I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Boulder Valley School District for Tuesday, 03/24/2025. Board members may attend and participate in board meetings by electronic means in accordance with BVSD policy BMEA and state law. Laura, can you please call the roll? Bucher? Here. Chavez? Here. Medler? Here. Quinlan Ueda. She's corresponding with me saying she's trying to get into the meeting. Rajpal? Here. Temuading? She's not here. Angar? Here. Thank you. I'd like everyone to turn their attention to the screens for our land acknowledgment this morning. 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 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, wisdom, oral traditions, and resilience of indigenous people, and recognize the responsibility to care for and appreciate this land
together. I'd like to remind everybody that the mission of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging, meaningful, and engaging learning opportunities so that all children thrive and are prepared for successful civically engaged lives. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here in person today on this Tuesday after spring break. And for those of you who are tuning in to watch our meeting remotely, we're glad to have you observe and participate in our meetings. At this time, is there a motion to approve today's agenda? Moved by Jason, seconded by Alex. Laura, can you please call the roll? Bucher? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes.
Quinlan Ueda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Temuading? Ungar? Yes. Motion passes. We have a couple items on today's agenda. Board members, the first of which is a work session taking an in-depth look at artificial intelligence. I will turn it over to doctor Anderson to do the introductions this morning. Thank you, board president Rajapal, board members. Good to see everyone. Hope everyone had a wonderful spring break. I'm excited, to have our team present to you today, where we are with artificial intelligence in BVSD. Board members, we gave, the board and the public our first update on this topic
about two years ago. And things have changed in terms of AI. I think that, as we think about how K-twelve school districts across the country are responding, to artificial intelligence, I think that you what you'd see is some confidence, some struggle, some benefits, some fears, and, and something that's actually emerging right in front of us. As soon as I think, often times you get a sense of where things are, things evolve at rates that probably have never been seen before in terms of technology.
And so, you know, we've tried to take here at BVSD a measured approach, not being too far ahead of the curve. I think there's danger in that when there's you're in an emerging field. But also being responsive both to the needs of our educators, of our parents, and of our kids. And so, excited to share with you kind of the journey that we've had and excited to share this with our community as well. I think we've done a lot more than maybe has been, been presented, especially over the past two years. And so, excited to turn the presentation over to Doctor.
Dela Cruz, who will do introductions and get us started. Good morning, president Raj Powell, members of the board. We're glad to have a large team here today to facilitate a discussion, as doctor Anderson said, about AI and BVSD. And as Doctor. Anderson stated, we are moving at a measured pace. We're intentionally not going full speed ahead or racing to get to the front of the line with AI. Although AI is rapidly evolving, our intention is to take an approach that is mindful, that is planful, and is well considered on all fronts, which the team today will
address, and we look forward to the discussion. Since our measured approach, to AI is a cross team effort, we have several members of the team today as I said. We have Frankie Elmore. Next to me, our CIO, Chris Brecht, our director of strategic initiatives, Lynn Gershman, director of academic services, doctor Nativity Miller, our chief academic officer, and doctor Emma Herzog, our ED of academics. So glad to have everyone here. Our team is going to share today the foundational elements and progress of AI in BVSD through discussions about a measured approach, policy safety and data protection, listening first and
the growth of AI in BVSD, the current state of AI usage in BVSD and moving, toward intentional moving forward with intentional practice. So we're aiming to ensure that we center educators and students throughout the progression of AI in BVSD and you'll likely hear that today. We know that AI is a really powerful tool. We also know that the human brain is a very powerful tool. And so individual creativity and critical thinking remain at the center in BVSD. So while today you'll hear about parameters and opportunities with AI in BVSD, we do
remain committed to enhancing our work in many ways with AI as an opportunity for each person in BVSD to use it as a tool while still elevating critical thinking and intellectual growth. And as we likely know, AI carries both promise and peril, which necessitates the need to move forward mindfully. So you'll hear today a thoughtful approach that's not about racing to the front of the line, as I said, but really developing guardrails and parameters for safe and productive use of AI.
We have a team here today that I'm going to pass it over to. Next up, Chris is going to share how this work aligns with our strategic priorities and initiatives. Good priorities and initiatives. Good morning, president Rajpal, members of the board. Really quickly, just wanna highlight that although this is, artificial intelligence is not a standalone initiative within BBSD. We see it as advancing our priorities within the strategic plan. And all while we are taking a measured approach and we, are being very strategic on how we implement different aspects of AI within our system, I wanna make sure
that we highlight the fact that we see AI as a tool that is going to advance each of our strategic initiatives. We see it as a tool for good, and we are constantly going to be looking for opportunities, to embed artificial intelligence, into our work in support of each of these, key objectives. Whether that be through finding, unique ways that students can engage within grade level standards, supporting teachers in their their planning to identify different ways to differentiate their instruction, the creative ways that it, expands student opportunities for career exploration and work based learning, and
then most importantly, how we ensure that in this modern tech world if things evolving so fast that it's really hard to keep up, that students continue to feel valued and included while they're within BVSD. So all of those things we again can see artificial intelligence as a tool for good in advancing these strategic initiatives. And then really quickly too want to highlight that, I'm sorry, the next one for me. Where we are within some related board policy, and you'll see here that we've outlined some policies that we feel and you'll see here that we've outlined some policies that
we feel like, relate to this topic. But you'll notice that in 2023, there were two policies, JDC on student conduct and JS regulation, student use of technology. Both of those policies incorporate some artificial intelligence language. And then we also have, some upcoming revisions due in terms of a student use of Internet and electronic communications, revisions due in 2028, student use of technology revisions due in 2026, and an acceptable use of technology for staff, that's also due in 2026.
Just a reminder that while these are along the timeline, any of these can be prioritized at the will of the board, as as you feel necessary for us to be able to help guide this work appropriately. And with that, I will hand it over to Frankie to talk a little bit about timeline. Good morning, President Raj Paul, board members, doctor Anderson. This timeline, as you can see, provides a view of how AI work has evolved in BVSD over the last few years. We began, like most organizations, in late twenty twenty two when tools like ChatGPT became
widely available. At that point, our focus was on understanding the technology and its potential impact. In 2023, our IT team began evaluating generative AI, while our instructional teams started engaging in a series of professional learning discussions to better understand classroom implications. As interest grew, we intentionally expanded opportunities for our staff to learn and collaborate and established an AI teacher discussion group.
And in early twenty twenty four, we moved into more structured implementation with the purchase and launch of Magic School as an enterprise platform, providing a safer, more controlled environment for AI use. We also began formal communication with the board, providing our first AI update in June 2024 and continued expanding communication through staff channels such as the a ideas section of the download newsletter. Over time this work has continued to mature including expanding our teacher discussion group and
increasing the frequency of engagement and feedback. As part of our ongoing evaluation we also made targeted adjustments as when needed. In early twenty which we continue to refine our approach including this update to the board as we move forward with a more structured and governed AI strategy. Frank, if I could if I could just, add a little context as well.
Laura, if you can go back. This is kind of our timeline, but if you think just how what has been happening, you know, in our country and in world with AI, I think that there have been these moments of excitement and fear, like, almost simultaneously every time every time something evolves, if that makes sense. And so I do, I do wanna commend the team for, you know, having a steady hand as we've as we've really begin to try to really understand the benefits, how this can be good for us, but also protecting our kids, and protecting, their
data. Data privacy, we know is a long standing value of not just this board and this district but our community. And so, making sure that, that our students and our educators have had the opportunity to reap the advantages, while also On the topic of CHAT GBT, I wanna demonstrate
a specific decision that reflects how we apply our approach and practice. In January, we made the decision to restrict student access to the consumer version of chat GPT on BVSE networks and district issued devices. This was a targeted action based on content safety concerns, specifically related to chat room functionality and adult content features as well as age verification mechanisms that did not meet
our standards for student use. It's important to note that this was not a broad shift towards blocking AI tools, rather it was a specific response to ensure alignment with our student safety and data protection expectations. From a technical standpoint, this restriction was implemented through our existing firewall and web filtering systems, consistent with how we manage other categories of online content. This is an example of our broader approach, continuing to evaluate tools as they evolve,
expanding access where appropriate, and intervening when safety thresholds are not met. Good morning, President Rajpal and BVSD board. I'm excited to, provide some clarity this morning around how we're working with AI, and just to define some terms. Generally speaking there are three types of AI that are used in education. We all know the reactive type of AI. This is your basic Google search. When you ask Google Google a singular question, it responds with a bunch of choices
that you can click on. Predictive is where we're using some datasets to try to figure out what is, happening in a specific set of instances. So our example in education is any type of adaptive test. We use NWEA as one of our, digital assessments for math, across the district and it's adaptive. So as a student gets an answer right, the assessment will ask a harder question. As the student gets the answer wrong, it will ask an easier question to try
to figure out where that student's level is. So it's a personalized experience, but that's it the software is predicting where that student lies. What we're mostly talking about today is, the newest type of AI that we're seeing in education which is generative AI where the student is engaging with the software and new content is being created. That's really our emphasis today because that is the quote unquote innovation of a CHA GPT or a large language model.
The other two have been around for a long time in education. So we've had AI in education for quite some time. This is a new development in the type of AI that we're looking at. So that's why we're talking about it today. Now before we move into tools and implementation, it's important we understand the policy, safety, and data protection framework guiding our approach. Student data protection is our first filter. Any AI tool must pass contractual, legal, and technical review before it can be approved
for use in the district. We require data privacy agreements aligned with FERPA and Colorado student data law, and our teams review vendor terms to ensure there is no unauthorized data sharing, no resale of data of student information, and clear data retention practices. We also prioritize enterprise level platforms that allow district managed authentication, administrative oversight, and audit capabilities. And because AI technologies are evolving so very rapidly, this review process is a continuous
effort. And rather than leading with technology, we've started by listening, ensuring our implementation reflects the needs of our classroom and staff. Me again. So after we started, with our professional learning, series that was I think two years ago, there were several teachers who wanted to continue talking about what AI looks like and what it's going to look like in the classroom. Some were concerned about plagiarism, some were concerned about, not really concerned, excited about the
creative uses of AI as we were seeing it. Others wanted to continue talking about guidance from the district level. So there was a very small group of teachers that met, monthly the very first year that we saw AI in our in our classrooms. The second year we met quarterly because we were all kind of just trying to survive, all the different things that were happening in the district. And now we have a larger group, that meets monthly. That includes many teachers, some parents, other stakeholders in the community.
We have a few representatives from CU. We have teacher librarians, we have folks from assistive technology, from our sped department, and we have some students who meet monthly to discuss topics surrounding AI, in our community, in our schools, just innovations that we're seeing. It's been a pretty robust conversation each month, and, really enjoyable for everyone, who's participating.
And what you'll see in the next slide, these are some of the topics that we've been discussing. These are questions that we have, these are, areas that we're just trying to bring to the forefront, as we're thinking and talking about AI. Linda, can I just so the board members and our public is aware? Linda intentionally relate, this is an interest group, and I just wanna make sure that we're all aware that we're used to seeing like a super excuse me, superintendent advisory
committee or board of or board advisory committees, which we approve the membership of and ensure they are representative. An interest group folks self select into. We they do not provide recommendations to the board or the superintendent. It's a place for conversation, but they're structured very differently than our other advisory committees that you're familiar with. So I just wanna elevate some degree of distinction, and doctor Anderson, I can see you wanted to chime in there as well. Absolutely. I I really wanna commend Lynn, who has been at the forefront of of this really, in creating this space to to to help just talk about and think through
something that's emerging. And you know within this interest group, and and I could let Lynn speak to this a little bit more, you know students provide value. We've got very well informed community members who are on the cutting edge of some of these technologies that help provide value. Our educators, you know, ground us in our experience around, you know, the you know, what's possible. And so, you know, the the idea of an interest group that has emerged and has been inclusive for folks that are interested, is something that is that sits outside board policy, sits outside something that I would I would, ask to be developed.
I think it's just something that's emerged. And I think that that's best practice. If we want to know and understand new and innovative and exciting things, you know from time to time we should create a space to listen and learn and think. And there are some ideas that will come out of you know both of our advisory groups, but even an interest group that would allow us to begin to explore, understand topics that this board would be presented with and take action on. But I really just want to commend Lynn and her leadership, and you know the
nimbleness of this group I think has been its strength, to allow it to come together, collect information, and, and and really stay on top of things that are happening. I mean, you know, I I think the the challenge is is to try to figure out what's gonna happen tomorrow when you're still trying to understand what's happening today. Right? And and these things are evolving. Right? Like, even just with chat g p t. Now, a lot of districts have taken an approach where they just locked everything down
immediately. No access. Even districts that that may tout that they're AI leaders. And I've been early on, I was I was on a couple it was in a couple of groups as this topic was emerging, and I've I've found that, you know, people's approaches vary and depending on what they're trying to do. Like for us, we see this as a tool, we see this as a as something that that we can use, but we also see our obligation and making sure that we protect data, our students' data as a top priority.
But as you see people talking about this, sometimes folks are talking about it, but you have to kinda see how is it being used, how is it improving, the outcomes for kids. And as you all know board members, our number one priority is is advancing the strategic priorities and initiatives within our strategic plan. So I really love the way that Chris framed that up for us. But just again, Lynn, thank you for your leadership on this. And, you know, it's not like she went into this group with all of these topics, these things emerged. And, what a better way to really know and understand where a community is than
being nimble, bringing folks together, and letting the topics come to you. I know the next slide says questions and conversation, but I wanna make sure you were wrapped up with this one before I just start. Okay. It was Alex and then Jason. Yeah. I really appreciate this, and I'm excited for the board to have this deep dive into it. And I do think we could use three hours in this discussion pretty fruitfully. I guess my observation on this last slide, if you go back, these if you had a list of pros and cons for AI, all of these would be on the con side of the ledger.
These are guardrails and restrictions and concerns, not visions and hopes and uses and applications that make people do anything. So as like a governing board or administrators of a big system, these are all the wet blankets of why you shouldn't and why you can't do this unless we make sure to control it for you. What would be in the slide if we were talking about what the people in the interest group think is cool and good? I think that's that's a way to look at this. I think when we're talking about I was trying to give a window into the
types of discussions we are having. So when we're talking about data privacy and security, the discussion centers around like how are we doing that? When we're talking about age restrictions the conversation is how do we make sure that teachers understand what the age restrictions are around some of these applications or uses. It's not about, saying we need to shut things down, but we are talking about how do we promote the idea of a bias check because some people at, you
know, at a cursory level may not understand that there could be bias that's being presented using an AI tool. So how do we educate around that? That's really more of the discussions, if that helps. Yeah. If I may, I guess I've in the discussions I've been around, there is a balance of the guardrails we, as system designers and governors, are putting in place, and the reasons why people are using it and the applications they're using it for and the things that raise these issues.
So I think it's incumbent on us to also understand the utility, the perceived utility and the actual utility and the things that people are doing out there that we may or may not be able to protect all these important parameter. I'm in for protecting all these parameters. I totally get it. But I think we could easily fall into a policy discussion that becomes increasingly irrelevant. Like, everything has AI in it now. And if we are thinking about the systems that we control and how to make them safeguard these parameters, we are missing what the, you know, 4,000 odd adults and
what the 27,000 kids are doing with the stuff because it'll be outside our systems and the things we control. So I'm I'm like, I don't want us to actually do worse at the guardrails because we're thinking in the parameters of the things we can control when so much of this we can't control. I I really do appreciate your perspective on this, Alex. And I think that, you know, that this is the balance that that we're really striving to to to strike. Like, how can we see this as a tool for good, and then also, overcome some of the fear that that can dominate conversations when you pull groups together.
And, I will say that further along in the in the in our conversation, our our academics team will begin to think about, and present to you all around this idea of using AI as a competency. Right? Like, because I really think that once we're able to think about our standards and embed how AI can be used as for our kids for to to along the lines of what you're thinking about, what what does a kid who graduates high school in 2026, '27, '28 need to really know about AI before they leave us so
they're prepared for a world that will be dominated by AI. And so I don't wanna lose that. I think that that's a critical component of where we need to go to and evolve. Just double checking with Lynn, there has not been any efforts by our state at this point or by the federal government or, through through No Child Left Behind, Every Student Succeeds Act or any of the accountability systems where AI is is being thought of as a competency. Right? So, so again, it's emerging. Right? We're thinking about it, you know, and, you don't wanna get too far ahead of
those folks who will then but I think we're gonna have to. I you know, and I think we have the opportunity to. So but I do appreciate that perspective. And this isn't, you know, protect everybody from AI, but how do you leverage this as a competency so our educators are through professional learning, our kids know and understand how to use that. Jason and then Tian. Yeah. I just have some questions. I I appreciate Alex's perspective, but questions kind of on this and maybe I don't know that there's an end game here. It sounds like this is really just kind of a a really great forum for
teachers to talk through questions. I imagine all levels of expertise, people who feel very, very confident and comfortable, and people who are terrified and scared. But I it seems like a really great forum, and maybe this is further in the discussion to really put together some recommendations and some so I hope and that it's, I guess, a question for you, Lynn, and others. Like, will there be, takeaways and feedback from this group that can be turned into recommendations or guidance of some kind? Sounds like we may get to that discussion later, but I would hate to waste this not waste. Like, not use this opportunity where people are getting together to talk about, you know,
how imagine how talk about how to use this in a productive way and kind of to Alex's point. But then let those discussions just kind of, like, move on. I I'd like to, you know, find ways to really take this because this is, I think, what we're at least what I'm hoping to get out today is, like, what are what are the things that we're gonna tell the tea tell teachers? What are the things we're gonna tell students and parents about how we're using AI, how we're integrating this? And, again, not to jump ahead to what sounds like a future discussion, but this seems like the the great a great first place to start. I would say that, you know, this is work sessions these day long work sessions
are designed to be interactive. Right? And so to know and understand, and and to to partner with the board to provide direction for the system, I think, is is a critical piece of some of the of, of a work session like this. And it could be if we want a group that we form if we wanna formalize a group that that advises the board or advises the superintendent, we'd wanna take, I think, some other measures to make sure that it's representative of the perspectives within our community so that those recommendations, could we would have those assurances as a governance
team. I think that that is something we could talk about. And, I think that as the rest of the team will talk, some of those questions will be answers. And the ones that aren't, I think that's why we're having this discussion. And so this is not a information topic where we're reporting you all of the things, how we figured it all out. It's emerging. Right? And I think that, you know, trying to stay in tune, not only with our community and where they are, but this, you know, these advancing technologies and just all of the the the excitement and and challenge. So yeah.
So I think that by the end of today, my hope would be that you all would be able to weigh in, have some clear direction on next steps on what this looks like. And but but also with input from our team as well. Right? You know, if there's things that you say, hey. Well, you know, what about this idea? You know, I would I would encourage our team to provide the perspective to really make sure that we work together to to build some good recommendations. We're gonna turn it over to Diane. But, Lalena, I want to let you know if you have anything to ask or to share, I'll have you up after Diane since I can't see you. Thanks. I'm good right now. I don't see this list the way you do.
I like I see it as lesson plans. I see it as lesson plans for how to teach students as they reach twelfth grade and are about to matriculate. They need to understand all of these issues before they go on to college. They need to understand that AI is gonna present a bias. They need to understand how they've been impacted, by getting to use these tools over students in other places that don't have the technology that we have. They need to understand the ethics and the academic honesty that go into using one
of these tools, to do their college work that could get them thrown out of college. They need, these are all critical thinking skills that they need in order to graduate and be successful adults. So I really see it not as negative, just as a layered, approach of all of the things that we need to think about. Lalania and then Jorge. And, actually, Laura, did Anna join the meeting or is she no. Okay. So Lalena and then Jorge. Can you hear me, Nicole? Yes. I can. Good morning, Lalena.
I do not have any questions at this time. I'm just listening. I'm good. Thanks. Thanks. Jorge? Thanks for sharing this. I appreciate the timeline. I know you mentioned the learning series for fresh development for teachers back to 2023, and that's I'm guessing that's continued since then. I'd like to get a sense of kind of what's that looked like and kind of issues that are popping up from that and, maybe I think there's some data usage later on, but I just kind of get a sense of where we're at with the professional development. Sure. Thanks for that. The main way we are doing professional development with, AI is weekly we have the
teacher newsletter, the download, and we've invited any teacher who's using AI to submit how they're using it called AI ideas. Get it? And, so each week, we have a new idea from a classroom teacher so that another teacher could read that and adapt it to what, to to use in their own classrooms. So So we've had a lot of different examples with there's a couple examples later on in the presentation, but, you know specifically just off the top of my head,
we do we have a high school school anatomy teacher who has created unit chatbots for each of his units so that his students have access to him without having access to him 20 fourseven. So every unit has a bot that the kids can engage with and ask questions. We've seen, other teachers who have created, like book recommendation type situations for kids so they can type in the last book that they read that they liked and get
a suggestion for the next book. So we have all different types of teachers who are adding to that. In addition there was a there was a high school teacher who I really enjoyed her submission because she added a way to ask kids to cite the use of AI in their writing in her class. So she provided that form, for other teachers to adapt and use, to start to have those conversations around ethical use of AI.
And there were different levels of how you can cite your AI use from the prompt to your actual, to the actual return, and how the kids were using it to edit their own work. So How about the Wednesday morning series you had a couple years ago? I'm I think that Jorge sorry. I don't know your last name. Chavez, sorry. I think, board member Chavez. Do you you were remembering those earlier? The six the series of six that we started with? Did you want more information about that series, that professional learning series?
Just in general Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood. Also where we're at today. Okay. I'm sorry. I misunderstood. So when we first started, From both. Yeah. Doctor Dela Cruz asked me to create a series of professional learning for Wednesday mornings that teachers could opt into so that they could get familiar with what AI actually is in the classroom. So this was before we, purchased Magic School. The first one was just about what is AI, what do we know about it, what don't we know about it, teachers could ask questions, about it.
The second one was about prompt writing and we really just kind of messed around with, ChachiPT. We were writing like silly haikus, not really even trying to get to education yet. Just what is this as humanity? What do we need to know as adults in the world? And then humanity? What do we need to know as adults in the world? And then the third one was more about how could we use AI in the classroom? So what could you use it for? And that's when we started experimenting with lesson planning or differentiation or brainstorming ideas.
And then we started talking to Magic School between the third and the fourth sessions. So then the fourth session was, a demo of Magic School and getting teacher reaction around it. And then the fifth and the sixth sessions were actually doing some training around Magic School. These were all voluntary and I would say we would do an elementary one, And
I was having 200 to 300 teachers attending each of the sessions. So could be up to 600 teachers or more, during those sessions. It was a little nerve wracking to to see all those people on there. But, really having those engaging times and engaging talking about what we're facing in our classrooms. As that's progressed, that's when some of the interest started peaking around I wanna talk
more about AI. What can we do? What can we organize? And that's how this kind of organic interest group emerged as teachers were asking me questions. I was starting to recognize some repetition there, of interest in it and so I just thought it would be a good way to facilitate conversation around this and then principals started sending me parents who were asking questions. I was engaging with those parents and then I just thought this is like taking up so much of my time, I'm just gonna make it an hour a month
and everyone can just come. And that's kind of how it's been. So we average around 40 or 50 people, come into the the meeting each month, and we talk about all different things. I'm not really providing a ton of guidance. I'm more facilitating it because it's a forum for folks to to just talk about what they're thinking about. It's splintered into a book study. One of the teachers is leading a book study now. She told us us what the book was. So then since my department, also manages libraries, we bought some digital copies of the
book so that the teachers could read the book for the book study and not have to pay for you know, those kinds of things. So fine. Jason then Alex. Thanks. I'm glad Jorge asked that question because that's that's kind of what I'd really love to get from today is, you know, I mean, I love the idea of the a ideas and also the clever, name. But how do you have a sense of how widespread that is and how how much uptake there is on this thing? I think my my biggest worry, so I think about my my own experience. I was, you know, fifth grade teacher many years ago, and we had two random
apples with different color things dropped apple computer dropped off into my classroom, and I had no idea how to how to use it. And it was just one of these. They collected dust. It became kind of an incentive if you finish your work. And then I had a colleague who just, with those same two laptops, was able to kind of integrate into everything, and the kids use it for all sorts of things. And that's, you know, obviously not a total parallel, but I think of AI in the same way. And that, like, you have teachers who are incredibly skilled and know how to do it, and then you have everyone else who's kind of scared of this stuff. And so I'm really curious about the the kind of uptake and, you know, how
wide spread you get a sense that these practices are. I could skip ahead and show you that no. That's okay. I can skip ahead and show you, our adoption of like the there's a point here where we're going to talk about Magic School because that is our approved enterprise product and I can show you the growth of adoption of that that's been pretty organic. And I think just on Jorge's point about kind of what's what's what are teachers getting and how much are how much are people using those? So if we are jumping ahead, I'm sorry.
But, that was I thought that was a natural jumping off point. We don't need to jump ahead yet. Doctor Anderson, Alex, I'll say something and then we will move on so we can get ahead. Jason, I love your question. Right? And I think that this is, you know, to to the extent but but but to, you know, how many teachers have embraced this and adopt this adopted this on their own? Right? This has been this is we have really designed, our land our AI landscape in a way where folks it's an opt in type of an environment. A certain point, it goes in from opt in to expectation.
Right? So, I would say that, you know, once you get to that place, then it's change management, then it's really, you know, following all of the things that we know to do as we've implemented new curriculum and changed instructional practices and improved those and changed the ways we think think about post secondary readiness. Like, there's a whole system that has to evolve and emerge and change on that. And so I would say that, there has not been an expectation from any district staff to say this is how you use AI. This is what it's going to be. I think the only restrictions we've probably have have made are when we think the
data privacy is at risk and we've shut, you know, we shut Chet ChibT down. We we made the conscious decision to embrace an enterprise solution in magic school early on to give folks a safe place to begin to really build their skills here. So, but I do think, like, after a session like this, as we start to think and evolve, like, what you know, how do we evolve from organic emerging to intentional, moving forward? And so I think that, I would just I just would wanna be clear, like,
if a teacher has not used AI at all, it's not because they've done anything that they're not doing what we've asked them to do. We haven't asked them to do that. Yeah. I I sort of have a question and also sort of a prompt for that. I mean, I I deal with AI in my professional life and my personal life, and I try to help other people use it in their work. And all these responsibilities and obligations are part of all those discussions. So I'm I'm quite aware of the urgency to address all that. But I'm also aware of the divide to, Jason's point between the the current early
adopters and the people who are really afraid and angry and the people who haven't explored it yet. And I think at some point, it's incumbent on us. I really see, like, the taking away from students the cognitive development of learning how to do things, but I also see the application of how much more you can learn about stuff. And if you haven't used AI to learn more about something you're curious about, then you should go home and do that. Like, I I took a vacation in Spain, last fall, and I had my iPhone
with me. And if I ever had a question like, is that an olive tree or something else? It could tell me. And then I could say, how much of Southern Spain is olive orchards, and when did that start? And if you're curious and you're using it, it's an amazing tool to deepen your understanding. I told both my kids in college, I challenge you, after every lecture, go take fifteen minutes and ask questions of chat GPT from the lecture and see if you don't learn twice as much as you would have. So I mean, that's where I'm I think it's not that we're shouldn't do these
things and that we shouldn't anticipate the growth of it. But if we are not understanding the power of it and and focusing on the concerns, we're gonna be totally blown away as more and more people realize the power of it. And then the cognitive damage to the students' development that will come with that, because it'll be so much more powerful than our restrictions will be meaningful. Like, they're gonna use it a lot to do lots of things, and and other kids will be taking shortcuts on things we needed them to learn. And we'll be talking about which platform to use, and they'll go put it on
their phone and their personal computer at home, as will the teacher, and they'll do the stuff that we've blocked somewhere else. So that's why I think we need to talk about the the power in learning and development and the threat to learning and development and not just institutional interests of liability and concern, which is where this is a lot of this goes when it not just BVSD, but that's where education institutions do it. And we know from ever since Chris Whittle started, you know, station one that EdTech
under delivers all the time. Right? But I think this is a different thing. And I we're sort of treating it like we have to protect people from it, which we do, rather than understanding more deeply how it affects learning and knowledge. So I don't know what to do with that. But I, as a person in a policy position or as in a a designing PD for educators and system leaders, I'm really struck by the dichotomy between those who are concerned about it and those who are using it. Right? And we need People to use it enough to have a meaningful discussion so it's not just amplifying
fears. Because that's gonna lead it's not that we shouldn't address the fears. It's that if that's all we do, we're gonna be so overwhelmed by the wave of use and the wave of applications as people get into it, then and we'll be way behind. So I've if that's where we go to start, I'm afraid we'll be left behind. I appreciate that point because that's something I've been thinking a lot about is, what are we trying to amplify or not amplify and making sure it's not just people's personal opinions on this tool. I think change, to Doctor.
Anderson's point around change management, the expectation of, right, well, right now it's opting in, but there's not expectations around it having attended negotiations again yesterday. We're asking a lot of our staff right now. And there is a lot of change, and I would be hesitant to say, at the end of this year, the board is gonna create a policy that says we have to educators have to do x y z because we're still rolling out new curriculum and adopting new curriculum. And what was was really cool, I think also talking to a principal, secondary principal on a curriculum we haven't ever purchased as a district, how some of her staff
members are using AI to make sure what they have been teaching are meeting state standards, and when they're not, how they can fill in the gaps. There's really cool stuff that we can do and I think making it's that equity piece a little bit to what you're also speaking about because not everybody has cell phones or devices that they can plug that into. And how are we making sure that everybody has access, appropriate access, folks with disabilities that need the accommodations that AI can't provide? How are we looking at that? So I think this is a great landscape to start.
I like the fact that I appreciate the fact that it's anchored in our strategic plan. And it's not like this one shiny object that we're trying to get media attention on. It's like, how are we doing this with purpose in a way that's gonna improve outcomes for our students and support our staff? I really appreciate that, and thinking through what are the guardrails, the appropriate guardrails to help our staff help our kiddos. And I think a lot of it, for me, this is about our old conversations around digital literacy. Like, how can you consume information? Like, in teaching our kids how to do that. And as any tool, it's like when graphing calculators became popular or the Internet became
a thing. It's like I didn't have Encyclopedia Britannica in my house growing up, so I got the last library book and my topic was always on whatever was available. But, you know, when Internet became more widely available, people were copying and pasting and using that as a as a tool. Now it's a little bit more efficient with chat, GPT, and other, you know, other, platforms. But how are we continuing to evolve? How are we adapting? What are the guardrails that are appropriate for our students and our staff are really where I am coming to this, and I really appreciate the that that is the approach of our staff because it is changing every day.
And it's hard to think to our board members' points, like, making a decision today, it will be obsolete two months from now because it is evolving so quickly. And so that measured approach, I think, feels right for now as we continue to evolve. And keeping at the center what we really value in this district is gonna help us navigate these waters a 100% with them. Oh. I I just wanna commend the board. You know, as I look at our team and the talents amongst the governance team, and I think, you know, we have higher ed, national policy, teaching, policy making, parents,
community members. We have a really, we're positioned really well, I think, to to do some really cool things on this as a team. And so I really appreciate our team, the governance team's, discussion and our staff's, participation in that. So just wanted to kinda I was just looking around. I was like, gosh, everybody here has this really great rich experience to bring to the table. So I just wanted to just commend everybody on that. As doctor Dela Cruz had mentioned previously, our approach to AI is enablement with guardrails.
We are not defaulting to blocking emerging technologies, we recognize the instruction instructional and operate operational potential AI offers. At the same time, we prioritize education ready enterprise supported platforms that provide stronger privacy protections and administrative oversight. For classroom reuse, we've approved a limited number of education focused platforms such as Magic School, Adobe Express, and Grammarly under structured conditions.
These tools support instruction, creativity, and writing with district managed environments. For operational productivity, we are currently conducting a limited pilot of Google Gemini within our Google Workspace for Education environment. This pilot allows us to evaluate potential productivity benefits while continuing to monitor privacy protections, governance controls, and practical use cases. While we have not formally adopted consumer grade AI platforms for student use, we have taken an approach of evaluating rather than immediately blocking.
However, as has already been discussed, when content safety concerns emerge within the consumer version of chat GPT, we restrict student access until we can ensure alignment with our safety standards. Ultimately, our goal is simple, expand access where educational value exists and intervene when student safety thresholds have been crossed. We believe students should learn to navigate AI responsibly, not be shielded from it entirely,
but that learning must occur in a protected environment. So this gets to your question about how many teachers are using it and how they're using it. If you look at this dataset, I think I pulled this a week or two ago. When we started, we had let's see. We had, a thousand teachers using it when we first started in the first, four
or five months, and we had just over 18,000 generations of, items. I've been in EdTech a long time, probably a dozen years. I've never seen a tool, take off like this with as little guidance around it. You know, we had a couple days, a couple sessions of recorded PD that teachers could take a look at, but for the most part, this was organic growth.
I've never seen anything like this. I also just want to point out, the graph shows that there's different types of tools in Magic School. Some are efficiency tools for teachers, some are creation tools for teachers same with them same with students. But we really had, a variety of different types of tools being used. I know, I love it. We can go to the next slide. So I thought it might be really interesting to take a deeper dive into some of the things that teachers are doing with Magic School that also, align to our
strategic plan. If you go to the next slide, please. Thank you. So when we're talking about no limits for our students, here these are actual prompts that I pulled out of Magic School, that students wrote. So, the first one, was a middle school science class and the teacher had allowed the idea generator for students to help them brainstorm some ideas around a science fair project. And so this is the prompt that the student used.
There there are two prompts that are there. In high school, this would be, a study bot that a teacher created basically just linking the curriculum from unit one into a chat bot and then the students are asking for study questions. So here are some examples from Next Best Step. One of our teachers submitted this idea to to AIeas, the one on the left, for tiered prompts. She you can see see that she had, ski level ski run signs for the
different prompts. So all the prompts were available to the kids, but they could choose their level of difficulty, according to the prompts in her math lesson. She submitted this to to a ideas and I, I mean, just incidentally, some teachers have said how much they appreciated this. They like the ski run idea and they like the idea of creating the level prompt prompts but that students can choose their own path. And then the other idea, this is from elementary school where the teacher was showing
others how they can create level texts, because that's something that, in adoptions that's a big ask of our curriculum vendors to how do we level our techs for our students for differentiation. And now we don't have to ask our vendors to do that because, this tool can do it. Leveling text making Oh, thank you. Yep. Leveling text making, text available at the particular reading level of the of the students. So whether they're at grade level, above or below, we wanna be able to make
the, access point, approachable for every kid. And then here you can see in Define the Destination I've been working with the principal at Apex a lot. With AI, many of those teachers over there are not teachers by trade or by training, but they are teachers within their trades. So showing them and teaching them how to use EdTech is new for many of them, but they're really interested in making sure that they're using AI because they know
their industries are using AI. So we want to make sure that we're keeping up with that. With some of the new programming that's going to be happening at Apex next year, especially in computer science, AI needs to be included. So the course that we have slated is, creative computing, will be one of the courses offered at Apex, which could include, I mean, I have my eye on an AI curriculum for developing AI code. It just depends on the the teacher who we end up hiring.
So it's entirely possible there will be an AI class, but we just don't know. And then as we're talking about being valued and included I wanted to point out that even if our teachers are not exactly sure how to do that, Magic School has a number of tools to help guide them and help brainstorm with teachers to make sure that all of their students are being valued and included. So you'll see some of these on the side. I'm really interested in the top two and the, common misconceptions tools, where a teacher
can enter a prompt about what they're teaching at the grade level and then it will generate a social story. And you can put in more items around the social story so you can kind of give it context like we're in Boulder, Colorado my classroom is made up of these types of students, these are their interests and a story will be created to capture the kids based on their interests or based on the classroom makeup.
So, it makes it ends up making things relevant which is another tool, where you can help where AI can help teachers brainstorm that kind of introduction or, personal connections with with kids that they might not actually know about. I think it's really helpful, in that instance. And then the common misconceptions I think can point to, just some cultural blind spots that we sometimes have as classroom teachers. I think back to some of the lessons that I've taught and I it's a
little cringey at times, but, you know I think if I had had a tool like this and I could have thought through some of those items I would have it would have just been more comfortable and I wouldn't be remembering them right now in this board meeting. So that's, some of the tools that are available in Magic School. They add new tools all the time, and it's just grown exponentially. It's really, really cool what they're doing with that. And then I wanted to put this in because this is from a seventh grade teacher.
He's a real, AI champion. But he had all of his kids write songs using the songwriting generator. And then they, talking about their seventh grade experience, so this was last spring, and then it generated the songs and then the kids had to sing the songs as karaoke to each other about their memories from seventh grade. And I just thought it was so charming. So funny. So anyway, another aspect of magic school that I think is really aspect of Magic
School that I think is really, important for for the work we do is we can create tools. So because I'm the administrator of Magic School I can create enterprise tools for our district. So for example, I just want you to know I tried to make a board tool, for you, yesterday and it turns out I have to, I have to download all of the board documents first so I just kind of ran out of time. But, I can do that for you if you'd like. But, I've been able to make a couple of really useful tools that, have been
requested by schools or different departments. So for example, one of the new social studies standards that came out two years ago is, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Every social studies course should, if it's appropriate, talk about, holocaust or genocide, that pertains to whatever the students are studying in that class. And it was really easy for teachers to be like, yep, you got it. I do Anne Frank, I've got the Holocaust, I do World War Two and it's
like well there's there's more. So we wanna make sure that our kids are getting a really well rounded education according to state guidelines, for each grade level where social studies is taught. So, because CDE published a very specific guideline, we're able to turn that into an AI tool. So now a sixth grade teacher can type in I'm teaching, about China next week. What should I talk about in terms of holocaust genocide, and it will bring up
the lesson plans that are appropriate for sixth grade that are touched on in the guidance by the state and give that teacher an idea of that what needs to be taught or a complete lesson plan if needed based on the guidelines from the state. Another example is, our SPED department came to me telling me how much time it takes to review IEPs. Now, I just want to be really really clear I'm saying this into the microphone. We do not have AI writing IEPs. Those are written by people. They are written by our special educators.
However, we wanna make sure that they are accurate and they are meeting all of the requirements that we have in They have a rubric though that they use to compare the IEPs. So, They have a rubric though that they use to compare the IEPs. So I created a tool that compares an IEP that's been written to the rubric and gives, it just, you know, scans it for those elements and makes sure that
all the elements are there. If not, it gives the suggestions for improvement and, right now the review team in the SPED department is testing the tool. Once the tool has been thoroughly tested and vetted and we know that it's accurate, we'll make it public for the teachers so that when they are writing their IEPs they can insert their IEP into the tool for review before they even turn it in to make sure it has all the elements that are required. So it will help them be more accurate at from at the beginning.
A tool that I'm working on right now is for middle school science. We have a number of middle school science teachers using a program out of CU called Open SciEd. There are unit documents for all of those, and right now it just takes a long time for a teacher to go through, download all the documents, parse through everything to figure out what they need for teaching and learning. So I'm gonna create a tool for them to to use so that they can find all that information a lot more quickly and provide some guidance.
So I can I can match it to, grade level expectations from BVSD also to our priority standards so that our teachers don't have to figure that out for themselves, that it just takes all of that information and creates that pathway for the teachers to use? I'm really open to teachers asking for custom tools, if they don't know how to make them themselves. I'm happy to do that for any teacher or any group of students.
It's really it's a pretty cool way that I can, manipulate and personalize Magic School for our district. Lynn, I was wondering or staff, some of the people watching this meeting today or even serving the board were not here in 2024 when we first did a thorough dive into what is magic school. And so I was wondering if you could we could get a high level view of how, like, magic school itself, how input what kind of information is in there? How are we does that make sense in that system?
So then it Mhmm. Close versus open. Just a higher level of what what information is inputted into magic school and how does that happen to ensure we're having some of our checks and balances for our students. Sure. Do you mean, like, the data retention or do you mean, like, how students are using it? Content and, like, how do how do, you know, like, the standards and all the that stuff. Do you want me to demo? Would that be helpful or no? I can just describe it. Okay. So Magic School uses something that is like a an emerging acronym, ZDR, Zero Data
Retention, meaning they're they don't keep any of our data. Our data is contained. That's what the enterprise model does. So something goes in, the generation is created, and it's created within our instance. There's no one else can access what we do. To be perfectly honest, I think I'm the only person in the district who can access what's actually happening in every classroom, across the district. Pretty sure that's true. So like I can see what kids are are writing, I can see what teachers
are prompting, but I don't think anyone else can. It's it's a I'm drunk with power. But, the basically a teacher can use any of the teacher tools at any time and create generations. They have a tile in their SSO. All of you on the board have the tile as well. You can go in there and type in whatever you want. Choose a tool and you add the grade level, you add your prompt, it can be two words, it can be one word, or it can be very extensive instructions,
either way works. And then something is generated. For our students, they do not have a tile and they do not have direct access. The teacher goes into something called Magic Student which is the student side. They have a similar suite of tools, not all the same but a similar suite, and the teacher can decide what tool should be used for that particular learning experience. So for say a writing, a writing lesson plan the teacher might put in idea
generator, sentence starter, and writing feedback, and those are the three tools that the kids are going to be allowed to use for that lesson. The teacher can then go over with the students these are the three tools you're allowed, here's why I'm allowing them, how might you use these, what do you think, you know, whatever kind of dialogue they wanna have. And then the teacher creates a room. And then, URL is generated. The the kids join the room. They can join it in a variety of ways through you don't need to know
that part. And then they're in this room. That room is then moderated by the teacher. So if a kid is messing around and puts something inappropriate in, it's immediately flagged. The teacher gets notified and can have a conversation. But the teacher can see all of the inputs that the that the students use and all of the outputs that are generated by Magic School. When the class is over they close the room, that lesson is done, the students don't have access anymore. A new thing since the last time I talked to you about this, one of
the complaints about Magic School was well what if the kids are still working and we you know they don't have access anymore, class is over. The teacher can keep the room open now so that the kids can get back to their generations, they can get back to what they've created and they can continue to work, but the teacher still has that insight. So I've seen cases where students will use the writing feedback tool and then they will ask the prompt how can I make my introduction more engaging? Or how could I reduce, the length of my third paragraph to be more concise?
It's not writing for them. It's helping them with their writing. The student knows what question to ask but might not know how to get there, and I think that that's pretty compelling. Thanks. I I know you presented on Magic School of Us, but it was helpful to get even though I was here, to get kind of, like, how it works. But I guess, just a kind of practical question. How what would prevent, or I I guess, maybe nothing a student from opening up a new tab and then opening up Claude, Anthropic, any other AI tool? In our district right now, Frank, would you?
To be honest, nothing. Okay. You know, we those LLMs remain available to students Except at DPD. With the exception of now we're talking consumer grade. Consumer grade access to the other LLMs remain open. Okay. Is is it just as a follow-up, is it is our goal to kind of funnel all AI work to Magic School Bus? Is that, like, is that a best practice among districts, or do we still is this just one are we considering this one of many tools that teachers and students
can use? Because it sounds like, you know, we have so many more controls. You have so many more, you know, ability to kind of structure how students use it while still being able to use to take advantage of it. So I guess, yeah, the question is, what is what is considered best practice to funnel, students and teachers into one particular platform or to just have better guardrails in place for the commercial versions? A minute. Thanks, Frank. Magic School. I just I I don't think it's realistic to to say you can only use
Magic School, you'll never use anything else. Because, you know, to the access to personal devices, the access to the Internet at home, phones, all of those things, I just don't think it's a realistic approach to say only use magic school. But I would what I will say, I like a few things, very much about magic school. You know, if if we can direct kids to the types of prompts and the types of ways to use that and have them practice and use that, as opposed to just giving them a blank kind of window and type in whatever you want
with no direction. I actually think that kids are learning AI skills every time that that teachers help shape the AI experience for kids. And I think that that's important because if they know sentence starter is an appropriate use, right, of of AI versus write this this paper for me. Right? The sentence starter might get them pass the play the pace, the place they really struggle with, so then they're happy and free to write. I I will say that from from our educator standpoint, magic school is the tool.
Right? And I also, you know, into the extent that even if you were to lock things down deeper than we have, I don't think that you lock kids or their families out of these other tools, and these are are a reality. You know Magic School is is a Boulder based company, and Denver based. I think they have offices here in Boulder. The largest program of its type in from a use perspective in the country. And I do appreciate how they're continuing to evolve with the market. I think that, you know, I was at a recent conference and had a chance
to talk to some folks at Magic School and the question I asked is how are you going to keep up? Like, how are you going to stay competitive? And so, they they have really really good answers. They're working on some tools now on the operational side as well for school districts. But when we started in 2024, the we were we were on the path to build our own magic school, but would have wouldn't have and and that's how we ended up with magic schools. Is that right, Lynn? Where we were looking for enterprise solutions, where we built our own Frank, I think you called it our walled garden, where our data wouldn't be able to come out
and we'd be able to set some of the parameters. And, and and that's how we ended on magic, magic school. But, you know, to the extent that, you know, to Frank's, you know, the point, you know, we haven't locked our systems down entirely around these other tools. But as a teacher, when because it's it's through ClassLink, our SSO is our single sign on. Right? So just an acronym kind of definition. Teachers can know and measure and monitor what kids are using and what kids aren't
using and how they're using it. So, to the extent a kid goes on Claude or something else and tries to do the same work that they should have done in magic school, the teacher theoretically would be able to see that they didn't do that. But you know it's, you know, one of the challenges is is that, you know, keeping your arms in in control over these things can be really, really tricky. Now as a district, we could lock everything down, but we're not really locking it down to Nicole's point earlier. Like if your family has access and you have a personal computer that can access these things, when you lock it down, you just lock it down for the kids
who don't have access to those programs outside of school. And so some of the equity work around, you know, our one to web program and making sure all kids have have technology, the more you lock things down, it really can become an equity issue as well. Jason can wrap up and then Alex. This is more you know, it's a kind of follow-up on the chat g p t thing and locking down, and I don't know if that's the right place here. But so, do you I guess, Frankie and the team, do you have you know, the decision was made on chat g p t that it was, you know, inappropriate for this network or for the internal network.
Do you have confidence that the other platforms that kids have access to have the same protections that you were concerned about with chat GPT? Currently, I do believe that they are, working to limit the adult content on their sites, especially Claude in particular. Now when we start talking about the difference between enterprise grade versus consumer grade, this is kind of where we get into a conundrum. When we're consumer grade, it's, you know, it's the wild, wild west.
Okay? Within within enterprise grade, access to these tools is where where we could if we adopted a an enterprise platform, provide more control. But these enterprise platforms are first firstly, very expensive. And second, if you really dig into the terms and conditions of these platforms, they
tell you that these platforms actually shouldn't be used by a student under the age of 18. Their educational offerings are aimed squarely at higher education. For instance, if we wanted to go directly to chat or OpenAI for an enterprise level, of chat GPT, GPT. That platform is aimed squarely at higher ed, not k 12. The mad the magic school, by the way, by the technical perspective, is ChatGPT on
the back end with a fancy front end that contains all of our data and all of the guardrails. So we're we're really in a bit of a a conundrum when it comes to k 12 focused enterprise platforms. There's only just a few, Max at School being one. Another is called school.ai, and I believe there's another one. But by and large, there's only, like, three enterprise grade platforms that is aimed at
k 12. And all of the, legal requirements staying in compliance with the various, federal and state laws and regulations. So that we're we're really in kind of a a tight position there where magic school is probably right now our best option for a k 12 enterprise platform. May I? Yeah. Lynn can and, add in and Alex.
Thank you. I think that it's I think that in in addition to what Frank just, said that what's important with magic school is that the teacher is controlling the access for kids, so it gives us that opportunity to teach, AI skills, AI competencies, and ethical use of AI. So when a teacher, chooses to use Magic School, that is just sort of embedded in the lesson, which I which was something I was looking for when we were looking at different platforms.
I wanted to make sure that when we started working with AI that there was an opportunity for that ethical education at the same time. We also have teachers who aren't using Magic School. And so we do, you know, so there are kids out there who are using these different platforms, and learning those competencies hopefully on their own. The Internet's a noisy place. So, if we can help kids focus, reduce some of that noise by giving them
the guidance, especially at our younger grades, I really appreciate that part about Magic School. I I find this all really fascinating, and I'm learning a lot. So I'm grateful to the staff for, curating our understanding of something so complex. So I really appreciate that. I just, I guess I have one. I continue to think about control and being humble about what we control. We control enterprise systems for sure, and we control a lot of what happens within our doors. But I can tell you personally, best practice includes not vaping, putting your cell phone
away in high school, not being on social media when you're 11. So there are all these endemic things in our society and in our schools that we do not control satisfactorily. And so if we think we are controlling it, we are actually, at more at risk than if we are humble about our inability to control it. And I will add, when we think about the equity of access to machines, we give everybody a machine. And then when we were talking about the cell phone policy, I was educated that low income families are more likely to have their kids have a smartphone earlier than middle class and more affluent families.
So the idea that they're not accessing all the consumer grade stuff is total pipe dream. And that that's something our educators on our system must be robust to, not, you know, creating a guard wall to assume we've fixed it. We need just like we need to implement a cell phone policy in some of our high schools. It's ongoing work that we'll always be doing as far as I can tell. So I just wanna put that out there that the appearance of control or the pursuit of control over understanding of the robustness of the environment could be counterproductive.
And then another piece for me is that the like I work with EdTech companies in my day job, and a bunch of them have stopped using AI as a descriptor of what they do because it's not an optional thing. There is no EdTech that doesn't use AI. Anybody who's got something they're trying to sell nationally has AI behind the scenes. Almost everybody that, like Magic School, is doing the feature for education something, they are sending their data to the big LLMs like Magic School. Like most of it is just a portal by which someone is telling you, hopefully
it's true, about how they're using the LLM for you. And then finally I just feel like the like in my work I'm getting people instead of thinking about which tool to purchase or which portal to purchase, is training them how to create their own custom GPTs. Right? So Lynn shouldn't be the one that has to do this when we have 4,000 adults working here. Right? So probably 3,000 of the 4,000 should know how to create a custom GPT pretty soon or the analog of it. And it gets easier and easier to do. So once again, I feel like we're kind of treating this as a procurement problem,
when in fact it is an ecosystem development. And so I'm I'm concerned that we would act as if we have some control over what people are doing for the eighteen hours a day they're not in our schools or even for the six hours they are there. So that's where I'm like, oh, I'm so excited about the good stuff, and I feel like our focus on our procurement is actually counterproductive to what will be happening in the next few years. Frank, and then Jorge, and then Eleni, I'm gonna check on you to see if there's anything you wanna chime in and add.
Board member Medler, I I appreciate your comments because you're absolutely spot on. While we have to, make our best effort in controlling our environment, we make no mistake and, our students will our students are very bright, very intelligent. Anything that we put on our devices that we think is gonna block, access to, a particular site or application, they will find a way around it.
No doubt. We fight this battle every day. Our security team is engaged in this fight on a daily basis. So you're absolutely spot on, why we have to make our best effort to be able to stay in compliance with with federal law. It's a battle every day. And our students are very bright, and they will work around any any blocks that we may put forward.
Thank you. I recognize that it's out there, and students can access it, and we can't control the data outside the classroom. That doesn't necessarily mean that we need to allow it or facilitate it with our Chromebooks and in the system and in the schools. And so I'm I'm kinda torn about our ability. I recognize, you know, we can enforce everywhere at all times and catch everybody, but that doesn't mean we have to make it easy either. And I'm concerned about things like Claude and and and other, AI that have no guardrails being easily accessible and for students to just have the run of it with
the Chromebooks that we're providing and with the access that we're allowing. Yes, kids are on their cell phones. I can't even say one because they're always on the cell phone. Right? But we still try to limit it in in the classroom and in the school. Right? And so I'm I'm I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to try to have some of those limits within our Chromebooks and our schools for those external things so that we can use the tools that we provide to provide ethical guidelines and appropriate ways to use that. So that's one part of it. The other part is is, as as Alex kinda mentioned. And what my question earlier was about, oh, we started PD in 2023, and we
kinda kept going as involved to kind of, whoever's interested. But, have we moved towards more thinking about more pediatricities to think about how it's not just informally you're gonna do this, but, hey, if you're interested, let's provide some in terms of how you create these, different tools for yourself. How do you do this? Like, you know, do we see ourselves moving in that direction now? Is it already happening? Just is what what does that look like now in addition to the kind of the groups that are, informally coming together? I'd say a few things. You know, taking other LLMs and blocking them.
Right? So, you know, you would prevent, a good majority of students from them. There's going to be students that are gonna figure out workarounds at Frank's point. I wouldn't say it's the majority of students. I would say there would be some students that would figure that out. I think that that's a choice that we we have yet to make, but, you know, based on this conversation, we certainly could consider if you were to to take and limit those things. Now, Alex's point is is right, to an extent. And I think your point's right, Jorge. To, it's one thing if a parent provides a device to their kid, I'd monitor
what they were doing, and I would be, you know, as a parent get involved. And parents have the right to to to manage that in any ways that they feel is right. But when we give somebody a tool, right, and say, Hey, here's your tool from us. Now I would say with GoGuardian, parents do have the ability to go in through GoGuardian and request certain sites to be blocked. Right? And so parents do have some controls over what the device is used for when they get home, Right? Through GoGuardian, which is is our software that we use to kind of to kind of control that.
So the question would be, do you allow parents to do you empower parents to decide what their kids should and shouldn't access, or do we say this is what we're going to allow access on our devices? I think, that is the decision that we have yet to make, but it's a decision that we could make. But to be clear for parents, anybody watching, if you're starting to, you know, I don't want my kid accessing these these types of things. Right? There's a process. They would call our IT help desk and, and parents would we would be able to walk them through how to make sure that we locked locked locked those their
devices at their homes out of the programs that they would want their kids to to to see. And can individual schools themselves just make some decisions on what's allowed at their site, through GoGuardian too? It doesn't have to just be the parents, but the schools can say, as a school, we're not going to allow x y z. Yeah. They can. Individual teachers can make that call as well. It's really up to the practitioner. I would be really excited to, continue doing some PD series if our PD time
allows for that. I would be very excited to to do more work with that for those teachers who don't know how to create a chatbot in magic school cause there are some that absolutely do. I don't have to hold their hand which is great for me. But yeah, I and I think that this, I think that the approach that we have taken has been really as I watch the the kind of changing landscape around AI, I think it's been really smart, where we are watching and learning from what
other districts are doing and successes they've had and pitfalls they've fallen into. Hello LA. I You know, I think that we are taking this kind of measured approach has been really smart for us and really only addressing blocking something when it is a danger to the students that we cannot manage. We just we cannot manage what ChatGPT is doing with their free accounts. So or we couldn't and now we can because it's blocked on our network and
our devices. If any of these other companies went in that direction, we would also I mean, I'm not saying for sure, but we would probably block those as well. It's the fact that they're not doing those kind of endangerment type choices that makes it feel okay for now. Clearly, it's above my pay grade. And I think that makes sense. And and for me and I think the cell phone is an interesting analogy. Like, we can never control I mean, in this tech landscape, the idea that we
have full control is not a reality. And, yes, and it's how can we compel our students to make thoughtful decisions and compel them to use the tools that might be most reliable? It's like, you know, there are some great sources of reliable, unbiased information out there that a person can access, and then there's some really terrible sources of information that are flawed, not fact based. And so, like, compelling the use of something like magic school, which we can align to the Colorado State standards, which we can put in factual information, which, you know,
removes some of those concerns versus, like, trying to think we're preventing and controlling something else. And that's like with the cell phones. If we can compel them not to use them in the schools that have been successful with alternatives, you know, it's been generally more well received than the than when we just try to kind of come down with a illusion of control. So, like, how can we compel appropriate use from our students, thoughtful use so you are learning along the way is, I think, something that I continue to think about,
in this discussion. Lalania, is there anything that you wanted to add or ask? Well, as a technology laggard, I would appreciate, finding ways to have more education opportunities on this, maybe through parent engagement network or continued PD opportunities, just because there are I'm I'm not alone in in feeling like a laggard on this particular issue. Thanks, Elania. Diane and then Alex.
My question is a little bit off topic, but, perhaps related also. I did a really quick search on our, our the curriculum that we offer, and I didn't see, a class about AI except for pretty advanced computer science topics. Is that in the works? Is someone someone coming up with a course? And I know a little bit about this because at my private school yesterday, we had a student who enrolled just for the last term so they could take our
AI class and count that as their tech, credit. So I hope that's in there works as some general overview of what AI is, how to use the different tools, and, just as an introduction class. Yeah. Yeah. We are developing, a course right now with a computer science teacher at Fairview. I'm working with him to develop that. There's also the opportunity at Apex for development of AI. But if you're speaking more about learning about what AI is and how it works.
That's not something that we have as a standalone, but we're working with some of the middle school teachers, around their design tech classes and their computer power classes to provide them some unit knowledge around how to teach about some of these ideas. So coming next year. Yeah. I, I do appreciate the both the idea of specialized, you know, coursework, but also the integration into the other courses just to understand how to use the tools.
I guess, I would make one observation too about how we control things. I would say that the process from, someone bringing a policy to us at the board or us bringing up an issue, discussing it, having the policy come back, redline it, approve it, the administration now starts implementing it. It's kinda like a twenty four month timeline before someone in a school has to do something this board thinks they should do. And even then, that's an iffy proposition, appropriately so. So, like, twenty four months ago, when you were trying to do statistical analysis in
Claude, you would ask it to create code in Python that you then had to plug into a software application to run it with the data that you had and a $1,500 piece of software somewhere else in order to generate the analysis. Now you upload the data and you ask it to the analysis and the product comes out right away. So, like, the the the practices of the AIs are developing much faster than our policy to on the ground change timelines, which is another piece of my humility about this. So, like, we can be thinking, oh, we need to do this to control it
when the stuff behind the scenes, the infrastructure is just developing so much faster. And so you don't need to know how to do Python coding anymore. You don't actually need to know how to do any coding anymore for a lot of what would have taken advanced degrees in coding three years ago. Right? So that's the kind of thing where sometimes I think we're playing catch up with how we control. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. And the second part for me is on the the parental engagement because I totally agree that we need to empower our parents, same way we empower our excellent teachers,
and eventually empower the students. Right? So I just think that parental engagement is key, but also parental choice. So we're gonna have parents who want as little tech as possible touching their kid as long as possible. And we're gonna have parents who want as much tech and empowering their kids to be smart users of tech to prepare them for the future. And this, you know, we have a third to 40% of our parents exercising choice just which school to attend. So at some degree, I think we also need to accommodate parental variation on this, the same way we accommodate, teacher variation on this.
And understand that some parents are gonna want much more, much less than others. And that I mostly, I hear we're always telling people they can use GoGuardian, but I don't think many parents do and haven't yet. So I'm really curious to know what that what those numbers actually are and what it would take for us to empower more to do it. Anyways, I wanna accommodate choice by the parents. I wanna think about how our schools what could they can be different about and what they all need to be the same about. And then I want us, again, to be humble about our timelines and how our speed of action is not keeping up with Silicon Valley.
Lynn, could you talk a little bit about the parent use of GoGuardian and how that works? Sure. So at this point every parent, has the opportunity to use GoGuardian Parent. Basically it works outside of school hours. It's an app on your phone. The parent has the opportunity to type in different URLs that could be blocked for students, outside of school. They can do like I'll make sure you have the directions. But, they can time out Internet so they could actually shut the Internet off of
the device. At a certain time they could set a schedule for Internet use outside of school. They can see different usage data. So we have, the reason I know about this is because I've been doing some talks at different middle schools, elementary schools and so when when families are interested they sometimes they fill out a form, sometimes they just contact me directly, but I just have a set of instructions that I send out to those families just to here's how you get the app, here's how you use it. It's not hard.
But everyone every parent is aligned to their students. It's available for everyone is the is the point. Oh. And can you speak to what the numbers are for usage? No. But I can pull it up if you'd like. Any parent will has access to GoGuardian. All they have to do is contact our service desk. Our security team will reach out directly to any parent who's interested in GoGuardian, and we can walk them through the process. If I could follow-up on that, I think this is another area for, Randy's excellent
team to consider how we promote access to it, via the website or other whatever our dissemination vehicles are. And I'm sure we already are, but I hear from more parents about, well, they wish they could do something that they clearly can do if we could get them there. Yeah. I I think it's an appropriate follow-up follow-up to this work session to create a communications plan to to inform our parents of the tools that that we have purchased and that they have access to, to be able to make sure that that the the use the the use of our our Chromebooks, is governed by something that they
have control over after hours. And so I I think that that's that's a definite takeaway from today. Is that a oh. Do you have the number that I'm gonna give you a line? Well, I wanted to talk about the the first, piece that you were talking about about the courses and embedding, AI. And I think that that's where our value add for teaching and learning really, comes to fruition. I know it's exciting to think about AI as something really special and unique, to be managed, to be feared, to be used, to be empowered.
In my mind, as someone who, you know, studies this I mean I considered myself a an instructional technologist for a long time. I see this as another tool, a very powerful tool, but it's not a pedagogy. It's not the way we do school. It's a value add to school. And so the teach And learning around harnessing that powerful tool can and should be embedded in coursework. We do have a lot on our plates for our teachers here. We have a lot of new curriculum packages.
Some of those curriculum packages have an AI component and we evaluate that every time to make sure it's an actual value add and not just like a powerful search engine. So when we're talking about what we want our students to walk away from BVSD in terms of AI, with what skills and competencies, it's around being comfortable with tools like this because it will be in their professions. It's about creating intelligent and practical, and new content.
It's not about doing your homework for you. It's not about writing the essay for you. And so I I understand where you're coming from with talking about management and parameters, but the unfortunate truth of it is we have to have some talk about that. But I don't know that putting it as board purview, as policy is gonna be the most efficient and effective way that we go about this.
I think working with the academics team, I think working with, IT, I think working with instructional personnel, that's where we're going to be able to harness this a little bit more. And coming up with those classes. I'm interested in our teachers proposing courses. I can write courses all day about how I would teach this but I'm not gonna be the teacher. So, how do we inspire those teachers to come up with those courses? How do we ask kids to come up with what they wanna learn about?
That's where I think our board can really influence, our practice around this. I I did say that was going to be the last question before we move on. I'm trying to keep a mind on the clock. So if you can hold that last question or burning thought, Alex, to our final, final section on questions. Yep. As you all know, we lead all the academic content curriculum that Lynn was just mentioning and student service programming inside a school. And as doctor Anderson mentioned, our goal is in academics for the future is to leverage AI as a competency for student learning, which Lynn just provided us an amazing,
lead in, and start bridging the work that Lynn has led with tech in connection to curricular resources and content. In our role as an academics department, as you know, we lead adoptions, curricular resources, as well as support schools with implementation, with tools, with resources, and the components of teaching and learning. So we need to start considering both our current opportunities to embed AI and future possible out opportunities to reimagine the student experience, not only with course offerings, but also
within the curriculum that we have. So in full transparency, we have not started that work. We have been very deep over the last few years with adopting curriculum and assessments and implementing those with fidelity. And so have not worked with our directors yet on how do we integrate these tools into the curricular resources that we have. So our academic considerations under curricular resources, as I mentioned, is to consider the amount of curriculum adoption. Adoption. So we're finishing up with elementary, but we'll be moving into our intermediates.
Right? And so we need to think about timing. President Rajpal was with us last night and has heard many stories around the overwhelm that our elementary teachers are feeling with curriculum implementation. And so we just need to be mindful on that and think about the integration. Our team needs to evaluate what's available in our current resources, as Lynn just mentioned, and then what are the possibilities moving forward. We need to learn, the teaching and learning best practices. So in order for us to expand that, we need to provide and ex provide
student learning experiences that are engaging and meaningful with AI. Lynn gave some great examples. We've Emma and I have started doing some of our own research as well, but things that you talked about, board member Medler, around providing student experiences. So simulations of like a chemistry lab with chemicals that students may not be able to have in the classroom. Those are the types of things we need to think about within the curricular content that we have. And then as many of you have also mentioned, we it is essential for our academics team to engage in learning of their own.
Right? So we have not had an ask of our directors to have a proficient understanding of AI in order to make the connections to the curricular resources. They have been purely focused on being very well versed in the adoptions that they are leading and they're supporting in the schools. So we need to spend some time, which we're Emma and Robert here are taking notes on how we can do that and what that looks like for both of us, as well as for our content directors. And then we need to find the opportunities for the professional learning.
As you all know, with a very limited professional learning calendar, we are going to have to think about how we integrate that into the time slots that they already have, learning the curricular resource. So that's where we are. We've we're starting to have conversations. We have some good models now that we're using with implementation, of new curriculum. Like, we have math leads in schools that are helping us with a team of two for 56 schools, that's not a lot of people to lead that type of thing. So we have leveraged our teacher leaders to help us do that, and that's a
model that has really worked for us with this math implementation. And so something we've started to just grapple with ourselves in curricular resources and how do we take and partner with Lynn and some of the work that they've done so that we can start to get more more connected in schools, but in connection to the resources that they have. And so with that, I'm gonna pass it over opportunities for our teacher use.
And I'm gonna try to not just say everything that's already been said by various people at this table, but maybe it'll be a nice summary. So when we think about systematically embedding AI use in instruction, as doctor Miller said, we're considering both current opportunities and future possible opportunities. So in connection with what doc director Gershman and doctor Miller shared and building on director Gershman's previous experiences and examples, we wanna give some ways we're thinking about how we could use teacher AI use going forward in a more embedded connected way with our curriculum and instructional resources. So first, in talking about the strategic plan, we, have some opportunities to be even
more systematic in how we, align instruction with our strategic plan initiatives using AI. So for example, Webb's DOK is a strategic initiative we've talked a lot about and who is doing the cognitive lift of the lesson as part of No Limits. You can, and as director Gershwin shared, some teachers already have, use magic school or other platforms to plan for how to increase the cognitive lift with tasks, questions, or unit planning overall, as long as it's used strategically. So really starting to think about where might we embed those in opportunities we already
have with our professional learning. Second and related, as director Grishman shared, we can use AI to design and differentiate instruction meaningfully for all students by using AI to help teachers plan for lessons and units that include certain components and have built in adjusted tasks and questions. We know the school day is short. We know that in a classroom, there's a variety of need, and we know that the planning lift to do that well is tremendous. I would say particularly at elementary when you have forty five minutes of plan time and about six preps. So really getting clear on how you can use AI as a planning tool is
a place we could go, and it requires that our teachers deeply know and understand the standards and our resource to be able to use it well, which is what doctor Miller was talking about with just the various demands on time. Third, AI can be used to enhance student feedback. There are ways to use Magic School so that it reviews student work similar to what director Gershman shared about IEPs and then provide suggested comments for feedback that a teacher could use, incorporate, or edit as a jumping off point either in general or based on a specific task or look for. And then fourth, teachers can use AI generated work like summaries of a topic as
part of their instruction to ensure we're supporting students to be critical consumers of AI generated information in their environment. I think several people brought up, like, the smart usage of AI, and so really leveraging it as a as a tool for instruction in a variety of ways. We know that these examples are already happening in pockets. And as we've said, what we just what we haven't done is embedding these sorts of examples strategically and systematically into our professional learning or require that they be used in a certain way. And as doctor Miller shared, this is for a reason.
We have a lot of current initiatives, and we're trying to be mindful of the pace and cadence and priorities so that when we do this, the foundation is laid so that it's incorporated well. That being said, as we look to next year and beyond, we know we have work to do and we also need to make sure that we continue to prioritize that deep understanding of standards and our existing resources to build on. On both this slide and the last slide, as an academics team, we did mention that we have to think about both our current opportunities and future possible opportunities. And within those future possible opportunities something we've been thinking about and talking about, and
potentially need to be planning for are secondary courses where the course is designed around AI as a core tenant, which would be reimagining our current instructional reality versus retrofitting AI features into the way we currently do business when it comes to instruction. So I think as doctor Miller shared, like, some of it is also defining as an academic team, as a district, how and where do we wanna use AI, in which ways, in which content areas, with which grade brand, and then that would inform how we lead our professional learning and provide that targeted support across our district.
So AI as a core competency, we we're thinking about that in myriad ways and what that might look like. So as we move forward, our work with AI will continue to evolve. One of our leading priorities is continuously evaluating emerging AI tools and capabilities. The technology landscape is changing very quickly, and we want to ensure that we are identifying opportunities that meaningfully support the district's strategic goals. We also expect to expand responsible use cases in both instructional and operational areas.
In the class room, that means supporting teaching and learning while operationally it includes productivity tools that will help staff be more work more efficiently with increased efficacy. At the same time, governance and safety remain central to our approach. Any new tools or capabilities will continue to be evaluated through our governance framework, privacy protections, and security review process. We will also ensure any AI implementations remain fully aligned with federal and state student
data protection requirements including FERPA, COPPA, CIPA, and Colorado student data privacy laws. And as the technology and regulatory landscape continues to evolve, we will update our guidance and district practices so our staff and students are supported in using these tools responsibly. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure BVSD students leave our schools prepared to use emerging technologies such as AI responsibly, ethically, and thoughtfully in the world they are entering.
And with that, thank you very much. And whatever other questions you may have. Thank you all for that very thorough presentation. I also wanna highlight I know we get a lot of feedback wonderings about staffing at the district level. The majority of our academics team is here with us today. So it is a small but mighty group of individuals who are tasked with not only thinking about how AI is integrated into our educational landscape, but everything else related to academics. So, thank you for your department for representing here, here today.
Board members, final questions on this topic before we take a short comfort break and move on with our agenda. Doctor. Anderson. I want to thank the team for doing a really good job, having a very honest conversation in public where we are, with AI. I think that our team was honest and this has been emerging and we're continuing to learn. And I think that, this conversation that we've had today, I think, will help shape, even further the next steps that that Frank had laid out. You know, the idea of communication, I think, is important.
The, what Nativity and Emma talked about on how do we begin to know and understand, intentionally, where do we begin to implement AI competencies into our curriculum? When is a grade level appropriate? What does that look like? You know, continuing to evolve our tools, and then continuing to to really wrestle with this question of less or more. Are we really in control even if we say we're in control? How do we inform parents so they know and understand to Lelaniya's point, what's actually happening, what's possible, what's not possible?
And so, as follow ups from this meeting, I think our team will convene and create kind of a roadmap that might move forward for us as a district that then we can bring back for the board to to to understand. This could obviously be something that's embedded in my goals for the next calendar year as we think about moving into, the 2627 school year as as as really beginning to move some of this work forward. Understanding, you know, how do we redeploy resources that currently exist, our declining enrollment reality
does not mean it's gonna mean less people at the central office, not more. And so how do we reconfigure and redeploy resources to be able to find the bandwidth? Like, Lynn can't be all AI for every person, every kid, every every employee in the district. She probably could, but I'd have to not the other things that she does that are really important, we'd have to find someone else to do. So, I think that there's a resource issue here as well. And in a time of declining resources, it's redeployment, not more. So, I think that this conversation for me was very helpful.
I think it was very helpful for our team, but happy to answer any other questions that you might have if you feel like anything that I shared with you, you'd want it to encompass even more than that. Jason and then Alex. I think it's doctor Anderson. I, yeah. This was a really great conversation. Appreciate all the work that went into this. You know, as you put together this road map, I guess, questions, comments, you know, I think, Lynn, you summarized it really well with kinda what our what, at least I think our vision should be of what what do we want kids to walk away with, you know, as well as they leave this district. And so maybe as we put together this road map, you know, that'll include some
kind of vision. And then a question about, you know, I think Alex has touched on this. Are we doing the right structure to be able to adapt to this, to be nimble and to be rec to provide recommendations? And so something I hope, you know, as we put this together, we'll think about that as well. Yeah. I just wanna reiterate how grateful I am for the very small team that we have to do such deep thinking and great work, and I can't imagine how Lynn does her job. But that's true for many of the central people at Boulder. And I know that it's like we deal with declining enrollment and basically a state fiscal crisis that that is not gonna get better.
And so I'm super sensitive to prioritization. This is yet one more thing where I think we need to act, and at the same time, job one is on the strategic plan on increasing students' learning and addressing achievement gaps and help preparing all our kids and protecting them in this environment. So my priorities haven't changed. I just am anxious about this one, derailing us at some level, and at the same time, failing to leverage it while we're being cautious. I will say one of the things, when technology is moving this fast, we should
be comfortable leapfrogging stages of development. Like, we don't have to track every stage because we can't change in four months what we're doing. So we can sort of anticipate that a year from now, it'll be significantly different and deal with that rather than trying to track everything every day. So I I'd encourage us to think, judiciously about when we when we wanna leapfrog and jump to where the technology is rather than trying to keep up with it the whole time. I also wanna say, we didn't really talk much about two things that I've always heard from professional educators, and that is dealing with the plagiarism and dealing with the
students' cognitive development and lift. So pedagogically, there are two really important things here that I'm sure our educators are dealing with every day and concerned about, about, which is where, I do think this is an issue that is part of teacher professionalism. And that we have wonderful teachers, and they're they're representative collectively about what they need, and we should hear a bit more from them. I know we do that through the team about their working with the teachers all the time, but I think collectively it might be helpful to hear what their day
to day concerns are and what would be most helpful to them. Because ultimately, with this small team, it will be teacher to teacher sort of support that leads to more change. And I just wanna make sure that we are providing the support that we can, while still keeping our eye on our biggest priorities. So I I feel for doctor Anderson and his team, and, I apologize for suggesting things that are not doable. But I do want us to think about when we decide what to do, that we're not constraining what we think is an option. And I'm as afraid of the risky things as anybody.
I just have been in a lot of professional discussion among professional educators and system leaders who lead with the fear. And I think that is alienating to the people who know how powerful it is, and gives an excuse for professionals in our field not to sort of get up to speed with what the issues are. So that's why I say don't always lead with the fear. Bring the fear and the power to the discussion while you're trying to empower people to manage it. Diane? I I spent most of my career dealing with, teaching educators about equity.
And one of the points that I wanna make is that the skills we're asking those teachers who are overloaded, those elementary school teachers that are trying to do all of that, the skills, they can teach with anything. So when you get your new social studies book, you can look at bias right there. You can look at whether, it's correct information. You can look at all of those skills, not ever touching a computer. And those are the skills that'll help make them better when they're actually using a computer and will help to, bring the curriculum to a richness that no matter how
many packaged curriculums you buy is not there without a teacher, implementing it. So I would just encourage us to look at all resources like we're looking at AI resources. Thank you again. Seeing as there are no further questions, we will take a five minute comfort break before we resume with the end rest of our agenda. Thank you, everybody. Like to call this meeting back to order. We will now move on to action items. We our first first action item today is employee benefits package for twenty twenty six,
twenty twenty seven. Is there a motion to approve? Moved by Jason. Is there a second? Seconded by Deanne. Board members, any discussion on this benefits package? Just wanna thank staff for putting this together. I know it takes a lot of time and year over year increases are a reality in a fiscally constrained environment. But seeing as there is no further discussion, Laura, can you please call the vote on the motion? Booker? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan Ueda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Ungar? Yes. Motion passes.
Next action item is resolution twenty six twenty six dash zero eight additional cash management for the state interest free loan program. Do I have a motion? Moved by Alex. Do I have a second? Seconded by Jorge. Board member, any discussion on this? As a reminder to our community, I would welcome mister Bill Sutter to explain why we participate in this and why there might be deviations from our original anticipated amount amount. Thanks. As a reminder or information for the community, in June of every year, the board
passes a resolution to participate in the interest free loan program. It's been around, I believe for decades, to provide cash flow, and a cash flow option to school districts, with a change in the fiscal year, to where property taxes are funding the current year, instead of the upcoming year. And so in June, we make some estimates based on projected assessed values, budget, cash
flows and adopt, the board adopts the borrowing limit, which was $100,000,000 for this current year, and this one is increasing it to $110,000,000 The last time we did this was in 2024, in January 2024, where we increased it by $15,000,000 from $90,000,000 to 105,000,000 So these are paid back in the current fiscal year.
It's not a long term borrowing like debt is. It's just for cash flow purposes. Thank you for that. I mean, just good to understand why we participate in this program. This program is exceedingly helpful to us and our ability to pay it off year over year is outstanding. So just freeing up a little bit more cash beyond what was originally anticipated. Any other questions or thoughts on this item or numbers? Seeing as there are none, Laura, can you please call the roll on the motion? Bucher? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan Ueda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Unger.
Yes. Motion passes. Our final action item today is Resolution 20 six-nine, read the authorization to sell general obligation debt. Do I have a motion? Moved by Jason, seconded by Jorge. Board members, any discussion on the selling of this next round of bond obligation? Jorge. More just a question of clarification in terms of what this actually authorizes. This is authorizing the potential to sell the next round, right, of some of this, not all of it necessarily. So the next round of bonds. Right? So it's the potential to sell not actually all the remaining bonds, but the potential
to do so. Correct. This was, authorized by the voters in 2022. We issued the first round in early, '23, and we've spent most of that down, and then this is the next round, there's a little bit remaining, from the authorization, that can be issued at a future date. So it's not selling the totality of what remains, a portion of what remains. And when how does it determine when we are going to sell that bond obligation? I think is we're we're not necessarily selling it today, but how do we decide
when we sell that debt obligation? Correct. There's there's, a very set schedule for it. We, the district performs a competitive sale for its general obligation debt. We've done so for twenty five years or more. And, the notice of sale will go out on Friday, and then the actual sale, happens on April 7.
And it's, it's an online platform that all the big banks have access to, and they'll put in a bid for, buying our geo debt. So this authorizes us to put out that notice of sale and have the sale on April 7. Any other questions, Jorge, before I go to Alex? Yeah. No. That's helpful. So then that is happening then April 7. Right? So, I'm just thinking in terms of our bonds. Right?
So, we're also discussing declining enrollment in that context. Right? We may not necessarily need to sell all the bonds. Correct? Correct. That line is this still allows us that flexibility down the line because there's still authorization is good for a year, and so if the decision was made at the next board meeting, the board could authorize to sell that additional amount at the next board meeting. It's just, it's not felt to be necessary right now. Alright. Thank you. And so I'm reading this right. We've got basically a 162,000,000 left, and we're selling a 112, leaving a $50,000,000 authorization
on the table that we could use at a later date. Yep. And then we'll be continuing to spend the 112 as per our current plan Master plan. And then the district will start spending pretty much once those bonds sell, we'll start the processes supported by that $112,000,000 Right? Correct. Thank you. And selling those bonds does not guarantee like that phase four. It doesn't mean we're committed to the phase four portion of our bonds. We're just bond construction work. It's just we're selling, releasing those bonds.
Yeah. Any other questions or further discussion, board members? Seeing as there are none, Laura, can you call the roll on the motion? Bucher? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medlar? Yes. Quinlan Uwaheda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Ungar? Yes. Motion passes. Next, we'll move on as indicated on our agenda this morning. The board has matters to con discuss in executive session. Do I have a motion? Alex. I, Alex Medler, make a motion to convene into executive session pursuant to CRS section 24 dash six dash four zero two paren four paren lowercase e paren I for
purposes of determining positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations and instructing negotiators regarding agreements with the Boulder Valley Classified Employees Association, BBCEA, regarding the community liaisons pursuant to CRS section 20 four-six-four zero two(four) for purposes of developing the strategy of the school district for negotiations related to collective bargaining with BVCEA regarding the community liaisons and pursuant to CRS section 24 dash six dash four zero
two, paren four, paren b, for legal advice regarding the same. Do you have a second? Diane? Any discussion? Great. Board members will be oh, is there a vote? Laura, can you call the vote on the motion? Bucher? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan Ueda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Unger? Yes. Motion passes. Board members, we will convene in Glacier. Please take your stuff and grab lunch if you would so like to take in there. The public portion of this meeting is now adjourned.