And I'd like to call the order that this is regular meeting of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education for Tuesday, 08/12/2025. Welcome back, everybody. Board members may attend and participate in our board meetings by electronic means in accordance with BBFC policy, VMEA, and state law. Laura, can you please call the roll? Chavez? Here. Medler? Here. Niznik? Quinlan Ueda? Here. Rajpal? Here. Sergeant? Here. Ungar? Here. Thank you. I'd like everyone to turn their attention to the screen for a land acknowledgment this evening. The Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral homeland,
and unjustly and illegally taken territory of the Ute, Puebloan, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations historically tied to this land who have called this land home since time immemorial. We acknowledge the atrocities committed here, including the painful history of genocide, forced assimilation, and efforts to alienate the indigenous inhabitants from their homeland, supported by the policies of the United States government. BVSD 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 BVSD's responsibility to 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 meaningful, and meaningful, and engaging learning opportunities that
alter them thrive and are prepared for successful, civically engaged lives. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us here in person and also remotely. We're glad to have you observe and participate in our meetings. At this time, is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? Moved by Jorge, seconded by Kitty. Laura, can you please call the vote? Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan Ueda? Yes. Rajpal. Yes. Sergeant. Yes. Ungar. Yes. Motion passes. First item on our agenda this evening is the superintendent's report. Doctor Anderson, good evening. Good evening, Board President Rajpal, board members. Welcome back.
So good to see everyone. Hope that you all had a wonderful summer. Board members and community members, those who joined us this evening, as you know, tomorrow will be welcoming back students to school. Our team will be providing an update regarding our preparations a little later in tonight's meeting, but it's really been nice to see our principals, teachers, and staff back in our buildings, excited to make this an incredible school year for everyone in BVSD. And then wanted to give, everyone an update on the attendance boundary change feedback. Board members, while summer is a great time for rest and relaxation, we're also busy
working on district priorities, including gathering feedback as we told you we would for the board, regarding the proposed attendance boundary changes we discussed in May. Last week, we finished up our feedback sessions with families regarding those proposed changes. And as you all requested, we reached out directly to the families that might be affected. Everybody had the opportunity to have a personal call from somebody in the district to talk about any challenges or concerns. It was a great great conversations with with the parents who signed up. Extremely valuable to hear their firsthand perspective of the proposed changes.
And I want just wanna thank everybody who took the time to share their thoughts with us about this. Feedback will be compiled and shared with the board at a work session in September as we move forward, with the tenants boundary changes, study first, then, then action based on feedback from the board. So that's all I have for my remarks this evening. Welcome back, everyone. So brief. I was chewing. Board members, any questions or comments for Doctor. Anderson? Seeing as there are none, we'll now move on to public participation. The board respects the rights of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of our schools. The board does not endorse any comments of any speaker and reminds all who speak
that you are responsible for your own speech. Speaker speakers will each have two minutes to speak. You'll see a yellow card when you have thirty seconds remaining and an orange card when you have ten seconds remaining. If you run out of time or would like to share additional information, you can always email the board. We do read all of our emails. Board members tonight, we have two folks signed up for public participation. Understandable since this is our first meeting back and school does not start until tomorrow. First person signed up this evening is Becky Roedow. We will then move on to Michael Whitaker. Hi, board. I'm Michael Whitaker. I have a daughter that's going into ninth grade at Fairview and a son that's
going into sixth grade at Southern Hills. The reason I'm writing is, you know, can can any of you explain the AI policy for the district in less than thirty seconds? Could you explain it to a teacher? Could you explain it to a student that asked you? Could you explain it to a parent that wants to help you at home, help the kids use AI in the right way and not in a way that's cheating, but in a way that's enhancing learning? I write this summer, I started a substack newsletter for free for parents to help them shape the way AI is gonna impact our work, our kids and ourselves because it's so complicated, because parents are feeling behind, because they don't know how to engage
and there's this real risk that because they don't know how to engage, they just don't. And it's moving too fast to let that be the okay outcome. This weekend, I went looking for our policy. I couldn't find it. Like I googled it. I found a nice story from a student testifying about how they used AI last year where he admitted that the rules were weird. I then use Gemini deep research to say what is the policy and how to go through public facing documents and try and distill it down. I ended up being able to create a one page website infographic not neatly designed
yet, but that actually distills the policy down to something that could be understood in thirty seconds. That could give the kids guardrails for how to do this the right way. Do you use AI as a learning partner or not to do the work for them? That gives parents ways to IKH. That gives the guard rules clearly in plain language. I urge the board to put some attention on this early in the year. It's moving too fast. This can't wait till next year. This is not the domain of the IT department. There's a real opportunity to put a simple webpage, a one pager, have a poster in the classroom, turn it into a design contest for the students.
Say, we need to be able to communicate our AI policy well. Here are the core tenants. Come up with an interesting design. Use AI to do it. Give them permission. I just want it to be something that is brought into and openly discussed going into this school year because it's too important to leave it quiet into interpretation and vagueness. Thank you. We will now move on to our next item on this evening's agenda, which is board communication board members. Is there anyone who would like to go first? Steve. Yeah. I don't have a lot to comment on, but welcome back, everybody. And one thing I noticed in all of the legal changes that have gone on
since we were last here is a change in mandatory reporting law, and that's something that's near and dear to my heart since that's something I used to teach. And the two big changes are one that I really approve of is you may not delegate your responsibility to someone else. You used to be able to, and I always advised against it. But the other one is that now mandatory reporters only have to report in the context of their jobs, not outside. And it used to be, if you were a mandatory reporter, you were a mandatory
reporter in your whole life. And I would still encourage people to keep that in mind, that if you're a mandatory reporter, that means you know something about the warning signs of child abuse and may be able to recognize something that other folks don't. And I would encourage you to report even if it is not in the context of your job. And with the new law, I would have to check with our legal expert. But if you are reporting not in the context of your job, but just as
a private citizen, you might be able to report anonymously. Kathleen, do you know? Because I know it didn't used to be. If you're a mandatory reporter, you have to give your name. Yeah. They are still protected by Colorado law in terms of the identity of the reporter. But, Yes. I'm yeah. I did know that. But a lot of people are reluctant because they think somebody might figure out who it was and it's possible that they could. But I just want to say as an expert in mandatory reporting, I encourage you
all to continue to do it in your life as well as your work. Alex? There we go. Let me get started. I must have pushed two buttons at once. Great to be back, see everybody and to meet the people who are are new to their roles as principals. Also, I just want to reiterate in part what our speaker said tonight. In my day job, I continue to see how much artificial intelligence is sort of becoming more and more significant, and I do believe it's something that students will be using a lot. I think Boulder's already ahead of the game with our magic school approach to it.
But I do believe it's the student use that is a fundamental challenge and hopefully, eventually opportunity. But, the capacity of the artificial intelligence tools is so great that that it's pretty impossible to imagine the students not being well ahead of the school system and how to deal with it. And just treating it as a new form of plagiarism, is just doesn't cut it. And so I do believe in all the things that Boulder does to be a leading edge district that's doing really good stuff and thinking about things in a forward looking way, I do think accelerating our attention to the topic is probably necessary if
we wanna stay in front of things that will be affecting students and how they learn. So I also want to thank our speaker this evening and also thank you for providing that in writing. So we have that to reference. It's great to get those emails. I wanna give a shout out to all the principals that came here tonight, our new principals. Thank you for having dinner with us. Dinner is early on these board meetings, but it was great to meet you. It was great to see the energy of our principals. Likewise, shout out to all the staff members who are getting our schools ready.
There have been, I know, I've heard from different sites, lots of new students coming back to BVSD, open enrolling in our schools. Kids are coming off the wait list, which is creating exciting challenges and opportunities for the the schools to work through, in this couple days before school opens. So thanks to all the efforts there. I also wanna acknowledge all of our three sixty leaders, those upper class middle schoolers and upper class high schoolers who've been working hard over the summer to get ready for the new sixth graders that are rising up and the new ninth graders. That does take time, and I commend the leadership that you show in your schools.
Similarly, if you're out at all this summer in our parks and on our trails, you will have seen a lot of our student athletes practicing and getting ready for the season. Again, big amount of effort that goes in to represent their schools with pride, not just our student athletes, but the marching bands too. I mean, a lot of a lot goes into the start of the school year to ensure our schools are ready to be successful, from any everybody's part. So thank you for that. And to thanks for all the parents to getting the kids to all those registration picture day, back to school nights. I know it's it's a lift, but it really does create the sense of community
that helps our schools be really successful. So I just wanna commend everybody for that. We will move on to information this evening. We have two information items. The first of which is a back to school update. And I will turn it over to our cabinet members who'll make their way to the podium. Board president Rajpal, as as our team is is coming up to present and board members will recall that this is a presentation we do for the board, but also for the public every single year before the start of school. It's an important overview of some new things that might be happening, some great things
that have always been happening. It's a great time as folks, if they're new to our school district or just tuning into what happens here in BVSD, to watch the back to school update. And so, tomorrow's the first day of school. We're all very excited. And I'd love to turn the presentation over to doctor Dela Cruz. Laura. Thank you, doctor Anderson. Good evening, president Rajpal, board members. So good to see you all again. Welcome back. We're really excited to share with you all that we've been up to as we
prepare to open the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six school year. And speaking of welcome back, we're in back to school mode most definitely. There's been a lot going on to be ready. We can't wait to welcome our students back to school tomorrow for elementary and secondary on Thursday. Teams across BVSD have been really hard at work to just be sure that everything is ready for learning from facilities to IT to professional learning for teachers and leaders and more, and our team's going to be sharing that with you this evening.
BVSD has been really busy this summer, especially these last few weeks and especially these last few days as we gear up. We're we have a pretty large organization, as you know, and these numbers really tell that story. What it all boils down to, of course, is serving and supporting a little over 27,000 students and more actually enrolling every day as president Rajpal, pointed to. We serve millions of meals. You can see that, there's a lot of miles on buses.
Our budget, our employees, and our schools are all there in service to the students in our buildings. Did I mention that we've been busy? You can see a little bit of that in the photos on this slide. What you see here is really just a fraction of the preparation that has been in place to open the school year. We always love our first district leadership team, DLT, and our first PK twelve meeting of the new school year and that happened a couple of weeks ago. Those meetings with leaders involved new learning and refreshers from legal updates to refining ninety
day plans and a whole lot in between. Between DLT in the morning and p k twelve in the afternoon, we always enjoy the annual DLT barbecue. And that's just an awesome time for leaders across departments and schools to enjoy each other and enjoy good company and enjoy amazing, amazing fresh food, prepared and delivered and served by our amazing food services team. So all teachers, you're gonna see a little bit of that here too, teacher professional
learning. All teachers in all grade levels, all content participated in two full days of professional learning last week, and then some who are in phase one of our elementary math materials, new math materials, spent a half day yesterday in professional learning as well. Across all professional learning, there was a focus on standards and content and just preparation for the year ahead. Early indicators show really good attendance and participation at the professional learning for teachers and
we've gotten a lot of fantastic feedback about that as well. Most importantly, the energy has been really good and these early days have been super positive and a great beginning to what's going to be an amazing school year. And now Robin Fernandez is going to update us on all things school and network leadership. Good evening. So, this year, we will continue in our three network structure. As a reminder, the East Network serves the communities of Lafayette, Erie, and Broomfield under the leadership of Executive Director Dan Ryan.
The Southwest Network serves Louisville, Superior, and South Boulder and is overseen by Executive Director Neil Anderson. And finally, the Northwest Network serves the communities of Central And North Boulder and our Mountain School communities and is led by executive director Tamara Acevedo. The strength of the network system is that each network team focuses on the specific schools in their network in order to deeply understand the individual schools and the community's needs with the goal of of providing tailored support unique to the needs of each
school in each community. This focused partnership between the school communities and the their support structures here at the Ed Center have been highly valued and have proven successful in serving all students in each one of our communities. And now I am thrilled to officially introduce to the community the nine leaders that Board President Rajpal just just referred to. We have nine new school principals leading, schools in all three networks across the district. Some are new to the district whereas many of them, well, except all but one,
will be familiar faces who are now serving students in different locations in different capacities. First, Julie Garcia, principal at Monarch p k eight, Ivy Trujillo, principal at at Cole Elementary, Erin Hinkle, principal at Creekside Elementary, Brian Graham, principal at Broomfield Heights Middle, Amanda Jones, principal at Aspen Creek, PK eight, Nick Vanderpaul, principal at El Dorado, PK eight.
Ming Scheid, principal at Apex, Apex being formerly known as Boulder Tech. Kifani Lychak, principal at New Vista High School. And finally, Caleb Melamed, serving as the principal of both Netherland Elementary School and Netherland Middle Senior. Congratulations to all of our new leaders, and we wish everyone a wonderful school year with their new communities. A couple of other really exciting things to highlight as we begin this year is we will be enjoying the first day tomorrow of our district's first environmental STEAM program,
which is launching tomorrow at Heatherwood Elementary. Heatherwood principal, staff, and the engagement committee spent all of last year visioning and preparing for this, and they are excited to welcome their students into this program at the school tomorrow. Also, an incredible milestone will be marked this year as Boulder High School will be celebrating the hundred and fiftieth year as a school in Boulder Valley School District. Imagine how proud we are of Boulder High's legacy serving students over a century and
a half. So stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks and months for ways in which you can join the celebration of this incredible milestone. And with that, I will turn it over to Bill Saar. Good evening. Over the last four days, we've had the enrollment help center, functioning, here. We've had two it's supposed to say 277 families served. It did wrap up at 04:00 this afternoon, so, it was, recently updated.
But, anyway, support for, families to, get help with, free and reduced lunch applications. About 80% of the folks that came in, got support there, and about 20%, getting support, for enrollment and getting enrolled into the district. So now it's, back to business as usual for enrollment, enrolling at, your school, or coming to the Ed Center. Always here to help, families get enrolled into the district.
Moving right along. Alright, good evening. Just wanted to give a couple updates and reminders about the academics department. So as a reminder, this is our year two of having the academics team, which we're super excited about as it really helped us with, coherence and alignment of curriculum and programming. So we're excited to begin our year two of that. And then just as a reminder, these are the departments that are under, me as academics. So we have MTSS, DDI, CLDE, special education, and then our equity for teaching and
learning. And then on the right side, all of our content areas, gifted education, STEAM, which is science, social studies, math, and the arts, and then literacy, early childhood, and then we also facilitate learning for our district, coaches that are serving as coaches in schools. A few highlights for us this year, our CLDE team, as many of you know, we finished our third year of implementation of our co teaching model and we are going to begin a sustainability plan which increases our support in the school.
So what that will look like is coaching, observation, and feedback on-site and we'll be doing those, over the course of the next two years in a cycle based on, needs and tiers of support. New for us in SPED this year is the implementation of our new moderate needs programming, which we're very excited about. Our objective with the implementation of that programming is to design a layer of support from resource to ICANN programming, so something in the middle before that. Again, we hope that we can reduce the need for student placements in ILCs and
ICANNs as well as stepping down student support from some of those programs, so we're excited about rolling out that this year. Another new thing that we have in academics is, as many of you already know, is our adoption of our MCAS literacy assessment at the elementary level. We will that's kindergarten through fifth grade. We're excited about that implementation because we really feel that it's going to help support where we're going with our MTSS implementation and the progress monitoring data that we need in literacy, for, our students in elementary school.
And then our last new in the academics is that we, will be beginning a math adoption with elementary. It's illustrative math. We're really excited about that. Our team has spent a significant amount of time launching that out in the spring and we just spent, as Doctor. Dela Cruz just mentioned, several days in training with both teachers and leaders and a lot of our exit slips up to this point is there's a lot of excitement from teachers about the implementation and so we are excited for that to begin and
to continue the support throughout the year. And then the last update in our department is just right now for early childhood, our PK enrollment is up by 88 students from last August to this August. So, again, continuing to support, where our team has worked really hard to share some of the programming that we're doing and as evidence that we're increasing enrollment in that area. So we're excited about that. So just a few updates for our academics team. Thanks. Perfect. Good evening, board, and welcome back. Just a quick update. Thanks to our community for supporting our 2022 bond measure.
The bond department was able to complete 22 projects this summer totaling more than, $74,000,000. Those 22 projects are listed to the left. I believe you have seen that list previously in other updates to the board. Some of the highlights of this summer's work included, we constructed universally accessible playgrounds at six schools. To fulfill our promise, to expand opportunities for career and technical education, we built out new spaces at Boulder High, Broomfield High, Monarch High, and Monarch p k eight, Louisville
Middle, and KC Middle. In addition, we kicked off our large project at Apex, which resulted in new, facilities for Boulder Universal and Arapahoe Ridge campus, and several new spaces for Apex. As a reminder, that is a two year project, so that'll continue throughout the year and end the next summer. New Vista High School remains fully on track. If you've been by it, the old building is torn down. New parking lot is in. Still on track to have that building completed by the October.
Athletic facilities, we saw extensive improvements. This summer we had athletic fields or tracks were updated at Boulder high, Monarch high, Nederland middle senior, and Casey middle school. New grandstand went in at Broomfield High. Tennis courts will resurface at Monarch High School. We have informed the board a couple of times about some delays associated with mechanical units, etcetera. We have also encountered delays with a press box at Broomfield High, the track at Monarch High School, and the track at Netherland High School.
So we are working with those schools, but, these are just recent, items that I have found out about. So we're working through that now. We've notified the principals. We'll keep the board informed as we move forward with that. Also, as part of the '22 bond, a number of critical needs work were completed this summer. Those were items like auditorium improvements, life safety improvements, ADA upgrades, etcetera. All of this work ensures that our students have safe, assessable, and well equipped environments that inspire learn inspire learning, support growth in academics, athletics, and career pathways.
And I can't wait to get you all inside some of these new buildings. They look fantastic. From an operations perspective, just I just cannot thank, our operations team enough. And without their commitment, their expertise, I believe the high quality learning that happens in Boulder Valley wouldn't occur without all of those individuals. So, over the summer when some get a break, our operations team takes just the opportunity of our relatively empty buildings. We don't have a lot going on in transportation and food service.
We get the buildings clean. We get complete the repairs. We do the preventative maintenance, and so so much more that people just don't see. So, hopefully, if you see someone, please tell them thanks. I do believe these dedicated employees are our strength. They all take great pride in their work. And I do believe, and, we preach just the idea that they set the conditions for the great teaching and learning that happened in our schools. So, with that, I will, turn it over to doctor James Hill, assistant superintendent of
human resources. Good evening. It's always exciting to be able to provide an update from human resources. So today, we'll talk about, some of the hiring volume that we had from April through August. That's kind of our the bulk of our hiring season. And then we'll look at, trends from our administrators and our certified, hiring this year. So just from sheer volume alone, you can see that our staff has been hard at work. We had 662, jobs posted.
We went through 9,799 applications, extended 417 offers, and, hires that we've processed have been 526. So, been a hard at work, on making sure that our buildings and our our schools are ready to go, for the first day of school. So some of our, our trends in hiring, and we looked at the past three years. The the numbers, the twenty two point eight, the twenty two point two, and the
24.4 is the percentage of our leaders of color that we've been able to hire. As you can see, we've we've been there's a very narrow trend of of, you know, some decrease between twenty three and twenty four and about, tenths of a what is it we have? About two tenths of a a percentage increase from this year to last year. So holding steady, but our goal is always to, increase and sustain.
So that's gonna be our goal, still in increasing those numbers. The same trends hold true in our certified hiring. As you can see from, '23 to '24, the same, number, just a a slight decrease. But again, from last year to this year, we have, a slight, increase in the, educators of color we were able to hire. Again, although we were able to maintain where we're at, our goal is always to,
have a a sustainability where we're we're have a upward trend in that. So we'll continue to, work in that area of, hiring and and, sustaining our, qualified educators of color. Alright. Turn it over to my man, Frank. Good evening, board members, doctor Anderson. So tonight, I'd like to share the overview of the IT department's work over the summer and the priorities guiding us into this next year. First, our core summer work.
Over the last few months, our teams have worked to ensure that every school is ready to start the new year with technology that's fully operational and reliable. Through our summer sweeps, we visited all schools to inspect, repair, and prepare classroom and office technology. We deployed over 6,000 devices to students and staff. We refurbished and redeployed several 100 more, extending device life and making efficient use of our resources. And in our data warehouse, we ensure timely loading of assessment data so it's available
for immediate instructional use. Secondly, our special summer project, we produced a network upgrade RFP. We are preparing for a district wide modernization of our wired and wireless infrastructure. Over the summer, multiple teams collaborate collaborated to design, write, and execute a strong RFP process. Incorporating the latest industry standards, ensuring a fully modernized network. We also made sure we stayed within compliance with E rate guidelines, ensuring we received
the maximum reimbursement from the federal government. And finally, our innovation efforts. We are evaluating the latest AI offerings from Google and continue to mature our approach to further AI adoption. We are taking thoughtful structured approach to integrating AI in a way that aligns with the district's educational mission and values. We are supporting the development of the district's AI vision and guiding principles. We are also creating a comprehensive plan to prepare for future AI integrations.
The IT team is currently evaluating Google's recently released Gemini AI tool suite, and we'll be making rollout plan recommendations based on our findings. And we are conducting an AI maturity assessment and gap analysis to ensure readiness for the implementation of not only the new Google suite, but any other AI tools that are as they come available. In short, this summer was about preparation, modernization, and innovation.
We've ensured technology is ready for use day one, advanced a major infrastructure project, and taking deliberate steps in the toward the responsible adoption of AI. And with that, we stand ready to answer any questions. Thank you for that comprehensive back to school update, cabinet members. Katie has a first question for you. Yes. I have a question for doctor Hill. I'm gonna go back to this, screen so I can see what I wanted to ask. So, yeah, I'm curious that you offered 417 jobs and processed 526 hires.
I knew someone was gonna ask. I have an answer for you. Some of those include subs as well. So those that number, you know, includes subs as well. Okay. You know? And then, some of those include, like, staff members that are already hired but maybe taking on additional FTE as well. So Thank you. Yeah. I know it was kinda off, but Alex. Yeah. Doctor Hill is on the tour.
Up there, I have one more question. I know you've been doing a lot. So if I read these numbers right, does that mean that we have, like, 250 or 236 still open positions if you've got 662 posted and 417 job offers? So some of them again, let me go back to that slide. Is this the slide you were talking about? Yeah. So, yes, we we still have positions, that are still they're still open. And, again, this is across the whole, organization as well.
So it could be anywhere from community schools, positions that we have, you know, positions that are hard to fill that we're still trying to repost and and and and post again. Some of those positions, all that includes our subpositions. So yeah. K. And, two two follow ups on that. One is how how is that number of unfilled positions this year compared to previous years? And I'm also curious as as long as you're there, how was the federal withholding of funding that we temporarily experienced, did that impact our HR processes much this summer?
So, my worry with with with that piece was we were gonna have to and I I I think we talked about it last spring that we were gonna almost have to do a job freeze during that time. We didn't have to we didn't have to do that or a hiring freeze. I'm sorry. We didn't have to do that. So it had very little impact. We were able to post, pretty much on time as we usually do, you know, right after that spring break around those April time. So, we were we were good in those those pieces of I mean, our team
worked hard to making sure once the FTE got out, got it to our, building principles, and they were able to be creative with the areas they need to make sure that we got those jobs posted. So, a little impact, but not as much as as we anticipated. And as far as what was your your first question? For the unfilled positions at this point, how are we this year relative to previous years? So, actually, we're in a much better place. Last year, as you know, we, struggled a bit with some of our dual language
schools and and working with, you know, some of our, j one visas to get those, employees set and and in those schools. This year, we jumped on it early because we knew we were gonna have those those situations, and so we learned from the previous year. So, you know, some positions are still out there, but, you know, we're in a much better position this year as opposed to, last year. Yeah. Board members, I I'd love to be able to get you just kind of an overall analysis of the of that data year over year, and I can get that
to you all. I think that that's a really good metric. I don't know that these numbers reflect some of the successes we've had in hiring in terms of dual language schools, in our, you know, special education teachers, our bus drivers, I think, food service, you know, some of those areas we've made tremendous gains. And also we need to get you more current data because this was as of 08/01/2025. And so if you'll allow us to do that, I think that that would help so to, to paint the paint a clear picture for you. Melania. I just wanna thank you, doctor Anderson, and your leadership team.
Looks like very strong work, and we're looking forward to another great school year. I wanna echo that, and I can't wait till we talk about how all all this hard work is paying off in dividends for our students coming up. Do you wanna jump in, or can I ask a question? You you can ask a question. Question about the PK enrollment. I know since UPK's inception, we've tried different things. We've had to do different things with scheduling and programming and the uptick in numbers. I'm curious if we can attribute that to some of the shifts that have been made over time and or if it's getting us to where we're projected we were projected to be or relative to expectations.
I think the uptick in I mean, we would have to go back and see if it's because, like, we where are we with our full day programming at Sanchez? Are the where are the hotspots for that? But we can definitely get that information for you. That would be great. I think understanding what our community is looking for and needing from us can help us to continue to find and improve in that area. One initial note that we do know is where our numbers are higher is where we also have enrichment. So, where there are pockets where there isn't enrichment, that seems to be where there's more of a struggle for enrollment, but we can definitely look a little bit deeper
for that. Thank you. And I wanna echo the comments. So some of the principals mentioned that they're hearing positive feedback from their staff members around MClass and illustrative math. So that is exciting because change is change can be a challenge, and we do ask a lot of our staff members when those changes occur. So I'm glad that they're being well received. Doctor Anderson. We'd love to take this opportunity to thank all of our employees for all they've done to get ready, for tomorrow. And, our teachers have, have really stepped up to the plate in terms of two
days of professional learning. Our professional learning team, our academics team did an incredible job getting everybody together, to to roll out new curriculum. I mean, MCAS is different. It's different than I already. Illustrative Math is gonna be in almost all of our elementary schools. That is a new elementary school math curriculum and board members for those of you that are keeping track, that means we've implemented a new literacy curriculum, new assessment, new elementary school math, new middle school math, new high school math.
We we have been, I think our team has just been really focused to make sure that all of our teachers have high quality instructional materials to work from and to use as they as they teach our students. The research is really clear on the importance of that. And so just wanna thank everybody. Thank everyone who went to our trainings. I will be out in schools everywhere the next few days, so I hope to run into people. And starting at 06:30AM tomorrow, if that's right, Randy. I think that that's when our first, first, visit is.
So, very, very excited. Board members are always welcome to to join us. I believe we posted that tomorrow as a meeting, school visit. For the first day of school? Let me double check on that. We can if you wanna go to schools, we can we can make that happen. We'll just have to split up a little bit. I thought that we had posted that. So, but excited. Thank you, everybody. Alex. Yeah. And circling back to my comments before, I'm excited to see the the IT innovation efforts underway and the discussions of all the AI tools. One of the things I've been seeing in other districts, is sort of the confusion
about what to do with the other off the shelf stuff, in their regular day and how to incorporate that in appropriately, plus the stuff that the district's endorsing. So I'm just excited to see the discussions take place and for us to become thoughtful about it and really sort of be based in the real world of what, professionals and kids are doing in 2025. Great. Thank you, everyone, and I hope everybody has an awesome first day of school this week. We have one more information item, which is probably gonna be brief. Legislative update. I think board members have been paying attention to the fact that we will go
we are now officially having a special session. State of Colorado is looking at a $1,200,000,000 deficit. Again, shortfall. And, so we'll see what happens there. Doctor. Anderson, did you have anything to add? No. I think that we're we're anticipating education being impacted somehow. Again, last time board members, this this will be the thing to to watch. If they don't cut dollars, will they change the way they count students, which inevitably cuts dollars without saying you're cutting dollars? So, you know, that that could come in the in the form of, you know,
less averaging, you know, more counts throughout the course of a year. Right? Where you don't get all the money after one count, you can do multiple counts. I think there's some some things that could be considered. I think we'll have to just keep an eye, on those things, and I will we'll make sure that we keep the board updated as the session's going going along. Great. Now we'll move on to action items consent grouping. 7.1 personnel items, 7.2 approval of minutes, 06/17/2025, 7.3 approval of minutes, 06/20/2025, special meeting. 7.4 grant, food services, fresh fruit and vegetables from the CDE.
7.5 grant, food services, local food programming from the CDE. Are there any items board members like to pull from consent grouping? Seeing as there are none, Laura, can you please call the roll? Oh, sorry. Hearing none, we need a motion to approve. Moved by Jason, seconded by Kitty. Board members, any discussion? See that I have first stage orders. Alex? Yeah. I'm just curious if the if the food service grants are changed or if those are sort of what was expected in the first place, for 07/04 and 07/05? Those were what is expected for this year.
So, yeah, nothing has changed. Any further discussion, board members? Laura, can you please call the roll? Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan Ueda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Sergeant? Yes. Ungar? Yes. Motion passes. Next item on this evening's agenda is policy action items consent grouping. 9.1, board policy IGAC and IGAC dash r, teaching about religion and religion in schools. 9.2, board policy IJ, instructional material selection and adoption. 9.3, board policy KEC, complaints about curriculum and instruction. 9.4, board policy KEC dash r, complaints about curriculum or instruction regulation.
9.5, board policy B and board meetings. 9.6, board policy j o, j o dash r, j o dash e, all related to student records. 9.7 board policy k l m a, relations with military recruiters, post secondary institutions, and prospective employers in higher education. Are there any items board members like to pull from consent grouping? Hearing none, we need a motion to approve. Moved by Kitty, seconded by Alex. Board members, any discussion on the policies within the consent grouping? Alex and oh, sorry.
I was last. Kitty, Lalania, Alex. So I know there are several here that we are adopting because we have to. Is it are we going to have a chance to come back to them when we can talk about them, or do we talk about them now? Because I think it'll take a long time if we talk about them now. Thank you for that question, board member Sargent. So under board policy BP, p, as is often true this time of year, we wanna make sure that we've got clean, clear policies in effect for the school year. The board's policy will require us to go through the full adoption process after tonight's
temporary action. So oh, and let me just first say, if you're watching or listening, my chronic cough is acting up, so I'm coughing a lot. It's not bacterial, viral, or contagious, so you are all safe. And I look forward to continuing to get under control, and I'm sorry for the disruption. Recognizing the interim nature of it and the need to act, and looking forward to future discussions of this. I'm wondering if, Kathleen, if you can give us, just a bit of an overview
of sort of the things that led to these, needed changes. Sure. I'm happy to talk about that a little bit. So, last year in Colorado, our legislature, even without a special session, took action and adopted, I think the number was four seventy six bills. There are a number of them that are going to have policy implications for the school district. Some interesting bills on how school districts would keep any sort of immigration related information
and access to our facilities in light of what's going on, with some of the immigration actions. We also had a really important bill at the state level passed on the adoption and use of library materials. That bill did a few things, including putting in place some specific procedural requirements for school board around challenges to curricular materials or to library resources. So those that was happening at the state level.
At the federal level, there hasn't been much happening lately, but, yeah, that's a really lame joke. I know. There have been a few things happening, including at the June, we received a six three decision from the Supreme Court. This decision is a little bit strange just procedurally. For us, I think we're used to cases when they get to the Supreme Court, they've really been fully fleshed out. We know what the issues are. We know what the facts are, and the Supreme Court generally gives us the law
of the land. They have done so because that's their role. But in this case, it we are early into a challenge of a school district policy in Montgomery public schools in Maryland. They adopted a set of learning materials, a set of storybooks with LGBTQ themes in them. They also adopted a discussion guide that would help educators in implementing these materials that the board had selected. And a family in that district filed a challenge to the policy because the board's
policy did not have opt out and excusal provisions in the policy. So there was not a specific ongoing right for a family to excuse their student from that instruction. The whole case has not been heard by the federal courts yet. So it went to the Supreme Court pretty early in a litigation process because the family requested to have a preliminary injunction that would give them that right that didn't
exist while the case is heard. So the family said, we want the school district to be obligated to give us this notice and excusal that we're seeking in the case overall, but we want that early as part of the preliminary injunction while the case proceeds. So the Supreme Court said, yes. There is a right here. And then they remanded that case to go back to the federal district trial court to have all of the rest of the evidence built out in a way that
you typically would at the supreme court level. So, in Boulder, as is often the case, we did have some board policy that already touched on these issues. So we had existing board policy IGAC that talked about when there's a burden on religion. It talks about when we're going to have, maybe a religious song included in a performance. It is a meaty policy I think that does a lot in this area. So what the board is being asked to do tonight is to revise that existing
policy to bring it into alignment with the supreme court's decision, to touch on a number of sort of related policies that touch on the selection of curricular materials, which is board policy IJ. And that is where you'll start to see elements of the Supreme Court case as well as Colorado's bill around the selection and consideration of materials. So that's really the context into which we're taking policy action tonight.
I think it's important just to think about where we are in this process. I used an analogy for our educators. We're in Colorado. We know what a beautiful river is like to raft on. And a lot of times, you know exactly when you're getting to a part and exactly how we're going to navigate through that particular rapid. It's a little harder to do here because it's not fully mapped out. The Supreme Court and our federal courts have more work to do. But we know the water. We work with a lot of diverse families.
We want our students to come to our schools starting tomorrow and belong and be honored for the amazing individuals that they are. So this policy, update, we've shared it with our educators and it really is intended to get us off, that first day of school with our plan ready. And then we'll be looking forward to hearing from our educators and our community. I would say, these policies are posted on our website under board policies for review.
So if people wanna take a look there and they've got specific thoughts, that's a great way for us to receive feedback. We have not gotten any so far. And before I wrap up what was supposed to be a really brief summary, but I am a lawyer so keep that in mind. I just want to acknowledge you get to meet a lot of our amazing leaders in our district, but Ray Sikora, who's in the room, is our district librarian coordinator. The ledge I'm not sure governor Polis. I'm not sure the signature was dry on the bill before Ray was in my
office with really a very thoughtful written document that really laid out for us all the elements of the policy that the board is being asked to adopt tonight. And I just want to acknowledge the work, because it makes my job and hopefully the board's job so much easier. Thank you for that. Overview, Kathleen. Alex. Yeah. Thank you, doctor Sullivan. That was actually a really helpful explanation. I'd just like to reiterate from my reading of the policies and one of the things I'm proud about in Boulder is our efforts to make sure that all our
kids see themselves and their curriculum and their materials, and that what we're teaching is inclusive of everybody in our community. And I think managing these legal challenges puts us in a good position to deal with when that becomes tricky, but at the same time not backing down from honoring and make sure every kid sees themselves and their family and their heritage included in what they're learning about. So thank you for the work on this. And and I look forward to deeper discussions later when we have more time. Alex touched on my sentiments. I think as board members, we are obligated to follow a law, and we have
an obligation to really do what's best for those in our communities to make sure they feel safe and welcome and represented in what we do. And I think that these initial drafts really do a good job of threading both of those and keeping them at hand. And I hope our public knows that while there are gonna be some unexpected changes along the way with the federal government and decisions that come through, we are still BVSD, and I really hope you are proud to be with us in the work that we continue to do. Any other discussion on this on these policies board members? Doctor Anderson. I'd just like to take the opportunity to thank Kathleen for her incredible work, on
these, on these adjustments and, wanna just wanna reiterate, Alex, what you and Nicole have said. I think for us, it's important for our educators that they know that they're supported, and they know clearly, what the rights of parents are as determined by the Supreme Court, and and the support that they have from us on teaching our curriculum, a curriculum that's designed to make sure that everyone feels like they belong and can see themselves. And I think that that's incredibly important. I think it's a big, part of our success in building just positive cultures in
our schools. And, but I I think the clarity is really important, especially as these things that the the rapids get rough. Is that the analogy we're going with there? Clarity is gonna be important. And so our team has has been communicating with your approval tonight. We'll we'll continue to communicate and, and continue to keep you and our community up to date on on where things are with with with this with this policy. With that, Laura, can you please call a vote on policy consent grouping?
Chavez? Yes. Medlar? Yes. Quinlan Ueda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Sergeant? Ungar? Yes. Motion passes. Well, board members, members of the public, that brings us to the final item on this evening's agenda, which is future agenda request. Board members, Anything to kick the year off on this topic? Alex. I've spoken about it a couple times, but I I do look forward, and I think we should probably have, at some point, a good in-depth discussion about artificial intelligence. And that's both an update of what we're doing but also what the strategy and
the vision is for how we do it. I'd also suggest that I think that's a good there's a broader vision of that discussion, which is about the technology use in general that's going on. So I don't know how to frame those two things, but I think both of them are worthy topic for us as a board to talk about and and learn more about from the staff. Jason? Thanks, Alex. I was gonna suggest the same thing, and I I don't remember the last time we had this before the board, but I think, you know, I'd love also, you know, an update. I'm sure the technology has changed leaps and bounds since we last did that, and I think it was just late last year.
But also kind of a broad not just on kind of the actual program we're using, but the broader kind of context of it all and how it's how we should be thinking about this, you know, going forward and not just what, you know, what program we're adopting, but the broader as Alex suggested. So I'm I'm in favor of that as well. While not an agenda item, board members, I just wanna remind everybody that the CASB, Laura shared the delegate assembly document. And if anybody has any feedback on those, maybe we should email that to Jason directly because he is our delegate for the Colorado Association of School Boards.
That is coming up quickly. So I just wanna remind everybody to give him some feedback on that one. And that then adjourns our business for this evening. Thank you, everybody. Have a good night.