Fourteenth twenty twenty five. Board members may attend and participate in meetings by electronic means in accordance with BVSD policy BMEA and state law. Laura, can you please call the roll? Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Like everyone to turn their attention to the screen for our 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 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, I'd like to remind
everybody that the mission of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging, meaningful, and engaging and learning opportunities so that all children thrive and are prepared for successful, civically engaged lives. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us here tonight in person and 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 Kitty, seconded by Jorge. Laura, can you please call the roll the vote? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next, I'm very excited to hand the meeting over to doctor Anderson, who is going to kick off our student moment for this evening.
Thank you, board president Rajpal, board members. For tonight's student moment, we have the youth division winner of the Broomfield Art Contest, Sam Edinger. Sam is an Aspen Creek, p k eight eighth grader. He was recently honored during Broomfield days and in the Broomfield enterprise for his photograph titled The Look featuring a striking shot of an owl. Striking might not be do do you see this picture, Sam? I see. Incredible. He told the paper that to him, ours are truly breathtaking creatures that embody both
both strength and wisdom. It's important to mention that Sam has also been chosen as a finalist in the prestigious Berto, Bird Photographer of the Year contest. He's in the top 20 of about 3,000 photographers. It's my honor to hand it off to Aspen Creek counselor Greg McDonald to finish the introduction of the amazing Sam Edinger. Stunning photography. Board members, any questions or comments? Kitty. Sam, I am so impressed with your photography, and patience is going to serve you very well the rest of your life, especially if you have children.
But I also think that National Geographic may be knocking on your door because these are top quality photos. Alex? For our viewing audience at home and for us, where do we get to see most of your pictures? Where can where can we follow-up and see more of this? Thank you. I'm super impressed. What kind of camera do you use, and how do you decide what kind of photo editing to do? Doctor. Anderson. Sam, do you do headshots? Because because if you could make anybody look as, as good as those animals, I'd hire you in a second. All joking aside, what a talent.
And, to you, to your parents, and, to everybody at Aspen Creek PK, and I know they're all incredibly proud of you. We're really proud of you. It is it is wonderful to see our students and their amazing, incredible talents. You're gonna be famous someday. I'll be remembering the time I got a chance to make a headshot choke at a school board meeting. So congratulations. The next item on this evening's agenda, board members, is a superintendents report. Doctor Anderson, good evening. Good evening, Board President Rajpal, members of the board. Thank you for everybody who's able to join us, this evening.
We have a bunch of really cool things that have happened over the past few weeks. Couple weeks ago, teams from across, the Boulder Valley School District came together at Centaurus High School for the Unified Flag Football Tournament. So for anybody who's, who's never been to one of our Unified Sporting events, they're they're magical. They're just a beautiful show of sportsmanship and fun, and I wanna thank everybody who helped make our Unified Flag Football event possible. That was filled with fun, teamwork, camaraderie, and, of course, some sweet football moves. So congrats to everybody who participated.
Centaurus also recently hosted our annual district honor orchestra. I think we're gonna see a clip here. The day of working with a clinician and evening concert brought together some of our finest student musicians through our BVSD high schools. They did a great job showing just how much can be accomplished through one day of working together. Meanwhile, board members, take a look at these photos.
Theater students had a chance to hone their improv skills at the first ever district improv a thon. Showing their courage and wit, students practice and practice many different facets of improv throughout the day, concluded the evening with an improv show, a chance for kids to try out some comedy in front of a crowd. The show also raised hundreds of dollars for local charities selected by students. Last Wednesday, board members was a lot of fun as we celebrated kids who walked, biked and scooted to school during National Walk and Roll to School Day. Lieutenant governor Diane Primavera joined us out at Aspen Creek PK 8, helping to high
five participating students and hand out stickers. CBS four came out giving students the chance to show their spirit, and you've gotta you've gotta see it to believe it. Hundreds of schools in our state are taking part, including 27 schools across Boulder Valley Schools. Yeah. My daughter took part earlier this morning. Us students, family, and staff get to join in on the fun and get some physical activity. Your reporter Brian Sherrod is at Aspen Creek in Broomfield. Oh my goodness. That's a party. Him. It's a really big party. Kennedy and Brian are having a really good time out here for walking, biking, school day or walking, bike, and roll.
Go ahead and cheer on everyone. I know how excited you guys are. Go ahead and cheer. Yeah. Yeah. You need to hear the excitement, Brian and Kennedy? The biggest thing is to get a chance to As I had a chance to be at at both Aspen Creek and Fireside, Elementary, but, I was undercover at Fireside Elementary, and I think that there's a little, hopefully, I don't do this for any of the students, but, let you in on a little secret. What? You ever see, a falcon doing, doing crossing guard duty in, in Lewisville, Colorado?
It could be me. Had a lot of fun out there. Most importantly, you know, the message of keeping kids safe and celebrating their efforts to, to choose green and healthy ways to get to school and watching how many families embrace, walk, bike, and and and roll to school day is, is incredible. And so thanks to everybody who had a chance to participate. Thanks to Fireside Elementary for letting me put on, the, Freddy, Falcon costume. Freddy the Falcon. It was a lot of fun. Finally, board members and community members, BVSD is the place to be showcase.
It's only one week away. Next Wednesday, we and all 56 schools will be at the CU Event Center. When you drop by, you'll have the opportunity to meet our principals, learn about everything our schools and district have to offer, and don't forget that we have buses that will be bringing families from Lafayette, Louisville, Broomfield, North Boulder, and East Boulder. Community members, if you're interested in attending, and I'd hope everybody would, and if you do attend, bring a friend, tell a friend. You can get all the details at bwww.bvsd.orgbackslashshowcase.
Again, five to 08:30, next week, is the showcase, and so we're very, very excited next, next Wednesday. I have that correct? Five to eight. But we'll stay open till 08:30 if if folks are late. So, and that's all I have, for superintendent remarks. Board members, any questions for doctor Anderson? Look like ESPN game day at Aspen Creek Cave for that walk to walk and roll the school party. And then they had to go in their classrooms and learn. It was exciting. Tough day to be a teacher over there. Jason and I have we don't have any public participation.
I but, Jason, is your mic working? I just wanna make sure. So can you hear me? Oh, there we go. Just gotta get close. Perfect. As I said, we do not have any public participation this evening, so we will continue on with our next agenda item, which is board communication. Board members, anything anybody wants to to bring up this evening? Alex. Yeah. I just, today's student is, just one inkling of how many great people are in our community amongst our students and our staff.
And, I had a couple of fascinating conversations of stuff that might be of interest to the district. One is with, old friends who work at the Center for the Study of and Prevention of Violence, working at CU Boulder on their Safe Communities and Safe Schools program. And they're really working on how to help schools do, database inquiry, think about what's school specific about to change school culture and climate when that's Well, it's everybody's priority, but some schools are really focused on it. And I just think it's an example of one of those resources we have that we can partner with when we know we are lean.
So I'm just sometimes I'm just amazed by the assets we have as a community and thinking how do we leverage them when we wanna get, work done that's hard. Also had a fascinating meeting with Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, who lives in Boulder, by the way. And he's working on a small high school model, that uses technology, but is really focused on using technology to free up time so students can focus on student based learning, project based stuff, you know, similar to the really cool stuff going on at New Vista. And it's just interesting to to think about the numbers of great people doing stuff
in our community and how we leverage them. So I I guess I came away from all that thinking, like, what do we how do we as a very busy district, that has, not as much central capacity as people think and that we have a smaller number of really great people doing hard work. And is there ways for us to leverage more of our community assets? Anyway, that's how I came away from two great meetings with wonderful people in our community. Kitty. I just want to encourage everybody to vote. You should have gotten your ballots. Mine came today.
If you didn't get it, you'll get it soon. And to remind everybody that the BBSG board has officially backed propositions LL and which would help would continue with free food for our students for hopefully years and years to come. Please I know everybody listening to this is interested in what goes on on a school board and is probably already inclined to vote, but please tell your friends, your family how important voting is and that they need to make their voices heard, and
vote even on odd years. I was also gonna remind folks of the ballot dropping and the need to vote, so I'll save my words there. Board members, I was able to attend the DAC meeting last week. They, are moving along full steam ahead. They had a slightly abridged version of the data dive that we did a couple weeks back and then their first look at the budget. And this year, they are looking at data alongside the budget, really emphasizing the fact that, data and our unified improvement plan strategic plan because we fund the strategic what's
in the strategic plan. So that's kind of how they're looking at those two together this year, making some changes around the kinds of questions that they're gonna be asking their school accountability committees to get feedback on, you know, what is working in the strategic plan, what needs to be amplified, and kind of having a budget conversation through that lens. So that's an exciting change over there. I'm excited to see what feedback they provide as a result of that shift. But it was a really, really big meeting for them, and they had time to break out into their subcommittees. Their policy subcommittee took a first go around at grading and homework conversation, and their
budget subcommittee and their data subcommittees all met. Data subcommittees excited about all the new dashboards that they have to work with and really, they continue to emphasize building capacities at their school accountability committees and having direct actionable items to bring back to the school accountability committees and making sure that that is tight tightly aligned this year. So I think it's great work happening on the district accountability committee. Anything else? We will then move on to our information item this evening. We have one information item, which is a legislative update. Doctor Anderson, did you have anything to share?
Just a couple of things. Right now, we're not feeling any impacts of the federal government shutdown, but we'll be keeping an eye on that depending how long that goes. And if there are impacts board members, I'll make sure I'll let you all know. And then finally, we shared I shared, our resolution around LL and supporting those, with all of the districts on the front range. And so hopefully, your work as a board will be able to help influence others and give them a leg up if they decide to support what what, we've determined are really important, ballot initiatives to help continue to support healthy school meals for all.
That's that's all I have. Next item this evening is action consent. 7.1 personnel items, 7.2 approval of minutes, 09/23/2025, 7.3 acceptance of donation, Lafayette Elementary, 7.4 rescheduling of the November 11, acceptance of donation, Lafayette Elementary. 7.4, rescheduling of the 11/11/2025 meeting and cancellation of 11/25/2025 regular meetings. 7.5, grant for food services, child nutrition programs from the USDA. Are there any items board members would like to pull? Seeing as there are none, we need a motion to approve move by Lalania, seconded by Kitty. Board members, any discussion? Alex.
I just don't want it to let go unsaid that we are getting federal money that helps us give healthy and nutritious food to our kids and that the federal government plays a great role in meaningful things of consequence, and its funding and its systems of distributing funding are highly valuable to everybody, including the Boulder Valley School District and our children. Any other discussion board members? Seeing as there are none, Laura, can you please call the roll? Chavez? Yes. Edler? Yes. Quinlan? Yes. Yes. Sergeant? Yes. Hunter? Yes. The next item on the seat tonight's agenda is part policy action items consent grouping.
9.1, board policy, CBA, CBC, presence, powers, and responsibilities. 9.2, board policy, CBE. Superintendent sorry. Super let me correct myself. 9.1, policy CBA, CBC, superintendent, powers, and responsibilities. 9.2, board policy CBE, superintendent, employment, and evaluation. 9.3, board policy CF, school building administration and principalship, 9.4, retirement of board policy CFD leadership decision making philosophy. Are there any items board members would like to pull from the consent grouping? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve?
Move by Kitty, seconded by Lalania. Board members, any discussion on these policies? I just have to say I'm very excited to have these new c policies in place as we're heading into what will inevitably be a new board starting in December. So excellent work to staff and to board members on getting those through. Looks like there's additional discussion. So, Laura, can you please call the roll and can policy consent grouping? Thomas? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item this evening, board members, is policy study. We have one policy to study this evening, board policy KHB sponsorships.
I will turn it over to Kathleen Sullivan to present. So, we are here tonight to discuss board policy KHB, and the board has talked about this policy one time previously. Tonight, we have surveyed a number of our neighboring districts and other districts that have similar policies so that we could share with the board and highlight the language that's being used in other districts And as a reminder, board members, this was an item
that was was lifted up during our prioritization, prioritize with with the big idea around you know, given given the financial situation in Colorado and within our district, and given that we had a policy, are there things beyond that policy or are there other opportunities as a school district we could investigate and look at that could potentially create additional, revenue that could be reinvested into the education of the students here in BVSD? And so as as Kathleen, will walk you through what some of the other policies,
in neighboring districts include, which are beyond the scope of ours, know and understand that, tonight's policy presentation is also, a check-in with the board on direction on what next steps we might take, and what avenues, would the board be interested in, in including in a new policy, that could potentially, we believe, bring additional revenues into the district again to reinvest in education of students. Sorry, Kathleen. I didn't mean to interrupt, but I wanted to just set the context for the
for the public as well on why we're talking about community sponsorships this evening. So, Kathleen, back to you. Thank you. Oh, back up. So, the board's current policy was last revised in 1988. It includes it includes a policy statement, a general philosophical statement, a scope that sort of broadly discusses how and where we might see sponsorship in our district.
There are guidelines that help identify the sorts of sponsorship or advertising that the board would be open to. And then our current board policy establishes a board advisory review committee. Those are the essential building blocks in BVSDs. We do have definitions in existing policy to talk about what a sponsorship really means, And we will you will see as we look at the policies across districts, they
use the term advertising. We see sponsorship. We see the use of terms like exclusive rights contract, which we have in the current board sample, and then other, policies that really talk about additional revenues. So that's sort of the vocabulary that we see featured. So our current policy defines a sponsorship agreement as you can see in quotes as a company that pays a premium or provides some economic benefit to the district in exchange for recognition. Then we have a separate definition for an exclusive rights contract as a company that
pays a premium or provides an economic benefit in exchange for the right to be the sole provider at the most competitive prices of goods purchased by the district. So you can see that language already is, I would say needs a little clarity. We certainly have, the d policies that the board has already started to touch that address the purchasing procedures and policies of the district. So this is a place where you can already start to see there could be
cleanup that is really helps us inform potential sponsors and our public what the opportunities are and clearly separates this from our procurement policies. And then the final element is that our policy retains for the board the authority to approve such agreements. So ours was last revised in 1998. When as we often do when we're starting to look at policy again, one of my first stops is the Colorado I would love to I would love to visit
with my friends there and better understand it. But it's clear to me when we look as we will at our neighboring districts that there used to be some CASB samples because you can see the residual language that's common across school districts that typically springs from that source. So we can start with, two of our close neighbors, so St. Vrain and Poudre. St. Vrain's policy was last updated in 2015. Puder last updated theirs in 2013.
So a solid decade after our board had last revised its policy. The definitions here do, I think, get a little clearer. There's clear definitions of what an ad what advertising is. And then Pooter's policy continues on to really distinguish schools can govern school based advertising and then they have rules in their policy to govern district advertising. So a separation there and a recognition that not everything will potentially rise to the
level of the board policy. And then St. Vrain I thought had interesting language I wanted to bring to the board's attention also. This is the only place that I saw it in any of the other neighbors policies where they specifically restrict advertising from any agency within or outside the district that would directly or indirectly compete for district students or programs. So I thought that was an interesting component of policy that I didn't see anywhere else.
I think another school district that has really made the news or made some recent headlines about actively pursuing sponsorship opportunities are our friends in Cherry Creek. They and all of these policies are in the k chapter. They all have the same code, which is nice. It makes it easier to find. So board policy KHB for Cherry Creek, when they revised theirs in 02/2005, they did make this shift in the language to specifically reference advertising and revenue enhancement.
That's the title of their policy. And then they I I kept in the entire first paragraph of Cherry Creek's policy because I think it establishes both their philosophy and some broad, some some broad parameters for how they interpret it. So, for example, if you look about halfway through that content, they do talk about making sure that it's modeling and promoting positive values within the school district, and isn't
just traditional advertising. Preferred advertising for Cherry Creek would include messages that encourage student achievement and cross reference the high standards of personal conduct that you see throughout Cherry Creek's policies. I noted in the corner, Thompson School District is pretty similar to Cherry Creek, but I think I did give you a whole slide on Thompson. Thompson also, I would say they definitely have a policy in place, and they have
a space on their website that references their partnerships. Not as current as, for example, St. Brain and Cherry Creek, who you can see are very actively engaged in solicitation of advertising and sponsorship revenues. This language from 1999 just parrots a lot of the, contains a lot of the same concepts in terms of connecting it to positive messages and using those revenues to enhance and expand optional programs within the district, athletics, music, and activities.
We do have some samples. Rob Price's team, spends a lot of time, as you know, being thoughtful about facilities both as they currently exist and into the future. So these are some examples that are seen pretty widely in school districts across Colorado. These, I would say, are some of the fancier versions. So gymnasiums, stadiums as places that are the most frequent, locations where you'll see a lot of sponsorship and logos. Buses also, Colorado does permit advertising on the outside of buses.
You can't advertise inside a bus, but you can advertise outside of us. So these are some examples of the kinds of opportunities that we see other school districts using. So so as as we kind of wrap up our presentation board board members and start our discussion, BVSD that I think I think are interesting and and opportunities we can consider. You know, first and foremost, I think districts surrounding us, have have taken, a different
stance in terms of gymnasium and stadium scoreboards. And there, I I believe, would be opportunities if we opportunities to advertise. So if you have a big stadium a big scoreboard at a stadium, right, it it can do great things for, like, for kids, like, replay plays and do you could put student messages. BDC is the place to be showcased, you know, the things that as a district
we wanna promote, and they're also the opportunity to sell advertising both on the outside of the sign and through, through the course of of a game. You could do the same thing in gymnasiums for for for events that are occurring within our gymnasiums, athletic events, and you could do advertising on buses, for sure. And then, you know, I do think that there is an opportunity. There are organizations that will come into school districts and provide school districts a valuation of their high value assets for naming rights and advertising.
And so this happens a lot, happens a lot on the East Coast. I'm familiar with it from my time on the East Coast, where, like you kind of if you go back, Kathleen, to the the Cherry Creek announcement, where they're they're really it's it's not a like, they're putting out to the universe who'd like to name this place. I think that as as we do as we shape a policy, we can define and put we can define and put the important parameters in there that we'd like. Right? To maximize the opportunity to advertise, but also protect the environment for our kids.
We don't want to commercialize things too much for sure. But I do think that there's a way to find a good balance, and we are are ready to begin to begin a more active versus a passive approach in trying to find folks that would want to support our school district and advertise their products, businesses, so on and so forth. The last thing that I would put in place, in, in about a year and four months, the city of Boulder is going to be at the epicenter of the
universe as we host the host the Sundance Film Festival. And so that might provide us even more unique opportunities, as that event comes forward, to be able to capitalize on, something that, again, could drive more dollars, towards the education of students, in the ways that we see fit. So I share all of that to kind of just paint just some of the ideas and looking for discussion around a policy and then some direction on how, the board would would see us proceeding. Thank you both for that presentation.
Board members, who would like to begin with discussion or questions. Kitty. So I'm glad we're looking at this, and I hate that we're looking at this. It's a sad comment on how our society values education that we have to go looking for sponsors to help fund basic education of our children, but, unfortunately, we do. And so I approve of us going down this path. I like what Saint Vrain has about you can't compete with anything we're doing.
I I like that. And, of course, we would have language about appropriateness, And the board would make a decision final decision, correct, on whether or not a particular sponsor provides us with, you know, material goods or money. Right? I think that'd be part of what we'd have to decide we want in policy. Does it go to a a review committee, or does it come to the board, or is it a mixture of both? So I think those are things we'd have to work out in this policy. Yeah. And I do think it's important to have some really good guidelines around that so
we don't have anything that is inappropriate. Rob then Alex. I will I will say board members, this isn't a risk free proposition. Right? To the extent that a company, purchases a sponsorship of a facility or advertising and something with that company goes sideways. Right? That that that is always a risk when you do these things. Now, in in some ways, you know, schools are taking these risks without any of us even knowing it because they're selling banners and other things and sponsorships because there's
no regulation. And and I would say, board members, one of the important things that we need to be careful of is allowing some of that to still continue to occur because folks are counting on those revenue sources as they stand and thinking about bigger opportunities beyond that, I think that this policy would not be well received if if if what it ended up doing is taking away opportunities for schools and their booster clubs and their sports teams to be able to, you know, put signs on the on
the feet the fences, so on and so forth. So so we would have to define, and we could work on this through policy, what that line is, what's the school's ability to do things, and when do these things become a district led initiative. And of those district led dollars, how what percentage how are those dollars go back to the school where the site might be, and then how those other dollars go to the district to be redistributed to schools that might need additional resources. We've had this conversation around making sure that all sports, boys sports, girls sports, across
across our, school district have the resources they need so they can get equitable experiences. And so this could be a great revenue source for that. And depending upon what we do, it could actually fund maybe some new and different things. Right? Like when we have new sports, like our girls flag football team, which by the way looks like they're gonna make the playoffs in their first year. And how beautiful is that? So, I do think there's there's tons of opportunity. Yeah. I also think getting more resources that support the fun things and the great creative things in our district is a good thing, And that we could, create a policy
that's smart and, you know, protects our interests and also advances what we wanna do with kids because I'm all for making things fun, making them good, making them and and encouraging and creating access for more kids who might not otherwise access. So I think if if we can, earmark some of that to be expanding access for more kids that might not otherwise be participating in that activity, that's that's the kind of trade off I'm excited about. And and I I have two two questions. One is, like, right now, that revenue sort of goes through PTOs and the sport
clubs. And secondly, how like, this is three questions. How much money do we currently raise? Do we even know? And then, what are some of these districts with more proactive things? What are we talking about? Are we doing all this to talk about $5,000 and we're you know, this is we've already wasted too much time or is there a million bucks on the table? I'd estimate there's more than a million dollars on the table depending upon how aggressive we get and how willing we are, to, promote advertising and things of that nature. You know, as anything that has loose regulations is probably all over the board, if
I could be honest. Some schools, maybe it's it's the athletic boosters. Some schools, maybe it's the band boosters. Some schools, maybe it's the PTO. Some schools, maybe it's some other organization. Some schools, the baseball feed team gets the baseball field. The softball team gets the softball field. The football team and the band gets the stadium. I think it can depend. And I just think that we have to create some space for some of that to not disrupt that ecosystem. And what we're looking to do, I would think, is going moving above and beyond that, in ways that generate new revenues to and reinvest in things that we would
want to reinvest and, and, so it's I think it's less the local level. It's more bigger level. I think that you're, easily looking at 7 figures worth of opportunity. Again, we we would bring in, you know, provided that the direction is, yes, school district, go forward, see what we have, let's look at what's happening. You would bring in somebody to come in, do a valuation of the assets you have in your community. Some some, you know, erect field and that's a huge asset in the community.
The placement of certain schools by highway, like, there's there's things that professionals can come in and tell us what things are worth and what's the market. And then, if you engage in a in an agreement with them, they can go out and find the folks advertise for you as well. Right? Or, we could decide to try to take that on internally. So I just think that there's lots of options moving forward, but I would say that, you know, we that that you're talking about, yeah, 7 figures. Jason? I think you you kinda answered some of my questions, doctor Anderson. But I'm more just curious how our current policy works in practice.
I was taking my kids to the dentist today and driving down South Boulder Road, Centaurus High School, and you see, you know, the advertisements along the baseball field fence. And I just you know, I think you kinda got to some of this, but I really like to have a better sense of what are what it how things currently operate. Are those entirely decisions made by Centaurus and their athletic programs? Is it entirely school by school at this point? Does the district have any oversight? You know, usually, you know, we just had our fun run at Creekside and it was, you know, the neighborhood contractor and, you know, the local, you know, shop at
Table Mesa Center. But, you know, what kind of oversight is there, if any, about who gets to place at on signs, on fences? Are there just does the district get any benefit from these things or is entirely school by school? So I think, at least for me, before we kind of take that huge step into talking about 7 figure sponsorships and scoreboards and buses, you know, I'd like to really better understand like how this current policy works in practice, and what if any benefit the district sees, you know, not wanting to stifle that neighborhood kind of sense
of, you know, having the local person sponsor something, but also potentially, you know, if it's a if it's a sign if it's a field, you know, on a highway, are there other opportunities besides, you know, just things that the schools decide? So I don't know, it's not in this presentation we didn't ask for it, but I think, you know, before, at least for me, before we really that's a huge leap in my mind, talking about second seven figure at, you know, sponsorships and naming rights, really get a better sense of what we're currently doing and what benefit there
is to the district, if any. So your current policy doesn't speak to advertising at schools. This is more high level sponsorships and naming right opportunities, but not really a mechanism or direction on how aggressive to be for those things. And if things pop up, I guess, the if somebody offered to do something, the policy could govern what we do. And so the those things are entrusted to our schools to figure those things out. And for a long time, they've figured themselves out, locally. And, I don't know the level of consistency there is between one school and another.
I don't know that schools know and understand the value, the marketing value, or the advertising value of a banner or the location of the banner. Like like, there are professionals that would let you know the value of those types of things. And it could be that we provide guidance for the schools around what these things, you know, what these things should be what type of revenue you could you should be thinking about generating from those types of things. But right now, that is that is at the local school, and it's probably traditions
that have been handed down from Booster Club to Booster Club, and, with with pretty low insight. I do think that we've been getting a better handle on the dollars that that are in our internal accounts, right, and that, within each sports count account. We've been talking about that. But there isn't a board policy nor is there a, like a a district policy around what those things look like. I think that those have been decided, and mostly at the high schools.
So couple thoughts. One, I don't see a need. Like, our current regulation is not use useful at all. Strike that. I really think it's important for us to distinguish between, Kathleen talked about it a little bit that exclusive rights language is contracting. It's very different than what some of these other other district policies talk around revenue enhancement. And so making sure that we're not having confusing and murky policies, but those deep policies cover contracting. And so how would that be inserted there? I think that's something we really need to pay attention to.
Only one other school board has these task force that are, like or committees are supposed to evaluate. I would also recommend we follow the majority and not have one of those task force, but maybe it's at is most most board policy say that the school board and and or the superintendent will make those decisions. I think that makes sense, and it's more aligned with how we do other types of contracting and, thinking about those big Like, our school our policy cage, like, that it comes to the board. It's not going to a committee first. So consistency, I think those three changes are really important.
I like the the idea of revenue enhancement. I like that it's broad. It's not confining us in a way, and it and I like that a lot of the other school board policies talk about the nontraditional spaces that are those co curricular spaces. So teaching kitchens, theaters, those kinds of, like, wood shot the fun places for those not necessarily the core classrooms, but, like, how can we how how can we amplify those spaces? When I talk to folks in the community, and if you've ever sat on these
site based bond committees, they're always just, like, I really wanna fix the computer lab or the wood shop or the kitchen, but the bond money doesn't go far enough because we have to do roof and AC. But that's like the those are the fun things that really we haven't been supporting very heavily. And so being more expansive beyond band, orchestra, athletics, I think is is helpful. I would also say, like, to Jason's point, I think it is important to have, like, the our neighboring districts, and doctor Anson also said that the sites can still
have their their site based decision, like they have, and then there can be this board level district decision. And I the where I kind of pivot and disagree a little bit is we can have a policy at the level of policy should be, and then you kinda get down to the nitty gritty when you're actually, like, moving through. Are we gonna find somebody to help with a high value assets? Do we are we evaluating internal sponsorships versus hiring somebody to do it? We can have a policy and then make all those kinda decisions and get, like, a little outside of the the words of the policy.
So I'm okay with moving forward in a policy that has direction, that supports schools' ability to continue to have those sponsorship advertising opportunities, has the district opportunity, and then gives us the space to kind of figure out what is the next best step because there is going to be a price tag for all of those things. Right? It's we'd have to hire staff if we kept this in house. But when out if we hired somebody, they would take a percentage of the profit. So, like, what really is the best? We can have a policy before we have to make any of those kinds of decisions. But I really like the direction of where these are headed.
I like the direction of our particularly Cherry Creek, Thompson Thompson's policy is not great, but how are we our current policy read is like, we really don't want your money. And they are saying, we recognize that you could help us improve the facilities and the experiences from our students. And so that direction change is critical. And we have other policies, I think, of, like, our dress code policy. It talks about the things that we cannot advertise. Like, dress code policy talks about all the things that we couldn't advertise. So that language all exists. I don't think this is a huge lift.
I think it's incredibly exciting. And those are my thoughts. Melania. The one thing that came up for me well, a few things, but most of them have been said. But do you can you tell me how other neighboring districts might have addressed single families wanting to have a naming right? Because I suspect that that may come up, and and here we're talking about corporate advertising, marketing.
But I would want our policy to be sure that we have that set out for if it's just a family that wants to do it. I think of some of, like, maybe our large football families that, you know, are well known. Jorge and then Alex, I saw again. Thank you for all your thank you for all your work comparing these different policies. It's good to have the different perspective because in reading our policy, it seemed like, well, it doesn't really prevent us from doing what we wanna do, but it doesn't facilitate as you as you noted.
So I think the bigger thing is our philosophical change in terms of what we wanna do. And the policy is I really appreciate cleaning up the language to be real specific about what we're talking about and making that distinction between those kinda higher value targets and things that affect the whole district versus that local control and power. And for me, it's that the distinction is important because of the ways that we can kind of expand in equities. And so I wanna make sure that we're careful about how we frame that, right, and at what point we have a threshold for what can be shared across the district or what can be targeted as opposed to just within certain schools that might
have a lot of resources. But I think there's definitely a lot of potential here and definitely need to update language on a lot of this. Yeah. I agree with just about everything everybody has said, in terms of things that we should be looking at and trying to get a policy that is supportive of what we want, not just a 100% about what we're trying to avoid. I do think, one thing I think we should think about are, like, potential corporate sponsors of Apex and other CTE stuff we have going on, where not only we might get some revenue, but we might highlight partnerships with those, corporations that we wanna
connect kids to in a workforce type setting who might then wanna do more stuff with us and partner more deeply. The other part is, I I wanna make sure we don't interfere with our ability to name things after our own agency. So I think it's it's wonderful to, you know, name an an auditorium or something after, a teacher or a principal or something else like that. So I I don't wanna give it all away to our, friends with money. And then I feel, like one thing whenever we talk about money that affects the
fun, cool, excellent things in our schools, I get a bunch of emails from people who are, really anxious that we're trying to take away their money and unfund their activity. And I wanna be clear that this is another one of those ones where we're not doing that. And that what we're trying to do is provide more resources for the things that are fun. And we recognize that local schools and parents and organizations are raising money however they can for their activities. And what we are talking about are strategies that will provide more money for our activities. And they'll also provide it in ways that we can advance our values and our
goals and that's a good thing. So I don't want people to treat it as a zero sum game like we're gonna take away all the the revenue that schools now have and take it to the central office so you don't have it for your activity. Kitty. Yeah. So my question is, are we talking about sponsorships exclusively to support sports or performing arts or activities, or are we talking about to benefit the district at large? And if they are used for sports and other activities, would that free up money
that we're spending now on that to come back to the general fund? The the way that I'm viewing this based on board discussion, the prioritization of this topic is we we should go and see, you know, what are the high value assets, right, that would fit within the guardrails of the policy that the board sets. Now, the way guardrails work, I mean, you all driven on roads, the more narrow the guardrail, the the the less flexibility that you have.
But I would have to guess, advertising, digital advertising is is going to be a major ongoing revenue source, and then one time sponsorships, buildings, programs, facilities, depending upon the length of that deal, could could be an annual payment over time or a one time lump sum payment. You I I'm if you if you were to to, enhance facilities with different mechanisms
to increase advertising scoreboards, so so on and so forth. That would be possible. You could advertise on your website. I'm not sure if that's a step too far, but there's a lot of people who visit our website. Right? I don't know that if there's districts that advertise on their digital marquees. I'm not sure if that's even I don't know the rules around that, but, you know, I so I would again, this is sometimes why if you bring in folks that are experts, they can kind of they can tell you. And I do think that with with Sundance, with with a higher profile football program
at the University of Colorado, SCO bus, you know, there are people, there are a lot of people, right, that are coming into our community on and, the advertising value has to go up. So, you know, I would I we we can always go out and see what's possible and then bring forward to the board what is acceptable through the the guidelines. But, again, Nicole, to your point, if you tighten up the guidelines or make it a long laborious process, people will go somewhere else to advertise.
Right? Advertising is is timely. Right? You have to be able to say, look, I wanna advertise this thing. I wanna advertise it now. I've got this as my advertising budget. I've spent it all over the place. Let me try this. And the more I would worry, the more red tape you put in into a process would potentially limit your ability to generate revenues and at a certain point it wouldn't be worth the activity if if it just became too cumbersome. And that's actually what I was thinking. Starting wide, we haven't done this before. Lessons learned can help us narrow the scope if we find that there are things
that are not acceptable to us that are coming through based on sort of wide set of guardrails. And we can policies we iterate and iterate and iterate until we get them right. But that's where I would start because we don't wanna make it too arduous that people are like, I'm not it's not worth it for to me to play this game. So I would that's if I was writing a policy, I would start wide. And as as we learn more, if there's things, like, that raise red flags to us, then we can tighten. So the question that I have, do we go get somebody to tell us what
we have and what are the potential opportunities, look at that, and then write the policy? Or do you write the policy and then I give that to somebody, say, here's our policy, here's what's inbounds, here's what's out of bounds based on the guardrails of what we'd wanna advertise, and then bring that forward? You know, because I think in in some ways we're trying to imagine things we don't really fully understand in terms of what are the high value assets, what could work, what doesn't work. Would it be be would it be beneficial to the board to be able to have that information first before crafting a policy?
Or would you rather say we're gonna you know, we're we think that we're just gonna be able to craft a policy and then use that as as as the guardrails? I think either way will work. Alex. Either way, I would love to have more information, so that we can be informed by it. But it's not it's not free. So, I would say that might be one of the things that something like Impact could pay for with somebody who knows advertising really great in the city because we have some wonderful creatives on in that front. So that might be something that we could do in parallel, with support from somebody
else's money. And I but I'm in favor of making the guardrails more principle based. A smaller set of guardrails. I'd be willing to do that and assume that some of the details would be worked out in regulation as another another way to do this. I do think, because if we want to explore it, we should get the information and start exploring it. It's easy enough to say that board's redoing its policy while you do that. So I I don't think the sequencing matters as much, but I do wanna go for a policy that that signals that we wanna do something if we wanna do
it. And then also has our guardrails. I will say, as we think about things like our, like our cell phone policy and the use of technology in the schools, I'm opposed to anything that gets on an electronic mechanism in front of a kid, during the day or even during school activities very much. I just I just wanna keep the kids focused on other kids when they're even at the activity thing and not a screen talking about what to buy. So, I'm sensitive to children's, students' eye time and what they're doing and when.
So that's just one thing to keep in mind. The last thing I wanna do add a distraction to some kid's day. I I think that's actually against the law. That, you know, advertising to a captive audience where who I I actually I'd have to check that, but, like, like, we we're not gonna be advertising, like, things to our own kids. I think that that would be out out of balance for sure. Yeah. Kitty. Yeah. I like what Alex said about having broad guidelines and then addressing it in regulations. The thing I would hate to see happen is we spend a bunch of time, we create a policy, then we go out and find out that what we want
to do might require us to change the policy. So it might be easier to have that, you know, finding out what we could do first because we spend a whole lot of time going over policies. And so if that could be minimized, that would be great. And I I like the putting the regulations in because then that's you don't have to change the policy. You just add to it. I would be curious to see how long it would take to get that high value asset evaluation. I also wonder since we have so many neighboring districts who have policies in place
already and are generating lots of revenue enhancements. As a result, if it's a quick phone call to say, hey, Cherry Creek, hey, Pooter, hey, Thompson, any look fors, and if because their policies aren't significantly different from ours. They're just more welcoming. And if they don't feel like there's any they haven't had any big problems, I'd also be fine with just moving this policy through if we are taking that sort of principles, higher level approach anyway.
We don't, you know? Board members, any other thoughts? I've seen Kathleen been writing notes. There's been head nodding at the dais. Alex. I hear a lot of similar themes coming from us. I'd be curious what Rob and Kathleen are thinking as we step away or as we wrap up this conversation. What what what do you do with all the different things we've just said? Here are the key takeaways for me. Number one, really, you know, sit down with Kathleen, look at the policies, really think what are what's the right what's the right touch in regards to guidance? Loose, but principled in what we believe.
Right? Make some phone calls around the front range to see folks that are doing things. I know there's folks that have scoreboards that we don't have. Check into that. See if anybody else has done one of these high value asset assessments, to see if there's somebody within the local marketplace, and then and then connect with my my national networks to say, you know, what are the things that you all are doing, big districts across the country, whether it's through the large county wide consortium or Chiefs for Change? What are the things you're doing that you found to work?
Take some of those, curate some of those best practices, and then move forward with trying to figure out what we have and what the values are in a parallel path as we're developing the policy. And, and then hopefully those things will merge in the same moment in time, and all the pieces will fit together. Sounds great. Hello, board members. That wraps up our study items for this evening. So we'll be moving on to future agenda requests. Hearing none. Oh, Jason. You know, doctor Anderson, you brought up Sundance and, you know, I don't wanna plan
our kind of board activities around, you know, big event. But I do feel like it would be good at some point in the not too distant future to, understand kind of if there are plans in the district for kind of maximizing opportunity for our students, for our community. You know, obviously, it's a huge influx of folks, but also talent and kind of what we can do. I know there's a lot of people, friends of mine and people in community kind of looking to maximize that, and I feel like we should be, ahead of that and understand what's happening, you know, use this opportunity to really, plan ahead for the
district students, teachers, classrooms, etcetera. So I don't know what the request is exactly, but kind of a Sundance review and and look ahead. An update on on the impact of some Sundance and opportunities. I had a conversation today with the former superintendent of Park City Today. So so what timing? Yeah. I think that, if we prioritize that then, as we as Sundance transitions from Park City to Boulder, which is going to happen sometime mid January, I would say sometime
in the spring, we'd be able to give you all an update on opportunities, and we'd be able to know and understand what are the things that we're trying to do programmatically for kids, what are the opportunities where we're partnering with with Sundance in the City and others to host events. And what does it look like when we're hosting Sundance Film Festival films within some of our facilities, which will be the case? So my question is, will former board members get free admission? Maybe if you sign up as a substitute and you're working, you could maybe peek
in. I I we no conversations around any of anything like that. I would I would imagine not probably. Anybody, but any school district people. Anything else, board members? Oh, I don't wanna I just wanna apologize to the board. I'm gonna not be here in person, probably for several meetings over the next six weeks because of work and personal travel. So I'll miss you face to face. Okay. This meeting is adjourned.