to come on up here so that they can each introduce themselves and their role just to help frame the conversation as well I'm Carrie Kirkendall um I'm a founding board member for Grove Elementary I was a previous board member of bwan children's center um I am a mother of a bbsd student B Swan student and a small business owner with businesses in both Broomfield and Lewisville just quickly I introduced myself I work at bwan children center I've been a masters in social work with a 26-year career in early childhood mental the health home visiting and now organizational manag agement and nonprofit leadership and I briefly introduce myself as a little bit I too am a foral former social worker um I'm Rebecca hubard I'm the vice chair of the founding board as I mentioned um I'm an educator in communication and Leadership and organizational culture um I'm also a twice exceptional mom of four twice exceptional kids um two of whom have attended bossan I am Dr Sarah Simmons I'm a local practicing school psychologist I've worked in multiple um Denver Metro school districts dists um again I'm also a founding board member and my kids will eventually attend Boulder Valley School District hi my name is Gabrielle Johnson and I am a current preschool teacher at Bal Swan and I get to live this magic every day um and then I go home and dream about extending this umag like amazing um opportunity to the elementary kids and I feel so grateful to work in this environment every single day and although education is um a difficult as you all know um role to serve it's something that we all bring passion to and that's something that I bring every day and I'm just thrilled to be a part of this um amazing team before I introduce myself I want to make sure that we um capture Lynn Whitney who is joining us virtually our board treasur Lyn do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself sure good evening everybody my name is Lyn Whitney um I have had the pleasure of being the executive director of operations and finance for charget Stargate charter school for the last 20 years through their growth and development um and am very very pleased to be working with this group of individuals to try and bring Bell Grove Elementary um to the students of bvsd um I am the founding board treasure and I'm Heather Matthews um I'm a public health nurse with a master's degree in nursing leadership um I've worked in the field of Early Childhood Health and development for over 20 years in Colorado um I have a daughter um who is now eight who attended B Swan um and we are um bbsd residents and I am also the chair of the Grove founding board all right thank you thank you all so much for your presentation I'm going to um pass it on over to the board um for any questions that you have for the applicants thank you Dr GEOS thank you to the founders for this thoughtful presentation and application board members who would like to begin with questions this evening Alex uh yeah um and I don't know uh who wants to answer which questions let me just preface this by saying that I'm very impressed by the um the role the ball Swan Center plays in the community its long record of accomplishment um and I look through the materials I take it as a a given that there is intense interest in this and support for it amongst potential parents who'd enroll their kids that the population you're intending to serve is one we're trying to figure out how to serve uh better when it comes to neurodiverse students and we hear that from their parents in bbsd all the time and that we recognize the challenge of doing that well and different approaches are what people are looking for so that all is um very positive and I believe um that there's a lot of parents in bbsd and in Broomfield outside bbsd uh who would be delighted to have this be added to our our range of options and choices and I personally hope to see that happen someday um and uh I'm positive about the application but I have several several areas where I think there are some significant questions I guess the first one I'd like to ask about is um deals with how your program would interact with uh bbd's own approach to um special ed as it's under you know state and federal law and I know that for Charter Schools um how they do special ed is a tricky thing uh districts play a role in that as the local Education Agency so there's things districts do things char schools do um when I read the uh materials and I read the proposal it seemed like special ed education programming and the procedures for it would be a big part of the school given the potential population but I I didn't see a lot of specificity there so I guess the question i' I'd love to hear you speak to is how do you think um as you move from preschool to Elementary grades and you move from being a preschool with a different role and special ed to a k through 12 school with obligations under state and federal law for bed how how does that and it first question is how does it integrate with the approach of ball Swan and what what are the new things you're going to be able to do because you've got like you know special ed resources but are also the new things you're going to have to learn because you're complying with Ida and the ECA now that's the first question and then the second one is how do you anticipate interacting with bvsd services and support there like what how will that help you what do you want to do your self that was something that I saw underspecified basically in the proposal and I'd love to hear your thoughts so um we are a true team um so I think I'm going to start this um response and then um likely call on other members of the team as well um we look forward to having that conversation in a deeper way um we started out our process um actually reaching out very early um to bbsd to have conversations um gather some additional information and understandably um we were asked to channel um information through an individual um an individual resource and so we haven't had opportunities which it would make sense if we are collaborating with the district just to make sure that our roles are clear um in terms of special education um and so we really look forward to having those conversations and um further building out how we will work with bbsd um I also want to so um have Debbie perhaps speak to how that works currently at bwan and then um Sarah um if you'd want to speak to your experience as well um thank you um I will say if you looked at the financials for Grove Elementary there's a line item of over $1,800 per student payable to bvsd to be what they I don't know all the language around this I know the words to say I don't always know what it means that the insurance model which means that bvsd administers the special education that's the IEP servicing those are the minutes to the child so that answers that question that does not answer the holistic approach so the holistic approach and especially when we think about twice exceptional kids those who mask can mask very well those who might not even qualify for an IEP these are kids who are really falling through the cracks in school cuz somehow they can make it right they can make it through the school day this is the population that balwan is serving well so Translating that to an older age really is a lot of the environment and the authentic engagement and the agency of the child the student for example this is a very this is a preschool example but I love to share this example kids when they have Circle time that's the academic time in preschool there's a choice what kind of chair do you want to sit in there are like five options at different types of chairs our job as instructors is to say to the child we believe you can learn we believe you can pay attention we're going to give you the tools and the tools are accessible to all there's no shame there's no going over in a corner there's nowhere not being ostracized being left out of the class room the environment is an environment in of invitation so that's already a little bit different than what's happening in some schools um the authentic engagement and the social emotional teaching is also much more intrinsic so this is happening many schools around the country when a child does an emotional check-in when they come in for the day so I might say I'm feeling flustered today I'm feeling scared building a child's emotional vocabulary gives a cognitive it leads to a cognitive process where the human is not overcome by the emotion so that happens very organically in the environment too so all of a sudden kids are going home and saying mom I think you need to take a deep breath or it sounds like you're feeling confused these are all these things that are just happening because of the approach so there's a lot that happens organically we we kind of talked about that as the bwan magic and there is science behind it there's what probably more of is there's incredible intention behind it I am choosing to look at you as a learner I am choosing to not define you by your IEP so um that's what I would say from the holistic end of things and Sarah can elaborate more from an elementary school perspective and I wanted to address um when the application was written I was yet I was not yet on the board and the board members actually realized we needed someone that had expertise and special ed um in order to be able to speak and address some of those things so they've been coming out kind of later as we were able to respond I was on the interview panel so my answers are present there and then in the responses I've been able to help guide them um because what we needed to do was take what they've done really well in B Swan and translate that and I've worked in specifically elementary schools for 10 years um I worked the first eight years in traditional Public Schools um so I got to see how special ed ran there and for compliance as a school psychologist that's what I do pretty much every day is helping my teams and guiding them um through New School member new special ed teachers um often relying on me to kind of help interpret Ida for them um and so that was part of my job most recently I've now started working in charters in another district and so I've seen how that partnership shifts from being in a traditional school and having a lot of the guidance from the sped director um versus at the charter school where you have to seek out those resources um in my current Charter that I'm working in we have a really nice partnership with the assistant bed director which is essential to making sure that our our resources are being used smartly and also we're in alignment the whole time we're often communicating especially when students have complex IEPs and we're anticipating our students that are going to be coming to Grove are going to have complicated IEPs that require expertise and so we know that we need to have an alignment with you guys and a partnership I'm really looking forward to that collaboration I hope that's where we're going and I've really actually enjoyed the last two years that I've been able to partner with a different School District because I in the past I haven't seen that partnership between Charters and school districts and when it's done well it serves our kids and all kids can learn in that environment and parents feel like they're getting supported from both the school district and the charter school which is unique I think in the past um Charter Schools weren't always seen that way so I'm I'm really intrigued to see how we can partnership how the partnership can really benefit our families is there any specific sped questions that would be helpful to answer yeah thank you that's helpful and I recognize that all districts and bbsd and then during the charter writing an applying process is not necessarily in a great position to answer those questions and my goals as a board member were to get push Bolder in having more explicit articulation of how all those services are done but I recognize that there's a lot of it that's the legal responsibility of the district won't won't be delegated and then there's other things that are done through the Special Services of like speech pathologists and psychologists who are coming to the school but then there's the thing that's integrated into the things for all the kids that are sort of tier one tier 2 issues that are what the rest of the school is doing in elementary school and that's something that I saw sort of underspecified in The Proposal in a way that's like bbsd wouldn't have been able to answer that for you so I I am curious to know um like are there students with are there types of disabilities that you think your program is not welld designed to serve versus some that it would be better to serve would be one example another piece would be um how what are you looking for in bbsd as a partner that will Leverage the experience and approach that you're bringing from the existing Center and and then another question to that perhaps to the wwan representatives is like what is how do you describe your approach to the students who are going on in later grades now in terms of supporting them with success when they have more moderate to severe disabilities yeah I think as far as um disabilities go it's really going to be an individualized approach where the team is reviewing the IEP closely and this is how I function now closely with bbsd so that we're using all of bbsd resources um we're not sure what program will best support them until the team including our Special Education team providers along with the bbsd special Administration are really taking a careful look at those IEPs to determine because not every environment can meet every kid's needs we know that and so it's just going to be I think an ongoing conversation um and that's what we've seen I've seen person Al work really well um and we've even you know sometimes we have a student that attends our school and then if we're collecting data ongoing and it's we're realizing they're not making progress in our setting then that would bring up another conversation and possibly a reevaluation to determine where is the students's best needs met what could we do to change again on an individualized basis um B swan has the experience of serving all students um I know they have really significant students um with disabilities across the Spectrum and so we're we would like the opportunity to have doors open for every student and then consider it on an ongoing basis for individualized needs based off the resources that we can offer along with the resources that bbsd already has in place um in the different settings and the different schools that they have just clarifying question with that sorry for something you just said um will you guys have your own providers like school psychologist SLP occupation therapists budg when I joined that was my biggest question and from what we're being told and people can correct me but we're being told that it's through the insurance model and so there would be a partnership where we are paying per pupal cost so that the providers through bbsd would be providing the specialized Services um with the exception of usually the special ed teacher would be um staffed through Grove and then speech language OT PT whatever other related Services might be on that IEP would be um through the insurance model does that answer your question my thing I think in terms of the question I love the question of you know what do we need in a partnership um and that has been a big um part of our conversations and thinking about because you do have to at some point make the decision how you will proceed if you're going to take that the services on yourself or if you'll work with the school district and it's a big decision since we have a model that currently operates on its own and um so I think when we think about partnering with bbsd um we're excited about that because we know that there are significant strengths in the district um that we will have to build upon and I think there is um an aspect of the model as it is presented and as it exists that we think about things like providers who are coming into the school do we have the opportunity to share our model mod with them do we have the opportunity to share our philosophy and our values um and really speak to what things look like on a day-to-day basis within the classroom um and um what opportunity will we have to partner around um you know that approach you know informing the IEP Etc so those are all areas that we are really excited to discuss um and dive into together um when that opportunity presents itself the first question that you had asked was what does it look like and you wanted more information about what the model looks like is that correct am I understanding that correct in terms of tier one and tier two and I and Sarah can help me with the tier one and tier two piece but um and Gabrielle as well Gabrielle was our curriculum um head of our curriculum development yes so there's a um several key things that Sarah talked about in our introduction and our presentation today in terms of Universal Design um we've all heard of Universal Design but the way that b Swan does it and the Grove model does it is so much more robust than what you think of um it's I it's kind of almost like what you see in 504s in regular schools but it's universalized for everybody so like w had said you know obviously seating and things like that but flexibility and agency in scheduling um we've used a block schedule so that it allows for that kind of thing like oh these these kids really need some extra movement today we're going to do that first and um having the opportunity for staff to be um to act as guides and follow the students you know have it be very student-led that flexibility and the way the schedule is designed allows for that opportunity for really in the moment seeing and knowing and and adjusting and Gabrielle can talk a little bit more about about that but um so more there's agency rethinking the idea of um that kind of top down you're a vessel and I'm inputting information into you versus we're engaging and we're going where the class wants to go I think a great example of that at BOS Swan is they you know preschool obviously has standards as well but what they do in the beginning of the year is it's because it's entirely relationship based and everybody is so well known the teachers get to know the kids and they find out what they're passionate about and so then they have a planning session and they figure out okay well we know that this year it's all about dinosaurs in the ocean so we're going to teach the Alphabet by naming dinosaurs and we're going to teach math by counting fish so they really truly customize it implicitly and always for the students that are in front of them and because of the way that we've designed the schedule and the way that we're thinking of Staffing that's really something that we're excited for going forward and that does allow us to have the flexibility with students with different needs students with cultural backgrounds being really responsive to the kids in front of us and Gabrielle is there anything you want to add about that piece um so the Project based learning and the workshop model specifically is a really natural approach it's um a pedagogy of play basically but um it's an exciting way for teachers to live their own passions um so we all know burnout is a a serious Factor um so we're really integrating these professional learning communities um and with in partnership with Boulder Valley we hope that we can achieve this type of um professional learning where these General Ed teachers are taken um to the next level through modeling um from tier one and tier 2 supports through special education that is pushed into the classroom so that they're exposed to these unbelievable um unbelievably effective um scientific modalities um therapeutic modalities for example um our speech language pathologist recently um had a push-in session with a student um working on articulation um working on the sound P so as a class we universally or as a teaching team we universally designed a lesson plan all around Penguins we dove into um not only literacy but um Environmental Studies um through Penguins environments um scientific studies obviously um different um different ways that they can uh work as a team and that I think is one of the biggest skills that we do really well in terms of differentiating and Scaffolding our um our approaches to learning for special ed um students as well as our our entire classroom um is really being able to um listen to what they're interested in and then we function in a group and we're not just saying okay your group together you're group together we are teaching skills to function in a group um and that is a lifelong skill um that my own daughters who attended B Swan um 10 12 years ago um they take into their uh high school studies now and functioning in a group is something that is rooted in the social emotional um Foundation that we um that's out the root of our curriculum and just to conclude that your last question was how do we support as they go on those skills that Gabrielle is talking about is a really key piece of that so by centering and infusing as Debbie said the social emotional piece within every aspect making relationships at the foundation of every aspect students are learning those skills that apply to all situations you know I we don't know what the jobs of the future are going to be you know we know that the information that we're giving kids they can find and second on their phone what they can't find and what they can't get from their device is how to per how to people like how do we interact in groups how do I learn how to learn like how do I find information so those are the skills that are we're developing and that they will take forward and Debbie do you have any examples of how what bosan does to support kids going forward because that was also his question I was just kind of thinking about not wanting to neglect your question but also not knowing how to answer it we're a private institution now and we know we're talking about apples and oranges um one of the things that we are able to do at bwan children center we have one toone Paras that insurance pays for children who come with a nurse um insurance will pay for RBT we know that's kind of controversial in the world of public school today so I think that model can be carried over but what the model that we are carrying over is the intention the attention the authentic desire to be a learning community that doesn't mean the logistics of who's doing speech therapy um it because they're two totally different entities will bwan children center has a private Therapy Clinic those therapists then push into the classroom those therapists will not be serving the children at Grove Elementary so I I don't want to neglect your question but I don't know how to answer it I wanted to add one more thing as um the other board members had mentioned something that we've noticed that works really well is that we can't replicate Bell Swan's model right they have all these private therapists but we've learned so much from them where we want to build agency with our gened teachers um which is a little bit unique we know we're going to have to do really specialized professional learning for them so that the 30 minutes of speech a week can be implemented like Gabrielle said throughout the whole lesson throughout every day we the providers it's given on their IPs right they have 30 minutes of speech a week they might have 15 minutes of consult with OT we want to extend that to make sure our gen Ed teachers feel confident in order to provide those Services that's where we're really going above and beyond most of our general education teachers are not getting that in the in their training at their schools at this point we're hoping that changes someday but we need to provide that professional learning so that our students with significant disabilities can be in their general education classroom as much as possible that's the goal and in order to accomplish that we need to train our general education teachers to provide those Services throughout the entire day throughout their entire week because special ed providers are limited we have a shortage of special ed providers we we know that and so to build the agency within general education teachers to make that tier one and tier two more effective is really a shift I haven't I haven't seen that happening yet um I think most schools probably have that goal but it's going to take some really specialized training to get that accompl lished to clarify what Sarah's describing does happen currently at balwan so we H like that is we're taking kids teachers who are ECE or maybe you know this is they haven't been exposed to this before and training them into these roles where they can support this vast range of students in the Gen Ed classroom so we do have expertise when it comes to training the Jed end teachers I just wanted to clarify I'm gonna move on to questions from rep board member anger followed by board member Chavez um yeah thanks very much thanks for your passion thanks for the complete application and a very solid application um and uh for the questions so far and answers um I have a number of questions but I guess you know you kind of someone got to it just now about um I do have questions about how transferable this model is from preschool to elementary school and I'm glad we started to talk about that and the differences and you know the the the real limitations and I think we haven't talked about that enough but I guess just taking a step back you know if I'm a parent and my kids don't go to Bell Swan uh I look at I look at your application I look at the the things you've talked about neurodiversity social emotional learning you know more individ individualized education and I you know while while we we can improve um those are things that a lot of our bbsc schools are already doing um and so if I'm a parent coming to you all as your board again my kid doesn't go to bans I don't know the magic that you talk about um you know what would you tell tell me in like not a 200 Page application but like in three points about why this school is different and what do you offer that bbsc doesn't and not just like we do it we do it better but like what are the specific things that's what I struggle with I look at this stuff it's all things we care about we focus on like I said we there's areas for improvement but I don't I'm I'm looking for that kind of special thing that you all are going to offer and you've talked about that but like in layman's terms and kind of like parent to parent what are you going to tell prospective parents about you know why the school needs to exist and why it's different from what vbsd offers so most of us are parents um sure all the time a lot lately um so I think when you look at what's different because you're right it is hard to look at another parent and say magic you know and as Rebecca said it turns out it's not magic it's science um most parents that I talk with you know particularly those who are struggling in other schools can relate to belonging and the fact that a school may say they are doing social emotional learning doing social emotional learning there's somebody there to provide social emotional learning there's you know a time in the classroom where social emotional Learning Happens kids will call you out on that you know if you see two teachers who aren't practicing it and that's that's what you feel when you go to Bell Swan and you walk in it's happening around you the social emotional learning is something that is infused throughout the day um and it's something that is tangible um and we you know again welcome any of you to come and tour at Bell Swan but there are very concrete things and we've excuse me talked through this um that Gabrielle and Debbie could point to practices very specific practices that support that so that's where the science comes in right as a parent you're sitting there looking you know feeling you know what your child is experiencing um at Balan and then going to another school once they're done there and something falls apart so um so to another parent I think it's an individual conversation um and we actually have engaged you know marketing professionals to help us hone in on that message we do have we have surveyed families to say look you know this is what our school is about what's most important to you and I could re access that data it's been a little bit but we are looking at we know that we need to do a great job with messaging and marketing um in order to attract um a broader pool um to our Lottery um and make sure that we can achieve you know balance in our percentages um but I think you know at its core any parent you know understanding belonging and um you know the um opportunity to become a a better learner um and some of what was spoken to earlier um in addition to learning math reading science Etc but I want to invite others to speak to um so I've had this conversation so many times because the difference with my children between when they're at balwan and when they're not is profound and I was trying to figure that out like what is the difference you know this they go to an amazing school they go to an amazing School District they they they espouse all the same things what's the difference and it's really the relationship it's the being well known it's having full and complete acceptance of who you are and I know that that's that's what we all aspire to that's what all schools aspire to but the model that my children experienced has it so dialed in that I could see the light in my kid he became this he had struggled in all the preschools he was in previously and he had struggled in all of the sit situations he's been in the subsequently at bosan he was this vibrant ball of light like just completely himself completely seen completely understood um empathetic kind outgoing and in a Traditional School setting in the number one school in the state he is anxious he's withdrawn he's um eating things out of the like you he and it's not that he has bad teachers and it's not that he has a bad school it's just the difference in focusing entire having an entire Foundation of relationship and social emotional support unconditional acceptance and that's what I tell other parents it's like yes it's like all of the things we want but actually in practice from the ground up so we're gonna um we'll come back to Jason for his next questions go to Jorge then the lania and kitty when you have questions just raise your hand and I'll be paying attention for you for you as well thank you for being here and thank you for your thoughtful responses um I I appreciate that in your application you really took the time to think about the population of students in the community that could be served and and that the expectation is that the school population will look like the community population not a goal but the expectation right this includes I think something like 25 30% multilingual Learners um about 40 50% um free and reduced Lun students and and I'd like to kind of hear a little bit about kind of the Outreach that's been done to these communities um and um and your kind of current capacity expertise in serving these communities and then what kind of uh steps you'll take to ensure access for them and how they will be supported um in your in your school so in terms of Outreach um we started out um I believe last spring um and doing Outreach in the community and making sure that we were reaching folks through um you know General community events um we also reached out to our Family Resource Centers we have letter support of support from our Family Resource Centers um and um specifically sister Carmen we were able to visit a couple of their groups um and just gather their Insight um around the development of the school um and I think we have an opportunity through those relationships um to do Outreach um and recruit families from um you know from families who are eligible for free and reduced lunch U multilanguage Learners um and I know that at Bell Swan um they have Incorporated um families um with who speak multiple languages and I'm wondering Debbie and Gabrielle if you want to speak to the approach I can just tell you statistically we're at somewhere between 19 and 21% English language Learners at bwan children center and that's because the model Works we're also talking about three-year-olds where literacy is in a major Focus so I get that um but this type of model is very attractive to families whose children don't speak English as a first language because they come in and they don't feel like they're foreign in in a foreign environment nor that they need to code switch so I think that setting up that environment also produces that invitation and then what Rebecca spoke about that's one of the Nuggets of oh what do we do do that promotes belonging that's that promotes them belonging and I just want to remind um everyone too that these three-year-olds that were serving in these families these um multilanguage Learners not just dual um I will say um they multilanguage learning families and they're already attracted to this model they're already um currently enrolled in this school and so these three-year-olds are our future first graders and when this school is up and running we already have these relationships established obviously we're going to be pulling um um a lot of more a lot more marketing um into this program my background is in small business business um and consumer and family sciences and that's an aspect that I really am passionate about in terms of really marketing our message um and hitting it home and just to speak a little bit more um to your question what I would say to um to a perspective parent who is kind of um looking into into our program um we are one of our foundations is Hands-On and curiosity Le um as a teacher that like gives me butterflies I'm so excited to hear about that as a parent I want to know more those that Curiosity just that spark those are the families that we are going to attract what's what is different about this approach um a c we're a culture of thinking in action um what that means is that we're not just getting the research we're not just um you know analyzing the data we're putting that data into action um we're doing it creatively we're doing it passionately um the staff that we anticipate um attracting which includes already um many what is it over 66 61 applicants for our principal position currently um many of these applicants are from outside Colorado so somehow this message is resonating um with these curiosity driven individuals um and those are the families that we anticipate um attracting through our workshop model um that I allows kids to not only have agency um we have these relationships built with them we know what their interests are as teachers and then we can develop these lesson plans um for deeper thinking um so it's true knowledge not just um rope memorization um and um yeah learning by doing is really um what what our message to those families would be and I think that feeds into your question to learning by doing and and um having opportunities for really multi- Sensory Learning that's beyond that that really translates across languages and that it's um and and having the opportunity within the um the block model for small groups and breakout is a key piece of that but really it starts at the very beginning it starts with hiring a school leader so we made sure to put in our school leader description we're very much emphasizing a preference for bilingual we're emphasizing an emphasis um for um a background in and having those strengths but also in all of our staffing you know as we we explained in the application we we really value this model of peer um peer support and peer leadership and so our goal would be to hire staff who are multilanguage proficient and um have I I because I that's not my role I don't know the exact designation but have that certification for the multil language and having using them to be mentors with the other teachers um using them to help push in we have room in the block schedule where we can have content experts and we can have um general education teachers kind of shift and go into other classrooms um so that they can offer support they can have the the language groups the way that our model works we we're having um combined grades also allows for that kind of flexibility of having if we have a cohort we do plan to maximize our Resources by using cohorting but within the model um where everything is we're meeting each child where they are we're going to be sensitive to the fact you know like the the levels right in making sure that kids are in the right um Age and and peer group with that but the other thing that um we have a really strong history of doing well is our Community Partnerships and so that's another area where we're really hoping to ex to utilize these Community Resources and have this really be an embedded community and an embedded school where where it's not just okay will you have access to your teacher well you might have access to your teacher and this grad student and this person who works down the street you know really creating that full community and of course that includes engaging our families and engaging our immediate immediate resources right we the one of the things that bossan does phenominally well is engages caregivers so whether that's grandma whether that's the parent we have Community groups we have Community um support yes so resources but also engagement like it goes both ways you don't want to just be saying oh here's this here's this tell us what what you want to tell what you want us to know like how can we what do you want to teach us what do you want to bring you know whether that's um something within the school whether that's something outside of school we really want to engage our families and hear from them and I think Community engagement is definitely one of our strengths in terms terms of getting that feedback happening and of course we would formalize that as well if I can just say one thing I would answer to the parent I don't want my child who's the square peg to be forced into that round hole and I'm a parent of two square peg kids and school was really hard for them um the other thing I would say that maybe we've missed a little bit is that as we all As educ ators think about life outcomes for children marrying that academic achievement with their intrinsic sense of worth is act critical to that life outcome and a model like this allows for the academic engagement and enables the child to continue to feel like they are worthy and that cannot be replaced um the board members have a lot of questions and you are very excited and have long answers and so if um if you wouldd like to sit and while you're coming up that is fine um as well I believe it was lenia and then Beth and then Alex thanks do you guys want to sit down you look so uncomfortable up there please do so your model as presented in your application is really really uh lovely and inspiring to me as a parent I also have kids that I often feel are uh Square pegs in round holes so I have a lot of appreciation for it when I hear about whole child and belonging and inclusive and engaging and responsive I will also say that I have a lot of concern about the finances as presented and um so hopefully Lynn is online and she can respond I feel like there is an over Reliance on unrealized grants and Partnerships and so Lynn hopefully you can take us through a funding plan with some more concrete examples um so that we don't have funding shortfalls uh this is something that we on our board deal with uh unfortunately day in day out and we will see further things coming down the road that will make it harder for us so I do want Lynn to respond to that and specifically Lynn when I look at this I I am concerned about those grants and Partnerships that are not really on the books and I'm also concerned about what I see as below rate Services um for auditing accounting Medical Dental liability insurance those things all seem below market and I wondered if what your take on that is um I I think in approaching this budgeting model which uh from sort of a baseline standpoint we were we tried to be really careful to only include in our operational budget funding sources um that would be ongoing and guaranteed per pupil Revenue M Levy um those you know po potential categorical grants and that kind of thing from the state what those would look like and how we could utilize those in in moving the expansion forward because we're talking really here about starting in year one with 60 kids you know and and going from there and building slowly on the model that's working as well as it has been for the last you know 60 years at Bell Swan um I think that there I had a couple of the same concerns particularly around medical insurance when I first saw that line item in the budget because we did some initial development based on some information that came in from from bbsd and I think I'm going to let Debbie speak to that relative to our current um arrangements and then um I can go on to address some of the other things and as I said I don't I don't I don't think that there's a Reliance on potential um on potential uh grant funding and that kind of thing going forward I do think that grant funding provides Balan with some opportunities that it might not have in just a fairly slim operating budget which is where we need to be with just 60 kids beginning um for professional development and some of the expanded services that we might be able to offer and I think that there's a lot of appetite in the community for that um but it is our operating budget will not rely on any one-time funding sources or Grant type funding sources um to to to operate the school thanks to Lynn for asking me to answer that question because she did come to me with um some kind of shock that I could have that kind of um line item on the budget I took extrapolated numbers from bwan children center from the private sector we are part of a professional employer organization that's how we get our insurance and our payroll and workers comp and um we took the numbers from there what we pay for health insurance per employee and then put that in the budget for Grove um we don't know yet we are still thinking about we put perah into the budget 100% um perah as it is not all Charter Schools choose to pay into perah we have put that that's a pretty significant line in the budget and we wanted to make sure we put it in there you know the the budget at this point is still flexible and workable the only um Revenue we have in there we have funders interested in this model the only Revenue we put in is money that we have in the bank as of today as soon as we're authorized the Colorado schools fund has another $100,000 150 coming our way but we did not include that in the budget yes you can follow with your budget question and actually I know I said Beth was next but since we have Lynn and I I have some Financial related questions I don't know if we want if board members want to tackle the finances questions and then move on to the other parts of the applic so we're just staying on topic and maybe moving along a little quicker um so elenia your followup budget question so I also had concern about Staffing costs um so I see that teach teachers would be paid less than the bbsd average and it's my understanding that that can happen in Charter in the Charter School uh scenario um but as you guys point out it's not an easy time to work in education we're all acknowledging that so I see that there's kind of a Reliance there on par professionals and I think my concern um is twofold first the Reliance on par professionals if someone can speak to you know that we're asking par professionals to support kids with disabilities maintain you know these one-on-one low student to teer ratios and to differentiate instruction that's a tall order and that's a tall order for a seasoned Master's level teacher so I I have some hesitancy um about that the budget is pushing you guys toward par professionals doing all of this so I'd like someone to address that and then also we talked about uh specialized training of your General Ed teachers but tell me how much has um baked into the budget dollars for that training Lyn you're muted um I'll speak to the budget piece and then I'm G to have Debbie go ahead and um speak to the classroom model piece um I I I do acknowledge at this point time that potential starting salaries for the for the teachers are probably lower than bbsd um I think that bbsd to a large degree supports teachers on a on a level that's exceptional um and I think that all the charters I I think that the other Charters when the district probably struggle to keep Pace with that and generally in in charter schools so you're going to find salaries um probably 10 to 15% off of their disc districts that being said um there's actually some significant wiggle room in this budget and and we allowed for that um which may come up as a as a future question here um with regard to our fac facilities planning and what our rental costs look like they're going to be and I think that um what we've found in negotiating a potential facility space for next year that we're going to come in significantly under that and be able to have both some more flexibility within the operating budget for that professional development piece but also for um additional compensation for teachers and staff that being said you know I think that the par professional model has been well thought out and I think that there's also a lot of internal professional development that goes on here and I'm going to let um Debbie speak to that hi uh so a lot of thought has gone into some of the um additional programming U professional development programming um such as the teaching assistant program I know friends of Broomfield um or uh the friend school has a similar model where they're really a lot of the teachers are serving as mentors for these par professionals that are perhaps seeking um their next level of education and so as a community of Learners um and really prior prioritizing um that that whole person mentality um that is built into our culture that we would as um uh as staff working together um we would support those Endeavors we really would be partnering with the Paras um again it is is that personalized approach so while yes it is an extremely tall order um I just want to reiterate that we are all in this profession um for passion not the big bucks and um you know and the reality is there is a cost of living associated with that so kind of this bigger picture is that um yes there would be a lot of um expectation from these par professionals but then in turn we're supporting them um at no Financial um cost really just this additional um these additional benefits in terms of flexibility um learning um you know teach as we um as we do um so I think that that's a again goes back to our culture uh that we would really be serving as mentors and models for these uh PA professionals and that would be an expectation of um perhaps these Master's level teachers um to serve as mentors for um for these uh PA professionals um and again we've started to outline the specifics of this um Venture through the um tap program so the idea with that is that they're tapping in to the classroom um being exposed um exposure to these skills in real time with real students um then they're tapping out and they're given this time um to really either get their teaching license um pursue whatever their next level of profession U might be just a couple of things I think you probably um saw one of the quotes on our slides from a teacher who has already reached out um want expressing interest um in the school when we do start hiring and we've had that happen on a few occasions also the um hiring that we are currently doing for a principal um has led to 60 applications um and there are some tall requirements um that come after the application and we've had um 10 completed projects um from potential principles um and as was already mentioned coming from a variety of places in the United States as well as Colorado um so I think that there is interest out there I think another theme that is coming up over and over um in the process is just it's kind of this tension between authorization um and then accessing resources like well you want us you know we want to access resources first we need the authorization order to get the authorization how you going to access the resources um and so there is um you know once authorized there is uh there are several significant um grant opportunities that we could use not for the long term but in the rampup process and recognizing that going from 60 to full enrollment um is a process and will'll make a huge difference in our finances over the course of time and so those grants are important in the short term um and then um recognizing that you know already as Lynn stated you know we are looking at um ongoing funding sources that we're not going to be losing over time so it's a balance yes you can ask a call follow I'm just watching the clock a little bit um and I want to encourage the board members to be really clear in the question to help and ask our our um the folks from Grove to try to be a bit more concise so we can get through these without having to just move on to our next agenda items I want to balance that um so yes followup question and we'll move on to other Finance related questions and then maybe other parts of the application I recognize the best practice in Charters to Smart Start with a grer two and grow over time but I also see this 60 kids up front in the first year creating a budget that's really hard to balance is there if let's say you weren't opening next fall but you're opening like a fall in the fall after that would you still start with 60 programmatically or would you be thinking no let's go ahead and start with 100 and have a bit more of a viable budget if you had a little more lead time you're muted Lynn you're still muted I said I feel like I need to leave the answer to that question to the Educators these are the people who have very thoughtfully um worked through the why and the why's behind beginning when we begin with the class sizes that we begin with um and moving up from there and I think that yes while year one is a challenge at 60 kids as I said I think we've worked through some cost savings with regard to um what our Prof potential facilities are there and I see it as a pretty workable budget model at that level um and maybe somebody else would like to speak to maybe some of the challenges or the wise as to why beginning with k12 and going from there I guess I would just concisely answer that um no we are still con assuming we would open with 60 kids if we opened in the fall of 26 I have a clarifying question to a um comment made earlier because also like lania when I read this budget I saw what felt like a Reliance on inconsistent inconsistent and unpredictable funding sources for a lot of key elements of this um budget and the peras I felt like I recall um being funded in part through fundraising and is that a misunderstanding that fundrais dollars would be used to help support Paras which are critical component of your educational program that isct I I'm not familiar with with that being part of the budget I know that in the first year the um the PA professionals are non sta are non-staff members um but I don't believe that there's a fundraising aspect to that thank you for clarifying that and then another question and it's a little murky to me because you continue to talk about your private um Bell Swan and then there's this new um charter school which would be publicly funded can you explain for your facilities how we can how those if um how the financing for both of those will be really that you will prevent any co-mingling of those dollars because that was also really unclear to me in this application process um particularly when you know there's potential service providers in the afternoon but bbss and provide services during the day and like the the building fund kind of covers your your private arm and your Charter arm can you explain how um how those resources will be distinctly different and those entities will operate very independently even though you continue to talk about them very crossed um in a very uh co-mingled manner no we envision them as 100% separate entities I mean one one is a private entity one is a public entity and I think that we recognize um significantly the difference between that and the difference between utilization of public funds and um the current model for bwan children center um I I I actually don't see that as um as an issue because I don't see it as an option you know it's just one of those things and I think that I think that somewhere down the line when they're able to come up with their own fundrais and from my perspective when I first started working with this group I really sort of hammered very hard on facilities facilities facilities you know you don't have a school you don't have a school if you don't have a place to have a school what does this look like what is the plan how's it going to be financed where is it going and I really have sort of backed off from that in looking at how lucky this school is to have both as a as a brand new entity to have both the support of a building fund that's willing to go out and fund raise for them and or help provide them with whatever resources they need to get into a state of the-art facility Well ahead of when most Charter Schools would be able to and to be able to bring that um that advantage to bwan children center as well you know it's it's it's a pretty exciting opportunity all the way around to have that kind of a partnership for a brand new Charter School um that's saying yes we're here to support you yes we're here to bring the money yes we're here to help develop this um this facility to help you manage The Architects and the conversations and everything that that goes into construction um that's our role is is to make this dream happen um don't see that happening for very many Charter Schools when they're trying to get off the ground and I think that Grove is really lucky to be in this situation and additionally to have some options between now and completion of the construction of the facility whatever that looks like um there you know we we don't know that at this point in time we have some exceptional drawings um we have a very good team on board to do this there's not we we'll have to work out timing based on financing and availability of funds and all of that kind of stuff but as I said I think that Grove is exceptionally lucky um to have the support that it has both from biswan Children's Center as a partner and particularly from the building fund to try and help to bring this whole thing together Alex or members the question I have one sort of quick followup um I recognize that like the Pacific Charter School Development Corporation is a quality player in the field that that pulls this off and that people do raise money for this but I I believe the $30 million price tag and opening in with two years as I've vetted it with my friends who work nationally in this industry is is extremely exceptional and it's aggressive and or entirely unrealistic um is another way the the concise question is is the 30 million include the facility that would be used by ball Swan Center and the therapeutic place or is that all for your school no it includes all three what What proportion of that in terms of square footage and price is for the elementary school um the I Debbie I you could probably speak to that better than myself I'm thinking if I look at the square footage um because I haven't been involved in those discussions um if I look at the square footage it's probably um more than a third and less than a half yep that's exactly what I would say more than a third less than a half and we are working with the Architects about a phasing plan so since Grove will not be occupying a lot of square footage in the first couple of years we are working with them on phasing in b children center will move out move back it will need its full operation right away Grove Elementary will not so they're already phasing with us and so we're looking at a significantly reduced price and the charter school side is probably going to be you know closer to 10 million before we can borrow I will say that we've had conversations with the city and county of Broomfield with SEF funds property tax Fund in the city and county of Broomfield designated for projects like this there is money money available but we have to have a partnership with bbsd first oh and we have a cost modeling workshop in March which means we have this grandiose vision and the cost modeling is when you start chopping things and um we are aware of the cost and sort of when we come up with the add alternates list you know this is what we need to put kids in seats this is what we'd like this is how we get there uh one more Finance question for me I note in uh you talk about transportation and you're saying that you want to rely on bbsd for transportation with students with disabilities and I I know you guys seem like you've done a lot of really great research and you know a lot of the things that bbsd is up against one of them is a bus driver shortage and um given that what is your plan for an alternate on that if we don't have a way to provide you with that because it is a very cost sensitive thing it's an expensive Endeavor Rebecca do you want to speak to that so um I want to be clear about this because it is I want to be sensitive to the balwan public private separation balwan does have vans that we would could use to rent like enter into a contract with them that we could use to provide transportation so it would they would be a provider we would pay them you know and we can rent vs for transportation from them correct yes um like a as at least the charter schools that I'm familiar with um it's and as is posted on many of your charter school websites and in your own website um is as a choice School parents in general are responsible for transportation to the school that said we understand there are certain circumstances in which for Equity sake we need to support Transportation obviously if it's in the service of an IEP I think that's where we're getting that bvsd provides situation I would not say that transportation is that univ vbsd is not being expected to provide Universal transportation to the school we're talking about like if it's within a student's IEP that they need a specific kind of transportation to go to a school sponsored event or something like that so I just want to clarify like we're not asking bbsd for Universal Transportation okay um and then in terms of things that we have seen and and worked with and like Lynn can speak to this in Stargate experience um and utilizing Community Resources obviously you have a fantastic relationship it sounds like with RTD um it it sounds like you might even go beyond the free rides for all and that's something that we would love to learn more about in our partnership with you um we have utilized and I've been utilizing in our own school like the Hop skip drive and things like that other Community Resources just last note that in our intent to enroll form that was one of the questions that we asked right off the bat um because we knew from the standpoint of equity um and I mean that's the reason that we are looking at a charter school right we know that this model is beneficial and you know we we want it to be available to more children and we know that if any of these approaches were ever to scale we need to demonstrate that we can do it you know within um idea we need to know that we can do it and you know that we can make it um you know U apply to a more diverse population so I think you this is why we are pursuing a charter school and so that was one of the first questions that we asked and you know I think the other piece of this is just looking at we'll learn a lot from families when we have a school population right um right now I think a lot of schools would look you know you talk to your families and say you know what does transportation need to look like for you we don't have that right now um so once we do though making sure that we are asking um and then then we have more to work with in terms of coming up with innovative solutions and um troubleshooting and utilizing families to supp and utilizing families to support as well for students in special education in my experience when um that's a special Factor that's checked on their IEP when you open en roll or choose a charter you are waving your right for the school district to provide that Transportation the only way you would access that is if the school district says this is the school you need to access your education so for example Center based programming an Autism program if your home school says yes you need to go to XY and X Y andz school to access that autism program then we'd be required to provide that specialized Transportation so somehow in our partnership we were then a school that the district is sending kids to and that factor is checked then we'd have to have that conversation about providing that Transportation but often it's waved when you choose a charter school Alex Mia uh given the unique purpose of the school would you be interested in being designated like as an ilc within bbsd and being a targeted school where we would direct kids to go not at this time sorry I'm going to go back to if there are any board members any other dollar related questions Finance related questions s then I'll go back if not I'll go back to Beth and then we can carry on in our for a bit longer on questions related to this application that's a gr related one okay Alex I I see you're you're hoping to and as all charter schools to get a federal Charter School Grant um a startup Grant one of the questions I have for you uh that I think you have you talked with um either the Colorado League or CDE which used to administer the grant because your admissions process for element for the preschool uh prior to admission to kindergarten as written would disqualify you for their Federal grant so if you guys had a chance to interact with either of the grant administrators to clear your approach to that yes that language came directly from the league um and it was vetted by the league and then I believe things have changed since we wrote it so we are in that is something that we like I specifically went and said what should we write how do we write it what is the precedent and that was what we were told to put in so it things are Dynamic things are changing you know the grant itself is being administered differently so yes we absolutely would adjust as things have adjusted and that's something that we absolutely would do to align to make sure that we can apply to that Grant yeah Beth and then Jason um I do want to thank you for your application I did spend some time reading it I have had so many thoughts my my um my per on a on a parent level resonated for me a lot my personal background is in special education so I definitely read it with that lens pretty thoroughly and as a board member I'm also trying to be cognizant of my role in this in this scenario I don't want to get too deep into the weeds um with special education questions but I do want to turn a little more attention back to that because I did see serving neurodiverse students as well as students with special needs as as pretty big focus of the application which I support and think is wonderful um actually the question that Alex just asks is one I'm kind of interested in maybe exploring a bit more the you know he asked would you be interested in being an ilc and you said said no so tell me a little bit a little bit more about that and kind of your thinking around um the kinds of students that you would be able to support and another question that I heard earlier that I like as well is are there students with special needs that wouldn't be a good fit in this model and why you know tell us a bit about that please I think our whole model is that our school is for everyone and we want parents to choose that for their child so right now the partnership with an ilc just wouldn't make sense because it's the parent who's considering their child's education and we want them to Choice into our school um as far as the second part of the question I think since it's a school for all we wouldn't know that answer until a student comes to us and we provide our academics and our setting and our relationships and we'd monitor their progress right we'd look at their IEP goals are they making success we're going to use data to help have that conversation along with parents you know is this fit right we know it can't be a right fit for every single student but again that would be a team decision that we' have ongoing conversations with um so parents feel like they're just as involved and if they're student is progressing and making progress great if they're not is there anything we as a team could do differently or is this just not the right setting it's hard to know it would be very student specific based off whatever disability um that student or whatever their needs even their disability wouldn't necessarily specify what their needs are yeah it totally makes sense and I appreciate that um thanks I am I did wonder a little bit and this is a little bit in the weeds but I did wonder a little bit I noticed that we won't have the school wouldn't have a full-time special a teacher I believe until year four I'm wondering a little bit about how that might Impact Services for for students who who do have you know IPS and need a a case manager what that would might look like and how to how to respond to that they're telling me to say that's the most conservative version what we've we've mentioned this many times in the budget that we were conservative in our budget because we didn't want to overpromise anything and you're asking great questions questions to which we don't have all the answers yet either um for most of us there's a significant learning curve in terms of special education I come from the private sector it's totally different we're hiring a a school leader who we expecting to come with that expertise who can guide us in that process and develop the relationship with bbsd not to mention Alex when you said you know would you be open to opening in 26 we're expecting to have our school leader hired in March April that gives that person what 16 months to Pardon early March early March sorry early March anyway do the math um more time to develop these relationships and figure out very specific plans I'll also add as I joined on to the board with the special ed um expertise I definitely had that tough conversation because I see my special ed teacher especially in a charter setting being the case manager so we'll continue to collaborate and support and my job as a school psychologist is to advocate for all kids and so that is an ongoing conversation because we need someone on the ground doing that work um I think it will look at how many kids with disabilities are coming into our school again starting with a smaller case load to begin with um you know we need to look at those numbers and have those tough conversations but I think it's continuing to look at what's best practice in special education and I'm bringing that into the board more recently so that we can continue to have those conversations and I will say we did specifically answer this in I believe the response to the capacity interview questions that weren't asked there I think Lynn gave a an example of how that could be pushed forward faster based on some of the new and updated and flexibility in the budget related to um our location so that is something that we would prioritize if we have if that comes to pass where we have extra funding in addition to it's very explicit in our lead School leader search that that's something that we're looking for somebody who can take that role Jason then Alex sorry Alex uh I thanks Beth for raising uh that for that question and just that kind of that's a big pretty big component of the application so I have some questions about or at least one question about that as well um the proje for 30% of the students will be special needs or students with special needs if you look at the neighboring schools that you site here in application you know from I guess perspective students letters of Interest I think there's eight of them and the highest percentage of students um is at Emerald and that's 12% and so first question is is how realistic is a projection of 30% in your first year and then just a kind of practical question um is that you know given the Staffing challenges and the Rel iance on on per per professionals and you know maybe potentially not having a special education focused teacher till year four uh are what are the challenges that you all see with that and and just kind of is that concentration is that an ideal scenario I'm just you know so a whole bunch of questions around the 30% I guess number one is that a is that a realistic projection given the neighboring schools don't look like that uh number two you know what are the challenges you see and you know and and real challenges with that kind of concentration of students I can speak to the first part in terms of the enrollment when you say that in the neighboring schools is that specifically identified on a 504 and IEP is that where that number is coming from just says percentage of special education students okay so when we as this is another one that we explicitly went into detail with in one of our written responses because we when we look at that 30% it is yes it's students on 504 and I but that is not everybody comprising that 30% we are not expecting 30% IEP and plus 504 that includes students with um identified disabilities who don't need services that includes students who have disabilities that are not identified that includes students with identified disabilities who need no services so it's a that 30% is really representative of a bigger bucket than those Stu than the district level numbers if that makes sense in terms of how we would attain that um that 30% ratio is the operating ratio at the bossal Children's Center currently um and there's we imagine that our model and we anticipate in our intent to enroll show that we are attracting that population um as well as a significant neurotypical population because there are people out there that want this for for all of their children so in terms of that percentage it's not strict 504 plus IEP it's a more holistic understanding and um to address your question regarding uh potential challenges um with an elevated um ratio um of children with needs um as Rebecca said whether they're identified or emerging or um yet to be evaluated um we consider the environment um so our school itself as the third teacher coming into that um into that equation um so things like Flex space which we know that a lot of the 21st century schools you know prioritize building in this Flex space for small group um intervention um and uh additional support when needed um we know that that's not um an every minute everyday situation so again working with our architectural team um very on a very granual level um to make make those spaces available um we are looking at different types of programming uh in terms of uh there's a a program called flashboard IEP which is helping us to streamline some of our IEP challenges uh and reduce the time that is put in um uh to the paperwork side of things so that it frees up some uh actual FaceTime with many of these students um so our block schedule is a second way that we uh will address some of these challenges so allowing for time and space to really uh work with children that need um 150% time for test taking things like that um and then it circles back to our social emotional foundation and really providing those self-regulation regulation skills that benefit all students through Universal Design Alex yeah um one of the things I observed in the charter school space in Boulder and elsewhere is that the beginning enrollments of a school are kind of sticky and so it's hard to increase enrollments of targeted populations that don't show up in the first few years uh in your earlier documents you talk about expecting to increase your free and reduce price Lune population over time what are you thinking about that now is that do you think that's realistic and how would you ever achieve that cuz most of our other schools haven't been able to and I can speak to that from an enrollment standpoint as well that's why we targeted that specific population in our enrollment preferences and the reason that we anticipate that going up over time is because while we do have a reputation that precedes us in a lot of ways we anticipate that that will continue to grow in populations that may not have access to private um private model preschool yeah board members any other questions I have a question about when um you would anticipate having replacement policies in place and in the interim if you'd be interested or willing in um having bbd's policies cover you until you can come up with adequate and approved replacement polic policies or if you've given that any consideration so that would be one of the first roles of a school leader coming in um and looking at um partnering with them to develop those policies and um I think it makes sense to align with bbsd um where um we I think we would need specific examples um but in general yeah we could align with bbsd board members we've asked a lot of questions we've heard a lot of responses any um closing last burning questions before we let the folks from Grove carry on with their evening thank you oh Kitty hold on one second Kitty [Music] thanks so I've been taking copious notes and I appreciate my excuse me fellow board members asking all of um these important questions I have a question for you though about declining enrollment in general low birth rates in general and I'm wondering if you have done any or have had access to any demographic studies um projecting birth rates in the areas in which you expect to draw students I know bbsd has done some but you're looking at areas outside as well Public Health Maternal Child Health At Your Service um so looking at birth rate specifically um so the birth rates in Broomfield um are not declining quite as quickly as elsewhere um in Boulder Valley School District so comparatively compared to Boulder um the level has been more stable um than um in the broader District so there's that aspect um as I mentioned earlier I think that you know we've um surveyed um homeschooling families um and had several conversations with homeschooling families um and um so these are children who are not currently enrolled in bbsd so we think that we could um our model seems to resonate um and could be an asset to declining enrollment in that way um and then again just the geographical location um of our final site um being about two blocks from Sheridan Boulevard um and um one boundary and then um a mile I believe from um 120th um so just the location and proximity to other school districts and considering that Broomfield does have seven school districts um that all of which you know we have families that um attend um bwan currently and would be interested in continuing that model thank you so board members we have one more information item this evening um and then we can take maybe a brief five minute Comfort break because it has been a little bit before we continue on the rest of our agenda so with that I will turn it over to Dr Anderson for our legislative update thank you uh board president Raj Paul I would say that uh things are starting to heat up uh session is getting ready to to start um I'd say that there's three areas as a school district as we think about bills that are emerging that um that we're really going to want to lean in on as a school board and as a community first uh there's a new education accountability Bill based on the work that we did in the education task force I would say that this draft is in very early forms and I would anticipate it will look much different than it looks like like today uh in terms of trying to take the recommendations from the task force and turn those into the a bill I think that that's a complicated Endeavor and um even though there's a draft bill out there I do not believe enough stakeholders have been able to have their eyes on that to make sure that that they shape we shape that in a way that does not lose the progress that I think was made over the past 18 months around this topic so I am working working uh closely with our lobbying team and um have been in communication with case and um and others to make sure that um that that we don't lose sight of the value of the bill even though the first pass of the bill might not be close to be where it needs to be so um so excited that we have a bill but the bill that we have isn't the bill we need or the bill that I think is going to end up moving forward so uh that's one area another area that we're working on um is a bill uh that I've seen a draft of a bill around Universal prek that creates some better opportunities for us to access Bridge care and be able to be more efficient with enrolling be able to better predict numbers of students coming in um along with some other language again that's still being drafted a little bit um and then the third area probably the most important area is the IDE aidea of of the budget that is moving forward and um that there is still I think a focus in the governor's Budget on averaging which would have pretty significant impacts on our incoming budget and uh to the extent that I know that the jbc's gone back and forth with the governor uh and and and the proposed budget and so I don't think that that's anywhere close to being done but it is something that our entire community should be paying attention to because if they eliminate averaging even with 90 million I think that has been proposed to put into education to implement 1448 uh bvsd would be almost Net Zero new dollars uh and uh and that would not be meeting the expectations I think of 1448 or community's expectations around um around how we are able to to fill our obligations uh financially so um I would say that those are the three things that are that are um I think gaining traction we're focusing on board members in response we're preparing one pagers so we can um once we get these bills a little bit closer to where we want to be uh we can have those ready and share those with the board so in your individual lobbying efforts and then collectively we can use those and as a reminder we're meeting with our delegation uh on the 28th and I think the timing is going to actually be really good there because I think things will be a little bit more solidified and our and our our impact and and ability to influence will be a little bit greater in a couple weeks board members questions for Dr Anderson I saw Alex raise his hand um not so much a question but having read the um accountability bill I can say you've been polite I I mean I think the draft is extremely problematic and it'll take some work and I think Rob with his leadership in the State uh to influence to get the recommendations coming out of the task force to be strong I think will'll be well served by bbsd and Rob and the lobbying team playing a role in it because there's a lot of work to get it to where it should be uh and that will take some resources and time and and I think Rob's leadership on the task force is really informative and it gets to the kind of transparency and focus on performance for kids that we want so board members any other questions or comments for Dr Anderson we will take a five minute Comfort break and be right back e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I would like to welcome everybody back to this evening's meeting we are moving right along to action items consent grouping starting with 8.1 Personnel items 8.2 approval of minutes December 10th 2024 8.3 approval of minutes December 17th 2024 8.4 of donation M Elementary 8.5 amend Amendment to the construction at education center 8.6 board member reimbursement 8.7 notes the community input hearing public participation regarding Grove Elementary B Swan uh application during special board meeting on January 21st 2025 8.8 Community Bond oversight update 8.9 contract with FCI con Constructors in Aspen Creek Eldorado Monarch PKA playgrounds 8.10 contract with FCI Contractors Inc Coal Creek Fireside Elementary playgrounds 8.11 resolution 25-01 regarding notice of meetings the Board of Education are there any items board members would like to remove from consent grouping seeing as are none do we have a motion move by lenia seconded by Jorge board members any discussion Laura can you please call the role Chavez yes medler yes Nik yes quinin AA yes Raj Paul yes sergeant yes anger yes motion passes board members we will move on to study items for our agenda this evening we have two study items the first of which is the 20242 Revis budget which will be presented by Bill Suter welcome Bill good evening uh president Raj Paul members of the board Dr Anderson um if I read my notes as fast as you just read that consent agenda we would be done very quickly unfortunately I'm not quite that fast uh so we are in the final stages of the budget Journey we began about 15 months ago uh set in motion about 6 months ago and will complete about a year from now with the audit report for this fiscal year state school budget law allows for the revision of the adopted budget for the prior fiscal year completion enrollment changes uh revenue and expenditure adjustments all of which are included in this budget update uh as you'll recall from the fiscal cycle video we played uh back on the December 10th meeting uh we were talking about next fiscal year with the budget process and budget Outlook we are stepping back and talking about this fiscal year uh for the revised budget and we'll note the color coding the green for this fiscal year uh that's included in this presentation uh we'll talk about the general operating fund and other accounting funds for the district the uh agenda that we I'll go through uh enrollment uh and how that has changed uh the general operating Fund in detail where the vast majority of revenues and expenditures for the district are transacted and then notable changes uh within those other accounting funds uh on enrollment uh in summary uh overall we're right on projections uh with what we put into the budget uh last spring uh noting that there are a few adjustments within the different uh categories of our enrollment uh the preschool uh is down and the general operating uh or general schools uh are up which is uh positive in the sense of those uh new enrollments coming in those are at the lower grades largely uh with preschool the challenges with the funding model uh that was developed by the governor uh we staff for the full fiscal year uh and then challenges with the state enrollment site and the process uh and we're just not funded for the cost of the program of the way it's designed I think there are some of those changes that are proposed in the legislative update that Dr Anderson gave uh that might address some of that moving on into the uh general fund and traditional schools uh as noted in the enrollment update back on December 10th uh we have positive movement from what was uh the budget was developed on uh and largely at the elementary level which again is positive uh for the direction of the district uh it's a little more obvious here in the special ed in the special ed in the preschool um where we've broken out uh the categories of students uh into those students with IEPs those that are participating in the upk program and those that pay tuition uh and um it's short from what we built the budget on but in January we are now up from 770 to 825 which includes more special education students a slight decline in the upk uh and uh increase in the tuition paying students so really the with the the setup of how students are enrolled with the final matching rounds in upk in Late July and enrollment in August really makes it difficult for families as they have to wait so long for uh confirmation and we do see uh our sites with enrichment generally have higher enrollment uh than the sites that do not moving on into the general operating fund uh the beginning balance so we have uh an increase in the beginning balance of about $21 million due to uh both unspent budgets and additional revenues in the prior fiscal year uh we identify carryover dollars uh those are unspent budgets for specific purposes in the prior fiscal year when we project the budget in the spring we project to spend all uh non-personnel uh operating dollars and then some of those remain unspent because they're fully authorized to be spent we don't want to uh over project un spending them uh so we we project that we're going to spend them and then they become identified carryover dollars if they aren't I'll go into more detail later about what that is made up of we had some additional Revenue last year uh beyond what was built into the budget uh and then the net of all the transfers and expens expenditures little additional uh available resources there and then just some accounting items where we prepay items uh they uh get carried forward into the next uh fiscal year as well on the revenue side uh we have um about $6.8 million in additional Revenue uh 2.1 million in one time and 4.7 in ongoing Revenue uh onetime revenue is focused in the area of Interest earnings uh generous donation from impact on education to continue supporting student wellness centers and other mental health supports uh we have ongoing Revenue uh from the school Finance act from that student growth I mentioned uh some special education categorical reimbursements uh and additional interest earnings as well and also Medicaid uh as we have uh hit a trend of higher receipts on uh Medicaid billing uh we increased uh the dollars there on the expenditure side uh expenditure is increasing by 23.3 million over what was adopted uh 84% of that increase is concentrated on one-time expenditures so we have that standard carryover so those unspent budgets from the prior fiscal year uh textbooks and learning materials 6.4 million uh Medicaid dollars because those are federal dollars they are required to be spent uh on specific it items so if they're unspent in the prior year they have to be carried for for the same uh purposes 1.4 million and then the school resource allocation those operating dollars at the school uh sites uh about 300,000 special carryover requests uh so these are uh items that again are unspent from the prior year uh departments uh some specific Department uh uh expenditures in the area of professional development recruitment Community surveys uh and then districtwide prepaid software contracts this is again some of that accounting uh that we prepay things and then they get expended in the future years onetime funding requests uh $9 million uh that wellness centers and mental health supports I mentioned uh from the impact on education donation uh substitute incentive pay Learning Materials uh and then reserves uh We've increased our Taber and contingency Reserve those are percentages so as in as expenses increase those uh reserves go up as well uh and then uh We've added a special education Staffing Reserve uh for uh some future needs around uh those enrollment fluctuations with students after uh the start of the school year uh and uh future projects uh to uh continue to staff the Grad Plus work uh for an additional two years we're very careful to track those expenditures those one-time expenditures uh and note them so that there's not an expectation that they will continue or an misunderstanding that they will continue into the future continuing uh with ongoing expenditures uh 3.7 million so curriculum materials uh districtwide support uh W to web program uh about 700,000 Medicaid some position realignments we're um moving the dollars and resources from uh preschool into the general fund it's a net zero bottom line but we just have to account for the uh expenditures uh and then the Medicaid dollars I mentioned earlier uh Staffing for the enrollment increase uh as well as the uh Federal idea Grant shortfall is about 1.3 million uh and then some compensation adjustments uh to align with employee agreements and contracts transfers uh so uh largely the revenue for the district comes into the general fund and then those resources are transferred into uh the other accounting funds uh where they're uh spent and so we've made some adjustments here these are uh often aligned to how we ended the prior fiscal year so that uh gets built into uh how much resources are needed in some of these uh funds so Food Service um received a grant as well as had some fund balance last year so uh we don't need as much of a transfer uh the preschool fund that's uh what I mentioned uh moving the staff from the Gen the preschool fund to the general fund so we short the transfer uh so it's a net zero bottom line uh and then also in the preschool fund uh that uh student enrollment shortfall and some Grant Revenue uh and then other uh ongoing adjustments uh related to um compensation uh to align with ratified and board adopted uh agreements reserves as I mentioned the uh 3% uh for tabing contingency and then other reserves for those uh multi-year projects little summary of The General operating fund uh there's a remaining balance of 3.5 million unallocated resources uh of which 1.4 million are one time and 2.1 million are ongoing uh these resources will provide a slight cushion over and above the reserves in the event their additional expenditures come up uh Andor revenues decline uh as was indicated in the 2526 budget development Outlook presentation on December 10th uh with declining enrollment the governor's desire to cut K12 public education funding the new school Finance act that favors districts with demographics different than bbsd and state budget shortfalls new funding for bbsd will likely be very limited next year so expectations for new and additional expenditures will likely far outweigh those new resources so maintaining a little balance uh going into next year uh is a positive uh thing for other funds uh so again these are just uh reiterating some of those transfer items uh the charter school fund on a one-time basis we're required to both by state law and contracts to reconcile expenditures and revenues uh and true that up uh with Charter Schools uh and then the preschool fund as I mentioned uh some support uh to maintain the the program that as it has been set up even though there's a few uh less students than noted um and then Food Service uh that ending fund balance from the prior year and some Grant revenue on an ongoing basis uh Charter Schools uh uh get additional per pupil revenue for a few additional students um and the cap Reserve fund uh a White Fleet uh lease inflationary costs uh we haven't adjusted the uh the cost related to that White Fleet lease uh payments that we made make in the 10 years that we've uh had it in place uh so this is just a adjustment for that uh preschool fund uh some decrease of funding to align the staff as I mentioned and then those compensation adjustments uh to align with those ratified board agreements in transportation Athletics preschool and Food Services next steps uh we have the budget adoption scheduled for the end of January we don't anticipate any changes however if there there is any new information that comes along in the next couple of weeks we'll inform the board and include them uh in the agenda for approval uh and then adjustments can be made up until June 30th with additional information uh and as always major unknown or unexpected changes will be evaluated and brought forward uh if budget adjustments are needed any questions thank you for that presentation B board members Lany would like to begin only have one quick one because I can't remember bill um tell me about the idea shortfall so uh counter intuitively uh idea funding is not based on students with IEPs it is based on the total District enrollment uh and so um as enrollment shrinks those resources drop Kitty yes um Bill thank you for that presentation I have a question and you may not have an exact answer so just a sense of an answer would be okay in terms of preschool and what we're spending on it if the governor had not set up a whole department of early childhood and had just put preschool in with CDE and funded it the way we've you know fund all other education what would the impact be on our budget that's not a number I have handy um well I wasn't expecting a number I was just expecting like would it be better worse just what kind would it be I would suggest it would be better because at least the payments would be based on uh per pupil Revenue uh where we would also receive our override dollars uh for those students uh and the annual adjustments would be tied to inflation uh where they are not at the at the current process there sort of whatever the state budget will uh uh afford um and so it it would be better yes Kitty You're muted sorry I'm eating at the same time do you think that would be true of most districts uh yes I've talked with my colleagues up and down the Front Range and uh you know some of the comments uh were I used to run the the CPP program and it didn't cost me a bunch of additional money uh and now with the change to upk uh it does so um I would suggest that that uh it would be um better for most districts some districts have you know unique uh setups Denver has a I believe it's a um sales tax that uh helps fund their preschool uh and so there are different models of How It's funded and different models of How It's operated um but uh generally speaking running it through CDE would um provide us the funding for the full year that we actually staff for uh as opposed to waiting for the students to get enrolled through the state system uh and show up at some point during the year uh and you don't start getting paid for those students until they start showing up even though we've hired staff to keep the program running thanks Bill board members any other questions to Kitty's final question I mean hopefully during this legislative session we can make some inroads to improve how upk is administered and funded in the state of Colorado Alex I was going to say uh I don't know if we need to get into a discussion of it now but I I I think um I think you're assuming in your description that upk would have been done through the school Finance formula as it structured and that's different than Kitty's question of had uh CDE administered it so there's lots of different things that would relate to the expense the idea that it would have been operated exactly we would just have added three and foury olds to K through 12 I think is p un realistic to get the money in the meantime had it gone through CDE through the state finance formula we're now at a point where we're only getting you know 24 million total from the state so had we done it through that we might have gotten even less so I don't know that it's a knowable question about how it it worked out I I would say that through our advocacy you know I I think for us you know our best hope is predict better predictability right because then you can then you can manage your expenses versus your revenues to try to balance the budget whereas today we're guessing a number and you saw a 22% decline in based on what we had projected and what we're actually serving and uh every little thing counts every time how many times you open up the window when do you open up the window um so so predictability uh yeah I think that you know that that that Train's left the station in terms of you know it's cedc and they got a lot of people and they're going to run it and that's it so uh now our hope our best hope is how can we best operate within that system so I think that that will be you know our charge as we begin to kind of Lobby thanks Bill our final study this evening is the peak-to peak Charter renewal application um before I turn it over to Kathleen I also wanted to just reiterate that this is the first time this board is taking on one of these and so if there are questions about process or any clarifying um please feel free to ask because this is new for the majority of us and I would invite Dr gyos to help with us as well since she is our Charter School liaison so um Peak to Peak has submitted their renewal application and in this board item we have provided for the board the attachments as well as a timeline apologies I'm just opening that timeline and I think it's nice we had two Charter items on this board agenda we're getting familiar with some of our templates and rubrics and resources that are available to support the board as you do this important work so we've received um both the charter renewal application as well as some contract modification requests from Peak to Peak um this is our opportunity to really review and have some discussion about the application this item will also be up for the board's action on January 28th um and I will turn it to Dr gagos who's at the microphone all right good evening everyone so you all have at your fingertips um within the attachments this evening the uh timeline the actual Charter application at self the contract modifications requests um and also our evaluation as well um that we did um and so the timeline for this as you can see is right now um you all have received our recommendation to renew peak-to peak's Charter and um next um in February we'll be engaging in the decision making and then in March and April will be engaging in uh contract negotiations so board members we have not prepared or brought a big panel to answer questions or prepared anything beyond that staff evaluation report that's Prov Ed as part of the application we are certainly available to answer any questions or to hear any additional information the board may want to um have available I do want to point out it's really helpful I think to have the contract modification requests just prepared but those would be addressed later in this process as part of contract negotiations once that decision has been made on the renewal application Kitty so I can see from reading through some of this and I have to admit I didn't read it all yet um that Peak to Peak is not interested in changing to the insurance model of providing special education and I know that's something in the past that past boards have talked talked about and been pretty insistent on is that um we do have all of our Charters use the insurance model so is is that something that would be negotiated at during at the same time the excuse me the con the contract um changes would be negotiated yes that's correct and what happens if during this negotiation we don't agree that's something we can talk about in the executive session that we will have for the board to provide direction to your negotiating team um once the applications have been acted on board member Sergeant so is there a general answer to that question like you approve a renewal for a charter you enter into negotiations and you don't agree what I guess the it's a process question I suppose is because I'm not assuming we're not going to come to an agreement but what happens if there isn't agreement we keep negotiating okay just I mean you don't go to say a mediator or anything like that no okay thank you Jason um I've got two questions uh the first is you know some time ago I guess it was maybe like almost a year ago we we had a whole conversation about enrollment preferences uh and that this you know those related to the Charter Schools will be addressed in the contract um and I I didn't see it here um maybe I'm missing something but I just wanted to ensure that that there was followup there that we are including the enrollment preferences that we discussed as a board in this new contract yes I do I do think that that's clear both to your staff that's negotiating and to our Charter Schools when the board made the revisions to jc- in terms of open enrollment preferences you did codify in policy the specific language that this board is uh as part of its commitment to equity does not uh believe that Legacy preferences are consistent with that so I I I do understand that piece but so it's not part of the contract it'll be part of future negotiations so it's still not part of the current contract this one here that's correct I think it was the board's language and policy that directed us to put it into the contracts rather than policy so it would be new language in the contract um and then had a different question but if someone else um and then I had another question on their um sorry I know my glasses here on their modification requests um the first the very first one on on lifting their enrollment cap to I know this is down the road for negotiation but since I've not been through this process before just question about that I mean given I think they were the only school that has a waiting list uh during open enrollment and a 55 student increase is pretty significant but then there's qualifying language here saying um as future facility improvements permit and so could you just explain that a little bit more what they are they building a new building that's going to accommodate 55 new kids or what what does that look like and what the what would the timeline be for that so those are really um the contract modification request in particular are something that we have not spent significant time on at this moment um so I don't have an answer for you at this point Alex yeah I'd like to make a couple observations and then questions I wanted to Circle back to the insurance question because I I um this gets this was an issue with the Grove application before and I believe our quote Insurance model is more complicated than it's sort of been presented from my understanding we've had like a full service Insurance model where bbsd is doing almost everything with special ed that is the case for Boulder prep and just as high and then a more hybrid model which is what Peak to Peak has now in which they are responsible for hiring some of the um the services so they can control the Staffing and be responsible for like the occupational therapist and PT and stuff so we have these two approaches and I read the proposal is saying that um Peak to Peak actually likes the hybrid model for special ed and what they're pursu advocating for is that we use a similar model for multilanguage Learners because they think it's working I would point out like I've been a Critic of the enrollment parody of uh Peak to Peak and Summit for that matter in bbsd for a long time but the data here is indicating really promising Trends over the last five years and I think they've made considerable progress in increasing their enrollment of students with disabilities and their enrollment of free and reduced price lunch students not not at parody yet but certainly five years of data all moving in the right direction so and I also think of the document before us is the um opening Salvo from Peak to Peak on what they're proposing for contract negotiations and we should have our own response to that so so I for one am excited about the progress they've made in serving a population that represents our broader community and I'm both encouraged in supporting that and helping it continue in that direction so um like I think of you know if they can figure out a way to well serve 55 more students on that increase and they're continuing the trends to to better represent our our full population I think that's sort of that's stuff going in the right direction in the meantime I'm curious about the m multilanguage learner request to shift to a model that's closer to the way we handle the special ed with them and I'd be curious to get uh our staff's take on whether they think the special ed um through the more hybrid version of insurance is working currently for the benefit of the kids and what they think about the proposal to do that for the multilanguage Learners thank you um definitely agreed that that Peak to Peak um is demonstrating fantastic uh results um and really promising practices that um is one of the reasons why we are recommending the renewal of their Charter of course one of the many reasons um I would need to be able to further engage in conversations with Dr Miller's uh team in order to really give you a thorough um response in that specific piece because uh what we do when we um uh do the reviews is we have subject matter matter experts be able to drill down into those pieces do an analysis and a cross reference and so um I we would want for Dr Miller's team to be able to be involved in that piece and I would say one of the Ben benefits um considerations and to your point I think that that the data is is trending uh in a positive direction is that through the insurance model we make sure that that all schools are sharing in the expense um of of servicing whether it's multilingual Learners or special education students and in the with the insurance model for those schools that have a higher percentage than the district would have of say special education multilingual Learners uh then they actually probably benefit and uh for those who don't they share and the expenses with the incentive to hey if you get these numbers up these it's actually the more these types of students that you serve so but I I do think that that as part of the negotiations you know you know they've shared some ideas I don't know that that that I have the information to answer your question specifically to Bianca's uh point you know let's meet with our team let's see what they're doing let's see what they propose let's see what their innal capacity is to do some of those things and then um and then just see where we end up through negotiations Alex yeah thank you oh and I uh I I should have said up front I also am very impressed by Peak to peak's academic performance I really don't think there's a question of whether we're going to not renew it um I do think however the request to have like an automatic renewal is something I would be a hard no on regardless just as a matter of principle and policy I think there's things we can do to improve like the transparency in the sense of the predictability of renewal cuz because I don't think there's any reason to expect it not to happen when you have this kind of performance and this kind of contribution to our community so I don't uh I think but in terms of an issue of District policy I'd be pushing hard to not suggest that we get to any sort of sense of automatic for it I would say though that um as we think about our the progress we're making and developing our Charter oversight policies there might be some benefit to thinking about some sort of expedited process when the performance we we don't have any questions about out you know the basic performance and the running of the school I the reason I feel strongly to make sure we go through a renewal process is that it is the opportunity to talk about things of importance and when you don't have that then the next discussion about let's say an open enrollment issue takes longer and you don't have the chance to have that important discussion so I think to build positive relationships to adjust things to learn um Charter renewal is an important part of overseeing charter school so I I think the automatic renewal is really counterproductive to the school's interests as well as what we're trying to do but with that said um I do think uh I look forward to us being clear in a charter contract um that we are sticking to our District's new policies on open enrollment and um as we continue to be transparent and supportive of peek to Peak I think it'd be great to be moving forward with our next Charter contract update uh for Summit to be really clear with a process that's uh collegial and that we're constructive and it's pretty clear that we are going to hold the line on not having enrollment preferences that are at odds with our district policies aligned with um my colleagues questions around open enrollment practices and policies and the include degree to which some of the policies that we've spent a lot of time improving and updating and really significantly changing recent ly um cell phone policy graduation requirements attendance um open enrollment Title 9 I did not see a significant um um I would like to understand as they continue to wave those or choose not to wave those are they updating what they're doing in practice to our current policy language some of those they've elected to keep some of them they've waved it wasn't really clear um that to me I would like to understand that they will be updating practice for those policies of ours that they're retaining thinking of Title 9 it's a questions there and then the ones that they want to wave some rationale there so I look forward to discussing that as we um work through the negotiations and understanding a little bit more the other one I just need some understanding of and this gets to the modification request that we will discuss is that one for grant funding access I'm I'm not sure that I understand stand when it says Peak to Peak requests equal access to Grants to Grant funded programs and or resources when the grant specifically states that Charters authorized through a school district cannot apply separately um I just like how that works in pra in Practical terms like clarification from the district would be helpful for me on that one and then um yeah I think it's great that they continue to S serve increasingly diverse populations I've questions around you know how all of those special populations are continuing to uh succeed and how that consult model shifting might change that in a either direction lenia uh I would encourage our team to encourage Peak to Peak to look at not only title 9 but um student discipline data I don't while I while I agree with Alex I love their academic results I feel like we need to hold all schools in our district to a very high level perhaps above the the basic level and those two places as far as I can tell I don't think that probably we're um probably not Title 9 compliant I I I don't think so and if they're using vizlab are we able to understand that there's not disproportionate discipline I didn't know if that was a direct question or is that something to consider as we it's just a a future consideration please no absolutely board member Sergeant has her hand raised thank you for that Kathleen Kitty yes thank you I've um have a couple of other questions I've just been looking through to see where it was I read this but I saw something it that was written by staff about whether or not to raise their um enrollment cap and it talked about losing bbsd students to Peak to Peak and I wanted to understand what exactly was meant by that and the other question I have is that I know we're sh sharing mil Levy overrides with Peak to Peak and I would wondering what it would take for for us to not have to do that considering that they're getting this money and other schools are getting I'm sorry other schools are getting the oh gosh I'm sorry I can't think the extra money based on characteristics of students and Peak to Peak although it's laudable that they have increased their numbers in terms of diversity both you know racial learning and um Financial they don't have the need that some of our other stu um schools do so those yeah those are two questions thank thank you so the first question oh okay sorry the first go sorry about that okay the first question you asked about Kitty I believe you're referring to the enrollment cap is that what you're talking about okay yes yeah so in the summi of renewal report I believe that's what you're referring to is there is a consideration from our staff uh regarding the um having peak-to Peak take out the IND District preference so that we can recruit more students from out of bvsd okay so and I wish I could find it on here I'm scrolling through this and I'm it's not popping out at me so it's on page 14 of the summative report 14 okay wait what page am I on of the it's their page number 12 PDF page number 14 their page number has 12 on it okay okay yes right original concerns about total cap being 1409 not 1445 were proven untrue due to a clause to change the part-time kindergart kids to fulltime when the state paid for fulltime if the school goes overcap for any reason they don't get paid yeah but that's not oh here it is the first the paragraph before that if we change the OE preference Behavior we would lose oh we would lose fewer students fewer bbsd students to P2P so that means because I mean their B bbsd students whether they go to Peak to Peak or a Traditional School so this what you're saying here is that would be the opportunity to enroll more out of District students it's it's my understanding that the last time we went through contract negotiations that it was um that at the district or board's request we we changed the preferences to include that IND District preference which then increased the number of IND District students that were able to enroll into Peak to Peak based on the preferences um and so to the extent that there were adjustments to the preferences uh it might I I think Mike wilcox's feedback there is that if you adjusted those that would be potentially less bvsd students uh going to Peak to Peak and theoretically they they would come to bvsc I think that there's some speculation there is that that we wouldn't know if that is the true or true or not um but I think that that was the the premise potentially in the feedback that Mike gave okay it was just the losing fewer bbsd students to Peak to Peak is what confused me because it's still part of our district it's just a charter school yeah and I don't like that term okay I think that we probably should should amend that term it's not losing students to a to a district um Charter right lose them to Adams 12 or something not to ourselves okay thank you Alex yeah on that point I guess um since it's one of our over subscribed schools um I'd be reluctant to uh decrease the ability of our residents um to access it in the hopes that uh if they didn't go there they'd be at one of our other schools when they might very well just leave the district so I I think that's not a necessarily A wise course of action either for the for the sake of bvsd parents or our budget frankly so board members any other questions or comments uh I guess this is a request of the staff as you continue this process since we have like two charter schools that have had historically had low rates of enrollment of um free reduced price launch students with disabilities uh and we've had concerns as a district for a long time and Peak to Peak has made considerable progress in that front I guess I would love for staff as part of this process to come back to us with an understanding of how Peak to Peak did that I think that would be instructive uh for Summit Middle School frankly to figure out okay well what of what Peak to Peak has done can Summit do and is there support we could give to Summit to help them move in this direction too so that both our uh long-standing great charter schools in our community that have this weakness as far as I'm concerned can both be making considerable progress on that front so I'd love to hear from staff as you do this you know what's what's worked and how have they done that and key to that is how they have still sustained their mission and their vision and what changes they have had to make in terms of programming and uh pedagogy in order to be successful as their in enrollment evolves yeah and how the potential of not having Legacy based preferences and not having preferences that rely on housing insecurity and ail a family not to have to work full-time so you can volunteer for 10 hours a week and get preferences and how that could actually really even improve further the ability for them to enroll students that are historically underrepresented and who live in their backyard so a lot of while continue there has been Improvement I think that that alone could up open doors for further improvements and who is coming into those schools and so um yes and there's always more we can do kitty your hand was up yes I just thought of this too um in terms of of improving diversity and this could apply to both schools just mentioned is it looks like Peak to Peak is attributing this or it's being attributed to changes in the open enrollment preferences but perhaps we could ask ask them to come up with a recruitment plan um for them to try to instead of just changing OE trying to you know recruit people the way Grove was talking about you know we asked them how are they going to recruit students and perhaps if if something like that could be established that would help each of summit as well as peak-to Peak improve their diversity board members final thoughts on this I want to thank the staff for the time that they put in um in their summi of report I think that was really helpful I think um Next Step moving into negotiating through some of these and seeing what we can where we can get movement on is going to be really important um and for us to think about as we continue through the renewing these Charters is when we are making really significant changes in areas how are how are they conveying to their community that they are changing or not or choosing not to along with us and and I even think with open enrollment you go to the website and it links to policy but our policy now says you know charters in contract negotiation so as we evolve um how are we for things that we are value how are they how are they communicating that to their Community when it's no longer in our policy some of their requirements how you know how does that all work um but Peak to Peak is a great school and they are long they've have a longstanding relationship um and track record in the district so continuing to make progress seeing as there are no further questions or comments on this study item we will now move on to our future agenda requests board members at this time we can bring items forward that we'd like to discuss at our next board prioritization I see Al lenia eagerly with her hand up so we will start with her I just would like an update on our idling policy please I guess I'd like to talk about an idling policy Alex um I know that we'll have a like a title 9 report that will provide quite a bit of data I've been having discussions with um parents of kids experiencing bullying and I was and I was it really was prompting some of my thinking about like what is it we know about as a board in terms of student experience that gets to the things about student well-being and sense of belonging and uh um I I don't know what I don't I want to talk about what data can we have that helps us understand like disciplinary actions like reassignment or numbers of Investigations and what causes those are and how those things are happening that gets reported at a level that's constructive and informative and sometimes maybe that school level data and I don't know what all that data is but I when I when I hear um parents complaint about their child being bullied and then they get involved in our processes I'm just curious how the data can reflect how that's going and I and I don't really have a good sense of it I I really appreciate uh um Kathleen's recent memo when we were dealing with a particular complaint to give us a sense of how the process works but I think there's some sort of districtwide or School level data that could help inform our understanding of how the sense of student well-being and sense of belonging is working and maybe the title 9 like dashboard type report isn't illustrative to that but I'm curious if we can find out more about sort of the student um discipline and investigatory process and how that's what the outcomes are board members any other items no I guess we've got a lot on our plate this semester meetings might be long might have a lot of reading so um it's going to be a big one hold on hold on tight uh with that this concludes our business for this evening board members we are adjourned e e for