Good evening. It is 6 o'clock and I'm calling this board of education study session to order. Uh do we need to take attendance? I've got I've got a note. Okay. Uh, our first order of business, the board of education will consider conducting an
executive session per CRS 24-6-42 sub4A for the purposes of discussing the purchase, acquisition, lease, transfer, or sale of any real personal or other property interest except that no executive session shall be held for the
purpose of concealing the fact that a member of the local public body has a personal interest in such purchase, acquisition, lease, transfer, or sale. This session is for discussing the Jacobson property, uh, purchase status, uh, the sale of excess property near
Stewart Middle School, and the lease of district property to the 17th Judicial District Youth Resource and Assessment Center or YAC. Do I have a motion? And a reminder to read slowly and clearly on exactly
what's on that paper. I move to approve conducting an executive session per CRS24-6-424A for the purpose of discussing the purchase, acquisition, lease, transfer, or sale of any real
personal or other property interest except that no executive session shall be held for the purpose of concealing the fact that a member of the local public body has a personal interest in such purchase, acquisition, lease, transfer, or sale. This session is for
discussing the Jacobson property purchase status, the sale of excess property near Stewart Middle School, and the lease of district property to the 17th Judicial District Youth Resource and Assessment Center. Okay, I
have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion from Director Thomas, a second from Director Carbajal. Roll call for vote. Director Alv Al Alvarado I. Director Carbajal I. Director Khan I.
Director Green. Yes. Director Thomas I. I've noted Director Trillo is absent. Director Wilhelm I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. At this time clear the room. I will have the room cleared and only those people that'll be part of the executive session will be part of
it. just if you'll just note who you're inviting besides the board. And I don't need to press the recording because we have a recording. Correct. Correct. Okay. Chris has the live stream stopped. Is
there language I'm supposed to read? Yeah. Live stream stopped. I I do not. You didn't give me that. It's on top of all of your assignments. Aha. I was going to sign that.
Uh live It's 7:02 and I'm calling to order the uh May 28th regular meeting of the 27J Board of Education. Uh all matters noticed on this agenda in any category may be considered for action as listed. Any item not so noticed may not be
considered. Items listed on this agenda may be considered in any order at the discretion of the chairperson. First thing we'll do is our pledge of allegiance. Ashley, will you lead us now? Thank you very much. Can I have a roll call for attendance?
Director Alvarado here. Director Carbajal I. Director Khan here. Director Green present. Director Thomas here. Director Trillo. Director Wilhelm here. Mr. President, you do have quorum. As part of the meeting, we'd like to
reiterate our commitment to governing style. And the board will govern lawfully, observing policy governance principles with an emphasis on outward vision rather than internal preoccupation, encouragement of diversity and viewpoints, strategic leadership more than administrative detail, a clear distinction of board and
chief executive roles, collective rather than individual decisions, future rather than past or present, and governing proactively rather than reactively. Uh, next up, I'd uh like an approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion? Um, I move to approve the agenda dated
May 28th, 2025 as presented. I'll second it. I have a motion from Director Alvarado and a second from Director Thomas. Roll call vote. Director Alvarado I. Director Carvajal I. Director Khan I. Director Green.
Yeah. Director Thomas I. Director Wilhelm I. Motion carries. Thank you. And I hope there'll be no tears. But next up is our student advisory council monthly report. Please step forward and enlighten us with your activities over
the past couple of months. We've missed you. Hi everyone. We have I don't know if we have I don't think we have a slideshow, but um at our last meeting we like certified our bylaws so that next year they'll be put in order. And then we
also voted for officer positions for next year. And for our co-presidents, we have the wonderful Rachel and we have the wonderful Jasmine. And then our secretary will be Kieran. [Applause]
We also have gifts for everyone. Some people aren't here, so those gifts are pending, but we do have most of them here. So, if we'll like call we might just we'll just go pass them out. BRB.
And while you're doing that, I guess we will recognize our graduating members of the student advisory council. Uh we are sad to see them go, but we do have one more event with them and hopefully they'll show up next Monday night. But that's Sierra Costigan from Brighton High School, Marlay Little who's here
tonight. Thank you. from Eagle Ridge Academy, Paula Acasta from Prairie View High School, Tyler Blunt from the Steeet, and Zoe Mcnes Roberts from the online academy. [Applause] And we thoroughly enjoyed going to your
graduations and seeing you both seeing them all walk across the the stage there. We are so proud. Wow. Thank you very much. Oh, mine's heavy. I will take theirs. No. I cheated an open mind ahead of time because I was really excited when I saw
what it was. My favorite thing in the world. I eat these all meeting long. Thank you. You guys are the best. It's like you know me. What'd you get, Mandy? A Taylor Swift book. Oh. Oh, I
have it. We I wonder who picked that out. Oh my gosh. I'm going to read this to my grandchildren someday. You guys have to sign it. Oh my gosh. Here. Come sign. Thank you
so much. Oh, there's But wait, there's more. Flowers. Yes. A mug. My gosh. I'm going to plant these for sure. Lots more decorative. Yeah. You guys know I did yard work this last weekend.
Oh my gosh. You guys are such good gifts. I thought that was kind of lavender. Lavender haze. Shrub. Oh my gosh.
Smells delicious. Sweet. So, I have a little bowl, like a little basket that I have on and my my other Taylor's in there. So, this one's going right on top. I got the greatest of all gifts. Her gratitude. Oh, see, good stuff.
Are you guys all able to come next week? Bring that along. So, anybody that isn't there. Yeah. I collect them and I really The bird is a word. Hot dog bird. Yeah. And I got you. You got another bird. I
know. I just planted flowers this weekend and I was and I have a whole space to put seeds and I didn't have seeds. I got a whole bunch of free ones at Earth Day and they're really they're coming up already. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're they were like embedded into like a piece of paper and you just
planted the paper. That's something I can do. That was really really sweet. Oh my gosh. Anything else you guys would like to share? You guys The floor is yours still. Yeah. Any closing thoughts or or advice you
want to give the future members and Jasmine, you know, since as a co-president, she might uh and you're both co-president, so you know what? Anything you'd like to share? Where are you off to pick the easy one? You're telling me he's got to add to it
now. Yeah, the late fee. Yeah, exactly. Interest. But we hope to see you all Monday night. We've enjoyed you all year long. Thank you very much for volunteering to do this. Congratulations. Wow. Again, no tears. Uh, next up will be our superintendent report.
Superintendent Will Pierce will report on the activities across the district. Floor is yours. Well, end of May, uh, this cannot be comprehensive. There was so many events in the last month. Uh, and so I tried to capture a few things that not everybody
was at so that because we were all at graduations and all at we saw all of our board having great turnout at all of our graduation events, but there was a ton of things happening in May. Um, I'm not sure if all of you are aware of the 27J South Adams County Firework W workforce
cooperative. So, our our kids from Prairie View in the construction trades program built the houses. They had them fully functioning and then they light them on fire. Well, they do drills uh in in and out of those houses, the the firemen do and women do, and then they
light it on fire and have a full exercise in front of the kids. That that happened last week. So pretty pretty cool stuff that our kids get to be a part of it and those are the two kids that were most actively involved and you can read kind of the quote in that CTE WBL newsletter. So that was pretty
exciting things to be a part of. I got a chance to go speaking of Top Golf with our kids. I got a good chance to watch unified Topgolf. Brighton High School has a unified Top Golf team and um just warms your heart watching kids uh both both our both our active players
and then and our our partners partner kids that that play Top Golf and it was it was a fun little event there on a Monday morning um for the kids. Um athletic uh signing day. Uh I I I had to get this picture of Star. I'm glad that
she's not here kind of, but um uh it was a really cool event. I've never been to uh Prairie View High School athletic signing day, but uh really cool event. They had 19 kids uh sign letters, athletics uh scholarships to play extend their their playing careers off and
about and um that's that's Star and Jerome and pretty cool pretty cool story. Um each of our comprehensive high schools does end of end of the day on the last senior day a little bit different. Riverdale Ridge does a I've
never been to this one, so I had to go to this one. They have the final flight is what they call it, and they start in the lower left where they throw all their paper that was in their lockers and out out on the terrace in front of the class, which I thought was interesting, empty their notebooks,
throw it all down, and then they proceed to the gym, get a pep talk, and then they walk through the halls as every other kid uh stands in the halls and cheers them out. So, it's kind of a final flight. It's kind of a cool little experience. thought that was cool to share. Uh our transitional learning center, it's a graduation that I'm not
sure is well shared with everybody, but these are the kids we we can keep kids stay in our program through 21 and 18 to 21 year olds that after they graduate from their high schools, they go and um to transitional learning center where they learn job ready skills, life skills
so that they can be ready for whatever their future is after graduation until 21. And uh they had that these are the kids that are graduating. A lot of them are graduating and then they this is them. They were singing a song and performing for all of us at at Bison Grill. So that was a pretty fun the B
bison rec center. I'm sorry. Uh Prairie Vista. I know a few of you guys went to they had three graduations there at Prairie Vist Prairie Vista Youth Services Center. Um for our kids that are juveniles are incarcerated. Obviously, they're the the stars are over the kids' faces so that
you didn't you can't recognize them. They're they're juveniles, so they they can't be taken photos. But pretty cool experience. Thanks for everybody who could go to those. Many people on our board could not make it to Eagle Ridge or so. So, I took pictures on both of
behalf. I had a great shot of Marley. You could see her walking on the left. She did great. And then Tyler was right in front of me. So, he took off and I couldn't I couldn't get the face shot. So that is Tyler. I was hoping he'd be here tonight so I could embarrass him,
but that is Tyler as he was crossing crossing the stage at both of those things. And then of course we had lots of our graduates attend and I think most of you were in attendance for all of our other other 27J graduations. So good night as well there. Uh just something
new that we did this year. We had 121 families that took advantage of translation services. And that's kind of a low number for the number of need we know we have, but I just thought it was really cool when you look at down the statistics if kids got to enjoy kids and families got to enjoy graduation in in
ways that they couldn't have before. Um that that's pretty pretty exciting stuff to to chase. So you could see the numbers there and the languages in which uh we translate the graduations and these are just the comprehensive. They didn't couldn't get me the numbers from innovations and options or online and
well I only remember during the announcement period so we made that announcement more prominent get more participation yeah and earlier as we let parents know that and that that this is services available it could be good for for families to do uh the the 27J uh uh
team back in the corner there uh Janelle and her team uh in KOPRA the KOPRA they won state awards Um the medallion award is the highest honor. You can see that uh the changing behaviors of opting out on state test and curbout campaign was
was was a top award winner award of excellence. You can see that on down and on down. But again, we're grateful for a communications department and that they continue to be award-winning in 27J. That's that's exciting news for sure. We had two principal announcements. Amy
Boiseabon is going to be the uh the principal at South Elementary and Sam Khan is going to be the new principal at Westridge Elementary. That's news that we have not updated you on since that just happened. And then this is kind of cool things um for advanced placement
scholars. And so each year college board recognizes students who meet the following crit meet the following criteria of being an AP scholar. There are students at each comprehensive high school who met met the following criteria. So, we had 51 AP scholars that students receive a three or higher on
those exams, nine AP scholars with honors um that that had 3.25 on all AP exams and or three higher on or four or more on these exams and 14 AP scholars with distinctions. Just fun notes at the end of the year. We've been talking
about CTE a lot in our community, but we're also really proud of the kids that get take AP. And you'll also know that that we also offer concurrent enrollment classes. So, a lot of kids are also taking concurrent enrollment and I know Rachel was involved. I'm sure these kids up front were all involved. I'm not sure
if they're part of this criteria or not, but pretty pretty cool stuff that we have a lot of kids excelling at the highest levels. And then we in follow up to public comment. I see David's here. This is this was followup uh to David's comments if you or this is Janine's
comments if you remember Janine. Um she was questioning what we do with readact fund re our readact money that we have. And so I wanted to make sure that we address her concerns. What what were we spending that money on? Um primarily a lot of a lot of a lot of our funding
goes in instructional coaches. Uh the the the the total amount of money sounds like a significant amount of money, but when you try to spread that over a school district as large as ours, um we spend a lot of money on instructional coaches and giving assistance with assessments, developing read plans and
supporting read plans um and working uh to make sure that every teacher gets the science of reading. There's there's a training on science of reading that that that we get throughout the state, but but training and actually learning on the job requires different support. So that's part of that literacy
programming. The funds pay for our super kids licensing consumables uh across the district. Um that's our K2 literacy programs. It also funds Lexia which is what we use for our secondary students to support supplement intervention materials. Uh professional development
and then uh charter schools also receive their portion of the funds uh to support literacy instruction as well. And so you can also see that we also get additional funding that Janine didn't didn't mention in that day, but ELAT uh um early literacy assessment tool which we
have a grant that helps pay for dibbles 8, which is the assessment that we most commonly use. So wanted to provide a response to Janine because she questioned what we whether what we did with the read monies. This is what we do with the read act monies. Uh and then David David I think is also here. He had
the the public comment related to transgender kids wanting to make sure that they're not in the bathrooms. You know, I I to this day I've not heard of any complaint where that has happened in our schools. Um so that that I've not heard of a complaint. I know he's worried about that happening. Him and I had a great conversation about that
possibly happening. We This is the laws as they relate to Colorado law that we're still required to follow. Um you can see each of those laws kind of broken down and what we do. the the best thing that we continue to work with all of our families and and and in in our
schools about that is is reasonable accommodations for families so that that that both group both individuals with that identify that they get they get the dignity they deserve and then that kids like his daughter don't don't have to be put in those tough situations um where
they have to have to be exposed to that kind of stuff. So um that's kind of what we do. I'll entertain any questions about that. But if not, that that concludes my report. Are there any questions,
comments? Thank you very much, Superintendent. Next up is our matters of public comment. And I do have a couple speakers. Uh the board will now hear public comments on the following topics that have been indicated on the sign-in sheet. A reminder that this board meeting is a business meeting held in public, not a public meeting. The
board hears public comment to learn about the preferences and concerns of our community. Therefore, tonight we will listen. We are prohibited by state law to take any actions on the items because law requires formal public notice prior to any action on an agenda item. During our next meeting, if appropriate, as we did tonight, we will
consider your comments in our discussion. We will ask that the superintendent attempt to find an answer for any of your questions by that time. The board welcomes the comments of our community members, but to ensure that everyone will have the opportunity to participate, we have a few ground rules. We ask you to follow. Uh, anyone
attending to address the board should sign in the speaker signin sheet and I'll call speakers in the orders in which they signed in. Speakers comments are limited to three minutes. If more than one person wishes to speak on the same topic, we ask the speaker limit their comments to only new information. We ask that you do not repeat views
already expressed by other speakers. Although we cannot prevent you from doing so, we ask you to refrain from making com complaints or negative comments against individual students or district employees. However, we cannot prevent you from doing so. Such complaints and comments should be addressed first at the classroom or
school level and then if still unresolved to the superintendent. Disturbing good order by inappropriate language or gestures as grounds for removal from the meeting. And we thank you advance in advance for your participation tonight. First up, David Pockington. Would you please come
forward? Uh tell us whether you're in district or out of district and your uh topic of discussion. There we go. Um, my topic today is again for the transgender policy. um up until 1922 the Supreme Court said that women couldn't
vote. US Supreme Court um doesn't mean that it was right. Women fought against it. 1922 they were allowed to vote here in Colorado. He came up with the um this is what Colorado's law is. Again, doesn't
doesn't necessar necessarily mean that it's right. So my whole thing is to address that. I see. Um I'm against having boys and the girls locker rooms, bathrooms. I'm against it. Is the board
against it or are you for it? Because it sounds like everybody's for it. Just out of sight. I don't mind. Let's We're Brian. Let's just stay out of sight. Let's not get entangled in the politics. But it's here. Okay. My girls have rights to be in that bathroom. I see six females on the
board. But yet we still have a policy that states that boys are allowed to be in the bathroom. It's kind of weird. I don't want to assume that you're female, but hey, we're here. The policy states that boys are allowed to be in
the bathroom. You guys could change that, but you choose not to. If we keep allowing stupid policies to happen, stupid's going to happen. Are you guys really ready to address that? If somebody walks into the bathroom, a
girl in there and assaults her, it's happened before in different districts. Are you going to address that? These are our girls. This is my daughter. Where does their rights begin where that other boy rights end? I
brought that up last time. Sorry, I only have three minutes. I'm going to leave you with the last quote here. Uh, I love quotes. What we do in life echoes in eternity. Okay. Speaks to lasting impacts of our
actions. If you keep allowing stuff to happen, it's going to happen. Boys are going to end up in the locker rooms. Boys are going to end up in the girls' bathrooms. It's all your fault if that does. If you keep allowing the policy to happen, six females on the board and yet
we still have the same policy. Change it before something stupid happens. Thank you. Thank you, David. Uh, next up, Janine Runful. Go ahead and state your name with your intersect or out of district
and the topic. Welcome. Okay, I'm Janine Renfolola. I'm in district. Um, as we conclude another academic year, I want to bring attention to critical issue that continues to affect a large number of our students, literacy. The Colorado Read Act outlines
very clear requirements when a student is identified with a significant reading deficit, particularly near the end of the school year. Specifically, if a student in kindergarten through third grade is found to have an SRD at within 45 days at the end of the school year, parents must be notified in
writing. More importantly, the law mandates that when a student is still reading significantly below grade level at the end of third grade, a meeting must be held. This meeting must include the student's parents, teacher, and district staff to consider retention as an intervention strategy to determine if
the student can make adequate progress in the next grade. The data for our district over the last two years tells a concerning story. In 2022 and 23, there were 528 third grader students on replans. And the following year when they were in fourth grade, 504 of those
students remained on read plans. Last school year, so 2324, 517 third grade students were identified as SRD and placed on read plans. That's between 31 and 33% of our third grade population over the last two years.
These number numbers raise an essential question. Were the required meetings held these for these students and families? Were the conversations about retention, intervention, and ongoing support taking place is required by the law? If so, that's a lot of meetings.
Even more concerning is that despite the funding that mandates of the READ Act designed specifically to address literacy from kindergarten through third grade, we can see continue to see nearly a third of our students entering fourth grade still significantly behind. The
law clearly states that if student continues to have an SRD for a second or subsequent year, the read plan or the read plan must be intensified. must include more rigorous strategies, more targeted interventions, and increased instructional time devoted specifically to reading. So, two conclusions are
inescapable. The current interventions in K3 K through three are not sufficiently closing the literacy gaps, and there's an urgent need for structured intentional reading support in fourth grade and beyond. In reviewing our district's policies on the website,
there's only two policies um that reference literacy and it only goes up to third grade and they were last updated in 2014. I was unable to find any literacy intervention policies addressing the needs of students in fourth grade or higher. Given the data presented this
year across CMAS, Fastbridge and Replan performances, it is evident that our district needs a formal written policy to address literacy instruction for older students. Without clear expectations, structures, and accountability in place, we risk allowing too many students to fall permanently behind. Literacy is not just
a foundational skill, it's a civil right, and it is our collective responsibility to ensure that every child in this district is given a fair chance to succeed, not just through the third grade, but all the way through graduation. Thank you, Jeie. That is all the names I have in
our sheet here. So, we'll move on. Next up is our consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are operational matters about which the board is governing policies implementing implementation of which is delegated by the superintendent. Uh they will be
enacted in one motion by category in the order listed below. There are no discussion of these items prior to the time the board of directors vote on the motion unless there's member of the bo members of the board, staff or public requests specific items to be discussed separately and/or removed from this section. Any member of the public who
wishes to discuss the consent agenda items should notify the president of the board at the time requested and be recognized by invitation of the president of the board to address the board. Having none, any members of the board? Moving on then, our consent
agenda includes a approval of the board education minutes dated April 23rd, 2025 study session regular the regular meeting of April 29th, 2025 linkage meeting with Commerce City Council members and the May 14th board planning session. B approval of personnel items
on memorandum dated May 21st, 2025 and updated on May 27th, 2025. and resolution number 9 2024-125 non-renewal and revocation of contract of probationary teacher uh and item C approval of the administrative
assistant to the superintendent to be designated as the election official for the November 4th 2025 election. What is your pleasure? I'll move to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. I have a
motion from Director Kavahal and a second from Director Wilhelm. Can we have a roll call vote? Director Alvarado, I. Director Carbajal, I. Director Khan, I. Director Green, yes. Director Thomas, I. Dr. Wilhham, I.
Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very much. Next up is our governance process that supports our global goals. Uh, first up is the ownership linkage. Director Carbajal, Director Khan, anything? Go ahead. Um, our next linkage is, um,
July 30th, we're meeting with 27J school principles, which is one of my favorites. Very enlightening. Well, and I thank you for the work you guys have done all this past year. There's been really some worthwhile linkage meetings. Uh, next up is the board of education, Director Khan and
Director Thomas. Either I have nothing to report. Next up is our board committees, the facility planning advisory committee. Uh we did not meet last month, but we do have an upcoming meeting here and so we'll follow up on that. Uh capital C capital facility fee foundation director
Alvarado, director Khan, director Trillo. Well, probably director Alvarado or Khan. Um yeah, we haven't met since our last meeting. No updates. Very good. Rocky Mountain Risk. They went ahead and accepted that contract and they'll be moving buildings. Um, and also we went
ahead and renewed the contract for Eric who is the CEO. I think that's his title of Rocky Mountain Risk. So, very good. Thank you. Uh, the 27J believers, Director Thomas, we have nothing to report. Uh, the Commerce City and School
District 27J use tax committee. Uh we did meet uh via Zoom and we did approve a recommendation that will be going before the uh Commerce City uh city council uh for and I don't have the exact amount Terry
do. It was three million yeah you'll have it before then too. So, and that's basically for additional funding for uh Rocky Vista. Uh the 2015 2021 bond oversight committee.
Um yeah, our meeting in May was canceled because it conflicted with the um retirement dinner. So, we did not meet in May. The 2022 mil levy oversight override oversight
commdate. We have a meeting in June. Uh, Director Tree Hill is not here, so she can't talk about the Brighton Youth Commission, but they did have a successful speak. Uh, that was right at the beginning of May, and I thought that was very well attended. Uh, the other thing I will I will say is, uh, you put
on a heck of a retirement dinner, and that was very nice. I'm glad we got to be a part of that. It is great to honor uh the hundreds of years of service. 300 and some years 390 years of service that our retiring employees had given this
the district and uh it is a pleasure to see them and and to wish them well in their future. Next up is our expectations of the board. Wait, can can I add something? I should have Sorry, I should have maybe added it under um the linkage. However, I thought it was board education, so I thought you guys would
speak to it. This last time that we met, we had the opportunity to get some education surrounding the policies for parent engagement. And I think it's just important that we talk about how that's something that we're kind of looking at as a team, as a board if we're looking at changing policy or just looking at some of the expectations that we have
for superintendent um on policy stuff and that stems from the linkage that um had happened when we got to meet with parents and a lot of those type of conversations. So um in terms of education, we are doing the education piece following linkage which is really allowing us to kind of bridge that gap
and start to look at policy and become a more effective board. Yeah, I think that's important to to point out that we are constantly moving and changing our goals and trying to improve what we're doing. We're not just basically rubber stamping and so we're actually looking at ways we can do better at uh informing our parents and
the public. So thank you on that. Appreciate that update. Uh next up is item 10, expectations of the board. Uh there is no uh reports submitted since the last meeting. So we'll move on where uh executive director of learning services Carla Reer and uh
well I apologize Carla uh and director of safety and security Sam Ortega will present the expectations of the board report through 3A treatments of students slashpublic. Please step forward guys.
Sorry, I just see the E and it was No worries. It's fine. Wait till it's soft. Oh, thanks. All right. Thank you for your patience. Sorry.
Um so Sam and I are going to present um some data associated with treatment of students and public. Um so the data that's in this report um is it's really based on the limitation that the
superintendent will not cause or allow conditions or procedures that are unclear, unfair, unsafe, untimely, undignified, and unnecessarily tr intrusive. kind of similar to the conversation around um treatment of
parents. Um there are interpretation statements to what those words mean. Um and some of those words are very broad and so as you as you listen tonight, you've had access to
the to the report. Um if there is additional data or data that you would like to hear in future reports that's not in here like please let us know. Um tonight we are going to approach this um
report as we think about just in general how do we go about what are our efforts that we make to create safe learning environments for our kids. And um and then we're going to specifically address the statements about the superintendent
will not do. And so those statements specifically are we will not elicit information which for which there is no clear business necessity. We will not collect, review, transmit, store or destroy student information in a manner that fails to protect against improper
access to that information. We will not operate without communicating to students and the public a clear understanding of what may be expected from district services offered. And we will not operate without informing students or the public as appropriate of
this policy and without providing a complaint response process to students and or the public who believe they have not been accorded a reasonable interpretation of their protections under this policy. So, we're going to start tonight just with the efforts that
go into creating a safe environment. Um, and Sam will talk with us about that. All right. Thank you very much and good evening everyone. Um so again, some of these school safety um processes, procedures you're going to see um are
visible and then some are proactive uh measures and emergency management responses um or excuse me um protocols and procedures and then some are responses. So first one up you will see that we still have a school resource officers that are in the secondary
schools. Um we have one um in every middle school uh two in the high school and then one uh and that's in each region. Um so school security guards uh we call them SSGS they are in every elementary school with 100% attendance.
Um so that is the second year reporting uh that they've not been without a school security guard armed guard in the building. Um so every every day they're there. Um and then we've added the four additional high schools. um to also
include one of one SSG. Uh so they they too had 100% attendance every day at the high school level as well. So uh we've had campus supervisors uh all district managed. I want to add in there we we did have uh we fluctuated between four um at one point we had up to six campus
floaters for the the district. So when we had um they were just basically like substitutes when when uh there was a campus supervisor that was that had called in um we would then send a campus floater campus supervisor floater to cover that that position at the schools
and that's all grade levels from elementary all the way up to from middle school and high school. Um we have school emergency response teams. these uh we work very hard with uh the schools uh to determine who's on each school emergency response team and uh with that
training for the Colorado safe schools uh we are in compliance with that each one of those members of the school emergency response team take uh IC IC 100 or ICS 100 uh through FEMA um and then those that are involved in the EOP work the emergency operations procedures
for each school they will take an additional course uh free of costa Uh it's ICS 362, multiple hazard training. Um so we uh each school designates certain individuals on that school emergency response team and they they call they are part of the response u
when there's a standard response protocol uh enacted at the school. So um again standard response protocols we continue to train um hold secure lock down evacuate and shelter. And so in this year um I want to say I'm very proud that our communication with principles building principles and the
SER teams when there is a active standard response protocol they bridge um using our interoperability radios and they bridge to law enforcement and um the school district safety team and also communications facilities um all district managed departments like we
we're all involved and we we listen to the whatever uh response they need at the time. So um that's been huge for us in communication and responding more efficiently and effectively for any respon standard response protocol called um and then we do uh safe to tell
between intervention services and our safety team. We have afteraction after hours safe to tell and uh we we answer a few calls. We we left a couple of uh data points in in your report um on how many of those we we answer um to whether
it's a suicide threat or a welfare check or a threat to a school. So we are in constant communication with law enforcement for the next day. And so we do that uh typically from 5:00 um until 10:00 for intervention services and then we are around the clock 247 on safety
and security team. So, there's been some phone calls we've had to make at two in the morning, and we've gotten phone calls at two in the morning on safe to tell calls uh to ensure that our kids are safe. Um, proud to announce school vestibules um in every one of our schools. Those at schools you don't see
up there, they're they're slotted for uh renovation and and improvements uh this summer. And so, they're by next year, we will report 100% of our schools with uh district managed schools with a secured vestib. These are just a couple points um as to why school school vestibules
are important for us as safety security. Um as Sam mentioned uh the safe to tell calls uh reports that is a collaboration effort between our intervention services department and our safety department our safety team. Um so
some of the outcomes of those safe to tell reports do result in us completing what we call threat assessments um or suicide assessments and um there's some data in the report I shared with you um there were 312 uh threat assessment
screens and depending on the level of um the the level of the threat that comes from those screens determines the response management. support plan that a school develops to continue to assure safety of every
student in our building. So, u proactive steps based on the information that we have um to continue to pro protect our students being present at school. Um along with the the threat assessments which kind of come when we hear about
potential concerns um either towards an individual or school or self. Um we also utilize a um universal program to to as a proactive measure to prevent um these
types of incidences from happening. And it's called sources of strength. And um it's a universal suicide prevention program, but it is it's kind of that proactive measure so that we can hopefully not even have these threats um
whether they're towards self or others. Um, on that note, um, I do want to take a minute. I meant to do this at the beginning. I apologize. There were several departments who contributed to this report, which again speaks to how big of
a topic this really is. Um, Sam is here present with us tonight from our um, safety team, our director of our safety team. Um, our director of intervention services, Darcy Brown. She's not able to be here with us tonight. Uh but she
contributed to uh this report. Several of her team members from the family resource center. Um our title n coordinator also contributed to this report. Um our communications officer um Janelle Asmus, she contributed to this
report. So, lots of different people again because of the broadness of this topic um contributed to to the to the data and the information that you have here. And so, I just wanted to take a minute to thank everybody who had a hand in the in this report. And Sam, thank
you for being present tonight. Um just to to go on with with the report, we'll transition then specific to the data to each of um the specific statements about what we will not do. So this first one um not eliciting
information for which there is no clear businesses necessity. So in this um for this particular statement, we really tune into the educational research proposals that are submitted to 27J schools. Um during this current school
year, we had eight total requests and three of the eight were approved. Um, of those three that were approved, two of them required parent permission because they did involve students and um there would be sharing of or soliciting
information from the students. So, we want to make sure the parents um are aware of and um give permission for their child to participate. And those two studies were the first two um listed items there. The virtual learning impact
on sense of belonging. Um 27J schools does have an interest in in understanding um the impact that virtual learning does have on that sense of belonging for kids. And so that was one of the the driving reasons of for participating in
that study. And because kids were involved, parents um had to give permission for their child to participate. The second one is in partnership with um live big community and um that study was really um to to
learn about the effectiveness of a mental health curriculum which supports building resilience, confidence and self leadership for students. And um so again the students parents were involved and gave permission for their child if they did participate. Um and then the third
one that you see there, the role of federal government in education. That was a study that only involved staff members. And it really was a perception um study to learn teacher perspective about federal legislation and regulatory
policies that impact um education such as No Child Left Behind, Common Core Standards, and um public education funding. Yes, it's okay. For ones that are you deny, do you provide reasoning to them
or do you explain to them why they might have been denied? Uh or do we just issue a denial and and move on? It is our practice to typically give them a reason why. We don't have to, but we typically do. Yeah. Let's see. Um
okay. Uh the second part of this is um internal student data that we collect. Um so in the past we have had a um student survey student perception survey about the climate and culture. Um that
survey was um put on pause for this current school year to give us time to review and revise that policy. And so a collaborative community uh collaborative committee came together this year and really worked on the clarity of the
purpose of that um that survey. And um we're working on the final steps now of of what exactly are the questions that would help us um help inform continuing to create that safe environment for kids. an
environment where kids feel included, where it's safe to take risks during learning. Um, they can engage in in learning and and feel valued. Um, so and I just I wanted to share the purpose with you. Um, the purpose that the
committee came up with is that this survey will help us reflect on and improve the learning environment for every student. um student perception of the school climate provides information to support creating safe, inclusive and engaging
spaces where all students feel valued, supported and ready to learn. And um so once now that we have that survey purpose, they have developed a group of questions and we're getting uh one more round of feedback on what those
questions are and um the goal is to implement reimplement that survey next school year in October for the first time. So next year we would anticipate having some d student perception data to include. Awesome. Ka, quick question for you. Um at what level is that survey
being given out? Is that across elementary through high school or is it more towards secondary? I don't know how they give it to students. Yep. Um it it will be at all levels and the questions um there's alignment across the levels
but of course the wording um is going to change based on a developmental appropriateness and and reading appropriateness for different levels. Awesome. And they just take it on their Chromebooks, I assume. I just don't know. elementary kids are going in just
like making a pattern. I don't know. Do Yeah. No. Yes, they will take it. Um we have an electronic tool to help them take it and it'll be on their Chromebook. Yep. So data will be a available immediately after kids take it. So
um the other data that we collect is through our um social emotional learning common assessment. And so um these assessments are administered three times a year again across all three levels. And um they really assess student skills in the areas of self-awareness,
self-management, uh social awareness, responsible decision- making and re relationship skills. So and the the two go hand in hand, right? the the better my social emotional skills are, the more I can contribute to a positive student
climate and positive student climates can support students in developing strong social emotional skills. So they both go hand in hand together. All right. Um so our next component is we will not
collect, review, transmit, store, destroy student information in a manner that fails to protect against improper access to that information. So um with this this one, I really just wanted to point out a lot of
these are proactive measures um to to protect student information. Our main student information system is Infinite Campus. Um, infinite campus access is really determined by staff role. Um, we can
limit what kids they have access to, how much of that student's information they have access to, and so it's really um very dependent on uh an individual's role in our system. Um, access to that system is password
protected. And then even to get into the the um network system, we require do dual authentication to get into our our system. So layers of protection to even access student information. Um, I also
put in a a link to um our third-party vendors is what we call that. And that is a list of um our contracted um service providers, if you will, for for what used to be called a textbook. Most
of our instructional materials are online. So, a lot of our thirdparty vendors are are textbook vendors. um each student has a license and so we in order to use those platforms. Um we do
have um agreements to share some data with them about students and then students have accounts and so all of that information who our thirdparty vendors are can be found through that list. Um and then um and all of those um
platforms operate similarly in that it's password protected. Access to student information is very dependent on a staff member's role as to who they can see and how much they can see. Um, can I ask a question again? So for Infinite Campus, since the majority of our information is
housed through that, do they take on as the vendor the if there were some sort of breach and security that they're then reaching out and communicating or what level of risk does the district have if there were some some sort of data breach with Infinite Campus? And I'm not sure
if he I don't know if I can answer that fully, but with all of our vendors, we do have to have a data privacy agreement that outlines who's responsible for what. Um, oftent times, I'll just speak to the vendors that I know I work with, is that typically there's a timeline for
which if they suspect or know they had a data breach that they have to notify us within and then we also have an obligation to notify families about that. Um, and oftentimes there's um they have to agree to have some kind of um
monitoring or some kind of here's what we'll do for you. Well, and as Carla said earlier, Jeremy would be another person you could thank because the the the safeguards on that is it's all password protected. So there's a few
people like I can't read a lot of things about kids because I have no reason to know those things about kids. Even the superintendent that has a password to can I can find every kid but I can't read the things that a teacher could of the kid like. So everything has its own
controls that that are pretty pretty pretty tight around that stuff. So that the data breach could happen to any server, any protector. But I I think but but the duality between what Infinite Campus provides and then what Jeremy creates on the back end, you just don't have access to so much information. It'd
be hard to I couldn't tell you other than the name of your kids and what school they go to and maybe the grade and that must be about it. So, it's pretty pretty good. And to that point, um our technology department, the last item on here is um
they do they also create content filters. There's there's no way we can create a content filter that will catch anything and everything, right? But they do have content filters to uh try to minimize what kinds of things our kids
have access to while they're in in school using their school device. Um so content filters, email protection, just another layer of support that our own technology department puts into place. Uh third third item is about not
operating without communicating to students and the public a clear understanding of what may be expected from district services offered. So um couple of of points to make about this part of the report is that the student
conduct and and due process procedures are communicated often through student handbooks. Um they these code of conducts outline the responsibilities for our students that are necessary their role in creating a safe
environment for for everyone. Um everybody has a role including our kids. Um this information we really try hard to make sure that it's easily accessible non-technical language so it's easy to understand.
um we do provide it automatically in English and Spanish and then other languages when uh it's requested um by families and um and then often along with the code of conduct there is information in there about complaint
procedures if um if a student or family has a complaint. Uh the data that was shared with me that's most often accessed through the code of conduct is information about admission, attendance, student discipline, rights and responsibilities, due process, student
health, health and immunizations, and the non-discrimination policy. And this code of conduct and student handbook is utilized throughout the district as a whole. Yeah. So we do have um a a common foundation of the of the code of conduct
and then schools do have um the ability to add like oftentimes they'll have their own values that help them explain like uh turnberry grit um or vcon is um armor up and they associate values with
those that further help uh individualize what behavior is expected at each school. So, common foundation in terms of here's what we expect of kids, but then schools can put their spin on it through their values. Okay. I just had a
question like a big note here like the autonomy thing is so important in 27J. But when we look at this is like this is how Will interprets it and do we know if Will's reinterpreted this and then how does this interpretation of what he thinks it looks like get transferred down to the schools in terms of that
autonomy so that it ends up in alignment with the handbook so that you can report back to us. I just have some questions about how that aligns. There's there's little there's no autonomy about that stuff about the way we treat kids in public and those
things. The autonomy has to do with the the way they they chase their UIP goals, right? But not not in the terms of the the consistency of the follow following policies there. So that's the same even for discipline from school to school should be consistent based on student
handbook and and I think I reported you guys we we this year we had hired a a a supervisor of each of the high schools to to make sure distant discipline was consistently handled across the district at all levels. So we we we have that that's not autonomous. We do that
consistently across. It shouldn't be different in different places. But do we make mistakes? Yeah, I think that's where you're going. Do we make cons mistakes? Yes. But but generally that that should be there's a whole reason we made that investment in three of those
people to make sure that we're consistent in this policy. That's new. That's new just over the course of how long has it been since we did that? This year. Okay. So then we should see the consistency now flow out based on having those people in those positions. And so they're not allowed to pick and
choose amongst the student handbook. There's a certain set that they can supplement and add to it, but they are not allowed to subtract. No. And our handbook is consistent, right? They're they're the the small things about autonomy would be could you you have to dress wear your cap and decorate your
cap, right? you saw different some variances but even those things are shrinking as we scale we're trying to get more consistent about many many things the autonomy is still big on owning your learning and what what you choose to focus on in your UIP because
every school's working on a different thing to move that needle so that that that there that's where the autonomy lives just for my education talking about how you're talking about the you know armor upper but different things at different schools I know my kids school has paws when those princ principles put those
things into place. Is that something they then have to get approved districtwide to say, "Hey, this is what we want to do at these schools." And make sure it all falls in. So, what they're talking what you're talking about is a a a program called um positive behavior supports and that's
giving common language to kids so that they can redirect themselves on that common language. We let schools would choose that that language they redirect on. But when you talk about discipline, kid punched a kid. It doesn't matter if it's pause or if it's armor up or anything. You're you're violating the
code of conduct. You should be disciplined in that way. Pause is more like a reminder of like thank you for walking down the hall today nicely. Being quiet is part of S and silence in the hall. I don't know what pause stands for, but it's more positive affirming
versus consequence. It's like the core values of each school. So like my kids at Brandner, they do a pledge every morning of like this is our Brner pledge and obviously I think the school is doing a great job. But I'm just curious how outward those things go. Are they reviewed by somebody beyond the
principal at each school or the principal just kind of has they can do what they want? Okay. culture. And I think you said it really well, Ashley. Autonomy for how you want to build your school, but not the way you handle consequences, right? Not the way
we we we we treat students in the public. You have policy that expects this to be done right or corrected and learned and done better the next time, right? on this being the student handbook and the code of conduct. Is there a staff
handbook on how to handle each item within the student handbook? I guess that would be where I'm going with my question more so like the expectation is that a student doesn't do A. The expectation is if a student does A at every single school, B, C, and D is what
happens. So there is a um discipline matrix I think is probably what you're referring to that outlines like here's a specific behavior offense and then here's like a first offense, second offense, third offense.
Yes. And then and then with that people know like if it's not on the matrix, they have somebody they go to like this wasn't on the matrix. Go to see and figure out what you're supposed to do within the matrix. Yeah. and that the the individuals that we hired to support
each each of our our three regions, they would be the people that they would go to for support when you just want to be careful, right? I think the matrix gives gives guidance about what we what generally should happen but there's always a story and I think this board a few years ago some members of the board
played dean for the day and we did that with remember dean for the day and it's like what would you do and then you learn oh and the kid did this and what did you know and it's like ah well given that circumstance that we wouldn't go to matrix option one so there there is some discretion because the circumstances
around kids is rarely a fight is the same fight is the same Right. There's there's differences between kindergarten to 8th grade to there's different factors. So there's still judgment and discretion. We can
never be tight for everything. The matrix for every behavior ever found and every circumstance for ever found will be a a large book. uh for our communications team. Um our you heard about some of their accolades
earlier this evening. Um but a couple that I would point out from the report. Um our communications team does work and support our district website and our schools with their school website. Um they post using Facebook and Twitter,
getting out there on social media. um really trying to tune in to our community and and um the messages, the things they want to hear about is what they really try to publish and and work with our community
about. Um, as Sam talked earlier about the the safety measures that we take in moments of crisis and emergency situations, our communication team is often called on for support and um they are the wizards behind the emergency
alert center providing the up-to-date information as as we are able to provide it about those crisis and emergency situations for families and in our community. and when necessary, they also collaborate with local, regional, and
national news media. Um, this past school year, they've also um been the force behind the website overhaul for our district and for every school. Um this overhaul supports increasing accessibility for our community
especially um ensuring the accessibility for people with disabilities. And um benefits with this website overall is um we now have the ability for the website to be translated into multiple languages
for for easier access as well for uh individuals who have a a different language preference than English. Um it also comes with benefit of adding a a tool called two-way chat which we will uh we piloted with some of our schools
this year with our teachers and this allows uh two-way communication between teacher and family um where I can send a communication in in English my language preference and a family using this tool
can receive that same communication in their language of choice and then they'll respond in that language. But what I see is then my language of choice. And so it just it it's a tool that supports easier communication,
facilitates communication between um school and home for for specific families. Um and then later coming in the fall is um an a tool to help automate information for our school newsletters called e newswsletter. And I
don't yet know a lot about that, but we'll learn in the fall. So, yep. How clunky is that translate? Because I in dealing with a speaker, I sometimes hear that, oh, you can't translate that.
You can't translate that directly. And so, sometimes there's things that were she can't translate directly what she's trying to say. So, I was kind of wondering how how that two-way chat would work as far as with a native speaker translating it into our
language. I don't know that I have direct experience. What I have heard is that it it's very easy to use and um that it has aided in the communication, but I I haven't heard any clunkiness. we can
maybe get some information more information from Lucia or Yeah, I'd like to be interested in hear that some people that have actually used it might be a good demonst you know and I think the celebration there is just that for for years in the history
of 27J if you spoke a certain language we wouldn't have translation c like on a daily basis so anything is probably feeling really good to that family going oh my god I can read this like I so I imagine the the feedback's been positive
because it's like prior to yesterday uh we we didn't get to talk to that family at all unless we hired an external translator at conferences, right? That that's that's not a way to treat a mom or a dad or grandma.
Uh other components of our website, um just I have a list here. I don't probably need to go through them all. But on the left side of of the slide are more of the academic programming and services that we provide to students. And uh on the right side, sorry, the
right side is more of the services for families helping kids get to school, have food, um requests about education, uh educational records. Um so all of these web pages were updated and revised
as part of this website overhaul. and we want to be transparent about what services and programming is available for students. And so that's information on our web page. Uh the other piece, one of the one of the big changes with each of these
pages also is making sure that staff contact information is easily accessible. So under uh assessment, you'll see the names and contact information for the assessment team. And so um every page that was one of the
priorities who do who do families get a hold of if they need help. Uh along with specific services that we provide. Um so McKenna Vento uh this is a federal law that ensures
educational rights and protections for children and youth experiencing homelessness. Um and what this chart shows is over time um the types of residential nightly
support that we provide to families. And you can see that um from last year to this year at this same time period it's about a 32% increase of kids um who have been who are experiencing homelessness
homelessness or sharing housing um with others. So um students who qualify for these types of supports over time increasing um along with the nightly resident
support that these families are provided. Um I also wanted to point out that we have 127 uh students who our transportation department is providing transportation to make sure our students are able to have stability in accessing
school regardless of of home situation. Is that a moving target then as we like just based on where they're at hotel motel? What does that look like? I am not the one probably to answer that but we can get you that information. Um along with the services
that our family resource center um provides to our students who are uh experiencing homelessness, we also um provide services and support to other families. And so this chart just simply shows um the resource and and resources
that we make available to families that um are in need whether they are experiencing homelessness or not. So you can see this current year we had a total of 257 families referred to our family resource center. Um 101 of them possibly
Mckin Vento 74 referral for rent or mortgage assistance and 34 for utility assistance. So, um, the re family resource center, while we aim to target families who might be experiencing
homelessness, we serve and support every family in need. Um, along with the support that we provide to Mckin Vento students, we also um provide support to foster students who are in foster care. um our students
who are in foster care, they do have a right to remain in their school of origin regardless of where they um reside in in foster care. And so when that happens, um the school district in partnership with the county human
services department, we assure that there's transportation available to get those students to school as well. Um this year we also 27J schools was part of a fostering opportunities grant. Um this grant specifically provides support
to middle and high school students. Um with the goal of helping them be successful in school and making sure they're earning high school credits towards graduation. Um and then this this uh grant also has created a good
partnership with our local child welfare agencies. All right, on to our final item. So this last one, we will not operate without informing students or the public as appropriate of this policy, without providing a complaint
response process to students or the public who believe they have not been accorded a reasonable interpretation of their protections under this policy. So, I just wanted to point out before we get too far in, um, policy JI, it is
available through our district website and this is the policy that provides information about student complaints and grievances. And then policy J KD is um the policy that provides clarity about an appeal process for discipline
specifically. So, um information uh data that was shared through the report um in the fall of 2024 um title N the Title 9 process was updated and implemented due to updated
legislation. Um the updated legislation required new training and also prompted us in um having a title 9 coordinator for the district. Um, just for clarity, title n um is is the the law of the
title that says no person in the United States shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal
financial assistance. Sorry. Um so new legislation went in in the fall of 2024. We updated, provided new training, hired our Title N coordinator. In January of 2025, Title 9
regulations actually reverted back to the 2020 regulations. And uh regardless of the regulations, um 27J, each complaint uh was was compiled and reviewed in
accordance with the current regulations. Um this school year there were a total of four 413 screens and that's what this pie chart shows is um the specific area within Title 9 that the screen was
conducted um for. And so you can see based on the circle graph there that the greatest area um 77% were screened as harassment and or discrimination of a sexual nature.
So, you can see that there. And with that, I know you've asked some questions along the way. I'm going to um see if I can get some more information on the two-way chat. And I feel like there was one
other thing. Two-way chat. That was the speaker. Okay. Any other questions? Do you No, I'm good. I was just trying to Do you have to have a uh uh an account in order to use a
translator? Yes. So we can't just experiment with I think I want to just commend you on tackling this after the conversations that we had at the last meeting around interpretation and all of those things
because now like when I'm looking at it it's like a different lens even for me as a board before like we just listened and like checked the boxes and now I'm like thinking of the things even that you've encouraged us to think about. So, I don't know what data I would want to change like in this moment after hearing it, but like it'll be interesting to
think about that in relation to that policy piece. And then I really like the piece that you presented on um like the contacts being available on those pages because of recent like every time I'm chasing like trying to figure out somebody like within any government
organization, it feels like we're hiding people for access for service. Like you can call this line but you can't really get to the person providing the service. And I really like that you guys are all like, "Hey, we're here. Our job is to serve you." And I think that's really exciting. And so, um, those are just some of the things that I found in here.
So, thank you for your time. I definitely agree. You guys are doing great work. One thing that I would love to see as a followup, and I know it doesn't sound like we're there quite yet, but when those student climate surveys um, get finalized with those questions, I would be super curious and would love to look at what those our
kids are being asked. Tom and earlier you said Tom in looking at that policy 3A that it might be a conversation in the future just surrounding like the treatment of students/public and where that necessarily belongs. So as a board at some point with us studying the other side of like parent engagement. I would
like us to look at this policy and figure out if there's like ways we could align it better, put things in different pots to make it make more sense. So you're not chasing 500 dragons when you're presenting on this. You see where I was at? So, so I know I I know I've talked
about this a few times. I just don't know if it falls here, but you're asking like what other data we would like to see. So, when you talk about the climate survey for for kiddos, I have always wanted our kids to have the opportunity to give um surveys on their teachers. Wow.
I don't know what that looks like. Um I just know that there would be good data to hear and I I know there's going to be there's going to be bad they're going to, you know, someone's going to be silly or Henry and just do a bad survey because they their teacher gave them a
bad grade or something. But I feel like there has to be a way to parse out that data. Um, I think students should have, you do it in college, you do it at every conference we go to, we rate our instructor. Um, and I think there would be good information that comes of it. So, I don't know how that happens or if
that um, but that's just something I wanted to throw out there. Also, Janelle, congrats to your team on all of your awards. And as we're sitting here, the one that was on the screen earlier that you shared, Tom, about um the testing, like convincing your um kiddos to take the test, every year at CASBY,
there's an opportunity for schools to present um education classes. And I think that would be a great one for us to propose um for you guys to come down and present your your awesome work to um school boards across the state. If you want to, I don't want to
volunteer. Um, if I can just pay you back on what Mandy said. Um, I the about going back to rating your teacher. I'm curious if somewhere and I don't know if this would be appropriate, just a suggestion on the student climate survey if you could ask kids like who are your trusted adults at
school? because I would love that data as a board or even just an opportunity to recognize like, hey, these are the teachers who again and again are showing up for our kids, not only instructionally, but emotionally and making them feel safe. And I think that would be something really cool to celebrate with those individuals and
obviously those are individuals we want to make sure stay in our district for sure. A good a good place to add that is when you guys talked about sources of strength as that that is something in the high schools that talks about trusted adults as one of those main components and they oftentimes highlight
who that looks like and it's always surprising like when the janitor is number one on the walls. So there is some of that happening in those sources of strength moments. Well, I just think as for to link from the linkage and your study session after the linkage, right? You guys you guys
did work on that. That that that I I told you that day that that impacts us in ways you don't understand. Like part of the the rewrite and making sure that our survey also catches the parts of the data that we don't know how to present, right? So like that that anecdotal that feeling you have as a kid like we've got
to get some of that for our cult culture because the the monitoring reports you give we're not sure if we can answer all those questions just by we adults do we adults don't do it's like you really want to know how kids are treated and then not not treating them that way. So
I think that's part of that the way your work matters to us, right? And it was hard after we had our conversation to what don't you share now, Carla? Like it was hard. And then I do have to say just one more shot that Carla didn't share is that this this this wasn't supposed to
be Carla's monitoring report. So, um, the fact that Carla stepped in and did it on short notice and rallied the team and gathered all the data from every all the other departments, both Carla and Sam, I'm just grateful for them stepping up in here and and I know we s celebrated Jeremy. He was another one
that was part of that too as well. So, grateful for that. So my my whole point of the um letting kids do surveys and give feedback on their teachers is I thought about it when I came through the the word undignified is on here and so um you
know when when Mace was in school and she would say you know she would complain about these teachers who would and and we have great we have great educators but there's always there's bad ones just like in every team in every um in every business. And you know, she would just complain because she's like,
"Well, my history teacher, like all he does is just put on a movie and we don't do anything." And she's like, "I actually care about this. I actually want to learn this." And so I feel like that's very undignified to a student to our students who care and they have a teacher that doesn't isn't doing their job. So giving the student the chance to
to give feedback on that teacher and then we then the grown-ups in the room can go and work with that teacher and you know help them get up to um expectations. I'll make a motion. Move to accept the expectations of the board report through
3A treatment of student public as conveying reasonable interpretation of the executive limitations. I'm also Oh, second. Second. I have a motion from Director Wilhelm and a second from Director Thomas. Thank you for I'm sorry. Roll call vote.
Thank you for clarifying that. Um, director Al Alvarado I. Director Carbajal I. Director Khan I. Director Green. Of course. Director Thomas I. Director Wilhelm. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Uh next up in June 11th we'll
uh follow up on a later topic and we'll talk about financial planning and budgeting. And then August 27th we'll have the uh global executives constraint. Next up, uh, Chief Financial Officer Stacy Yasimoto will present information
concerning the 2025 2026 proposed budget. And I bet she has a guest, two guests, even better. Yes, that's I knew you guys were around here for something. It wasn't our entire
exciting conversation. Sorry. Carry on and let's jump right in. Now we're good. All right. Thank you guys. Good evening. Stacy Oshimoto, chief financial officer, and I am here tonight to present the proposed budget for 27J schools for fiscal year 2526.
And so this is the proposed um there's no action item on this one tonight, but then we will be presenting the actual adopted budget in at the June 12th meeting, 11th, sorry, June 11th meeting, which you guys will have action on. So
the intention of this is to present this to the board and to the public 30 days prior to the fiscal year beginning, so July 1, so that if there's any questions, any changes, actions that we want to amend or or add to the budget
for next year, there's enough time. Um, so going into this, I have with me budget manager Myra Ramirez and budget analyst Lavar Cypress. and um just two two these two are the they're the work
behind this this whole project. We start this endeavor around January mid early to mid January and we meet with a budget committee which is basically the executive leadership team and then these two as well. Um we meet on a weekly basis to go through any changes that are
happening, projections. really what we do is we talk about what the state's going to do and we sit and we wait and we we try to anticipate what changes are going to be going through. So I have a little presentation for you today. It's 80 80ome pages of a lot of information.
So I'm going to try to summarize it for you guys a little bit tonight. Um so the outline of my presentation tonight I'm going to give you kind of what the budget climate was when we were going into this process. um then give you some enrollment updates, revenue projections, expenditure allocations,
um key investments that we um really were invested in this year through this budget process and then kind of just what we're looking forward to for the next few years. So, um starting with the budget climate,
um the beginning of the year, January is very volatile when it came to the state and federal outlook, okay? because we didn't know what federal was going to do um with everything. On top of that, Colorado was also facing a $1.2 billion shortfall within their budget. Um good
news is is they found some way to balance their budget by the end of May and it didn't affect school finance formula as much as we had anticipated. So, if you guys remember back last year around this time, we were all excited because um
House Bill 241448 passed and it was a new bill that gave a new funding formula calculation for school finance. We had gone 2030 years with an old formula and this new formula was supposed to be better. It was supposed to give more funding to K12.
um we were going to implement it over six years, 18% implementation in 2526. The cost is going to be about 95 million in this first year. Um and it would require the state to tap into the state education fund which is a separate fund
um that they have set aside. Um so then come 20 January 2025 and things didn't look so good. So the governor made a proposal um one to eliminate enrollment averaging. So if you guys um have
studied school finance formula, this enrollment averaging really benefited um districts who had declining enrollment. So what they would do is they would take the enrollment of the last five years for a district. So Adams 12 for example
um and they would if you they were declining over the years it would take an average of the last five years and then they would go with whichever was higher the average or the actual enrollment for that current year and that's the enrollment that that they would let them do funding based on. Um
so the governor's proposal at the beginning of this year was to eliminate that and that was not taken very well by many schools heard a lot of districts um a lot of people spoke out about that. Um his other proposal was to implement the
new formula over seven years and only do 10% funding in the first year. So after a lot of a lot of um legislation sessions, the outcome was that they were going to implement the new formula 15%
implementation this year. They're going to implement it 7 years versus six and they're going to phase out the enrollment averaging one year at a time. So we are one of the lucky districts. We we have increasing enrollment with the exception of COVID over the last few
years. So it didn't this the elimination didn't affect us but um yeah I think it was a good the best outcome that we could have had given the circumstances. So that was the climate
that we were going into um starting this budget season. So the changes that we based on this but the fiscical school year 26 count um was a funded pupil count of 23,857 kids. So that was a total
increase of 302 students but as everyone knows we are opening a charter school next year capstone. So a large portion of that is going to capstone. Um I think we budgeted about 150 new students for district managed stu schools. Um the
next thing I have on this slide here is the per pupil revenue. So it just shows what our per pupil revenue has been over the past four years. And you can see that um it has increased substantially except for this last year it's a $372 increase which is better than nothing.
So we were happy to see an increase this year. Um and then something that we always think about is our studenttoteer targets. um keeping the elementary ratio of 19 students to 1, middle school 20 to1 and high school
21:1. Um so looking at revenue and we're just looking at the general fund. We have about 18 15 different funds that we budget for, but the majority of everything comes from the general fund. Um so for fiscal year 26, we have total
resource projections in the general fund of $388 million. Okay. And of that 388, we have a beginning fund balance of 82 million. We're projecting state equalization income to be 172.9 million. Property taxes to bring in 120.4
million. Um small portion of state categorical revenue of 9.5 million. And then just other revenue of 3.2. And that's like interest um other small revenue things that we get. Pretty small amount, but that's the breakdown of it.
um on the expenditure side and the allocation. So we do a total allocation of the 388 million. So we do what we call zerobased budgeting. We budget every dollar that we have whether it's to reserves intentional reserves or actual expense. So in the general fund
the expenditures of the 388 248's going as actual expenditures. So supplies, um, salaries, benefits, services. Um, 24 million is is transferred out of the general fund to other funds. Um, we do help support
uh probably about five different funds or so. Uh, the general fund does have help back fill and support. And then 77.3 um is allocated to our charter partners. And that's net because we do take some direct services costs, we take indirect costs um to kind of just, you know, make
up for the time and effort that we put in as a district to help our charter partners. And then we allocated 37.7 million in reserves. And so that is made up of our board reserves, Taber reserves, and then
um already assigned revenue that's being held for a purpose. So that's how the 388 million is broken down. I kind of wanted to speak a little bit closer to that 248 million that is in just the expenditures part of the general fund.
Um because I think this is more of a true reflection of what our spending is like. So when you break that down um these are the percentages. So the biggest one I want to point out I think is the salaries and benefits. So, of that 248 million that we allocate to
expenditures in the general fund, roughly 87% is for salary and benefits. So, we invest in our people. We want, you know, our our teachers, our support staff, everything. Um and then from there you can see 17.9 to purchase
services, 12.9 to supplies, a small amount to property, and then the other is is um a lot of that is like subscriptions and not subscriptions, sorry, dues and fees. So like membership dues, um th those kinds
of things. So, um, like I said, I think the biggest thing that I get from this is that 87% of our general fund budget is for salaries and benefits. So, it's a huge it's a huge piece. Um, from the budget
process, I think our key investments that we really focused on this year, um, obviously, as you guys saw, employee compensation. So, through negotiations, we were able to give a 3.69% 69% increase to all of our employees which
equated to be about an $ 8.2 million investment in our staff. Um with that increase we were able to raise our teacher starting teacher salary to 56,000 where that is still within the metro. We're pretty low at least we are
we are still trying to be competitive in that. So, um, trying to keep that that somewhat level, but unfortunately, some of our our neighboring districts passed some mills and they're able to raise. So, we're just we're just trying to keep up with them. Um, another key investment
we did was our staffing growth. We we invested about 2.5 million in this budget for staff to account for the growth in students as well as to maintain those class ratios. um we invested in some CLLD sped preK um needs as well to help support those
programs. And the last key investment we really did was in technology. So just continuing to um support the Chromebook refreshes that are going through the school for the students. Um we invested in staff technology refresh as well from
the general fund this year. Um so overall is about a million dollar investment in technology. So kind of in summary um we're like I said we do a balanced approach to this. We we don't go without
um budgeting every dollar that we have. So in this approach we're maintaining services um while using our reserves strategically. Um we target investments in our people growth and technology. We're knowingly budgeting for deficit
spending this year. We know that. We did it this last year as well. Um because we have a strong fund balance and we have a multi-year spendown plan. So, we're looking ahead. We're looking forward um really to take time to have methodical calculated decisions rather than
reactive decisions. Um I think we were really proud of ourselves for being able to not have any staffing cuts or anything this year. I know a lot of our neighboring districts announced that. Um whether for whatever reason they they had for doing so, but I think we're
really proud that we didn't have to do that. And if we are going to do it, then we we have time to let them know to plan for that. Um and at the end of the year, we still have our reserves about 70% of our expenditures. So, even after a
deficit year, I mean, rule of thumb, 25% you want to be at, but that's a pretty high number, 25% of your expenditures. Um, we were running in the 30s. So, I think I feel, and this is if we spend 100%. Which we usually don't because
there's some savings, whether it's vacancy savings for positions or just not spending being able to spend all that you budgeted. So, um I'm assuming that 17% will be a little bit higher, but that's what we have budgeted and
what we planned for. Um so, then kind of looking forward, um we're still worried about federal funding volatility, right? We hear we're waiting to hear every day what the feds are going to do with title funding, idea funding, Medicaid funding
is a huge one for us. So, in those three buckets, we received about $10 million. Well, we budgeted this last year. It did go down from prior years. We budgeted about 10 million for um federal funding in our grant funds for 27J. And then on
the nutrition side, they we budgeted for about 6.8 million on top of the the title IDA Medicaid funding. So, um districtwide, we receive about 16.8 8 million in federal funding. So, if that
goes 100% um we'll be looking for ways to get through that. Um also looking forward with the Colorado state budget, you may have heard that um with the long bill passing, they did pass another fund that was like the state education fund
and they're calling it the kids matter fund. So, what that's going to do, it's going to require the state to take right off the top 65% of onetenth of 1%. It's it's it's a very small amount, but it's taking right off the top an amount from
personal income taxes to put towards total program funding. Um, and there's it they're supposed to set that aside for K12 students. [Music] Um, our I'm just going to be kind of
frank. Our our take on that is that they're going to say, "Yeah, this is what we did for K12. Look, we're we're setting aside this this amount of money right off the top just for you guys because they're going to implement other cuts on the back end of it, right? So,
it's kind of like, yes, we're doing this for K12. you don't need to worry about K12, but we're going to potentially implement a budget stabilization factor or something of that sort later on because um just of the the struggles that the
state had this year to begin with. Um so we it's good. It's a good thing. Kids matter fun. Great. Um but it might be I don't know something in disguise. So but that's kind of my opinion on that
versus what it actually is. But um so then looking forward to and we're what we have our eyes on inflation, utilities, transportation, international purchases as well. Um and then just to continue our enrollment projection accuracy and to plan for any charter
growth that we might have as well too. So that was that 232 mil kids matter. Is that total like for the state? Yeah, the entire state. Yeah. So like not even Yeah. Okay. So, it's not a lot and we I
I believe you can't even t tap into it until like 2728. So, um and so there's the state education fund as well. And so, they were they were going to tap into it for the new um funding formula. They were
going to pretty much zero it out in order to implement that whole formula. And so this I feel like they're just taking from that and putting it in here. Yeah. Kind of just shuffling it around. But
yeah, you made the um the statement kind of towards the beginning of your presentation that I'm not sure how the state found the money or what they did or whatever. Um, coincidentally today I was one of my co-workers, her husband works for the state and she was telling us today that he's required I think it's
six days that every employee is forced to take next year. Six unpaid days. So they get six days off but they're unpaid. So wow across the board on all state employees. So um that was her take. I don't know but that's that's how it's affecting her family.
I had another question. Uh 77 million of 388 for charter. So like 19.8%. Do they host that big of a percentage in comparison to us in students? Yeah. So that's just based on student and the 388 that included our fund balance. So our
actual revenue that we received was 306 million. Um and our we right off the top we take about 20 20%. if not more. Right now, 20% of whatever equalization revenue we
bring in goes to our charters and it it is based on um population. Oh, so there's a lot of charter students more than I think I realize until I see that number. Yeah, there's not. And then the 56,121 for educators is a starting salary. Can we just get the data around
like what neighbors are? I know that we've made like great growth. I just want to see it again. No, absolutely. Yeah. And I all the meetings start running together. But Michael, where did you He gave us a fabulous presentation. I feel like it was at a mil levy meeting. Milvy. Yeah.
Was it Milvy? Um on on how we strategically do our our um salaries. So we look a little lower at the beginning, but over time we actually are better than neighboring districts. Yep. Because so maybe he could he could share
that data. Your presentation is in fact No, that's No, that'd be good data, too, because obviously that's not the whole picture. I think that's what they're trying to say. That's not the whole picture. But we've gotten better even in starting. Yes. Over time. Yes.
I remember this is just a new number for next year. So I'm just curious if we have anything around other districts but I can bring that. Yeah. Is there anything else? Yeah. Yeah.
And between now and and the next board meeting, if you have any questions, please reach out. We can definitely dig into things and answer any questions. You're welcome. Yeah. Congratulations. Boy or girl? Right.
almost that's the fun age now you Yeah. 10 years. Yeah. Then you hate him. No. Uh next up, uh we're going to discuss uh the purchase of the Jacobson property. Uh Terry, did you want to is there
anything else you wanted to add or is there any questions you guys had on this? Any discussion? Otherwise, I will entertain a motion. If I move to authorize the superintendent or his design to negotiate and execute a purchase and sales agreement to purchase the Jacobson property and to conduct all
remaining activities required to purchase and take hold of the property described herein on behalf of the district. I'll second. Okay. I have a motion from Director Thomas and a second from Director Alvarado. Is there any discussion you'd like to have on this?
Yeah. you just make comment as we vote or Yes, that's what I'm I think I'm leaning towards voting yes, but I just want to be like one of the things that I just want to think about is like this piece of property. I hope that as a district we figure out a way to sort of make it a part of inclusive like learning when it comes to that
space. And um I understand that like the beauty of it matters and like how we present to the public matters and driving by it, but I really really hope that like there's something that we can do with this land that gives value to that community. Is there any other?
Let's have a roll call vote then. It was uh Director Thomas and second by Director Alvarado. Director Alvarado I. Director Carbajal. Yes. Director Khan. Yes. Director Green. Yes. Director Thomas. I. Director Wilhelm. Yes. Motion
carries. Thank you. Thank you. I gave you the opportunity there. Uh our schedule of meeting in June 2nd that we all should be excited about. It's our last event with the student advisory council. Just a lot of fun. Uh I hope you can all be there. We'll start at 5:30 and then we'll have
one more meeting June 11th and then I'm I'm going to give you practically the entire month of July off. You're welcome. Yeah, I'm feeling really good. Next up is our board meeting evaluation. Uh Director Alvarado is going to present the board meeting
evaluation. So the floor is yours. June 11th. Yeah, I said that and then I said, "I'm going to give you the rest of the practically the entire month of July off." Do it June 11th. What? I thought you were going to do it tonight. I thought I
thought she was She was ready to do it tonight. June 11th, you can do it today if you like. I'm gonna let you do it tonight. We have a quarterly schedule, but I can change it. Got things on my mind. She's got things. She's got plenty. She was taking notes on me. So, I will adjust
that on the last I'm taking it up as I see fit. Go ahead. Thank you, Director Green. Um, all right, everyone. So, for our first metric, um, for our governing style, outward vision rather than focus on
internal operations, I gave us five. I think that um the board does a really great job with that and that's been interesting for me to learn. So I appreciate everybody doing that. Strategic leadership, proactive rather than reactive. I also gave a five.
Collaborative teamwork. Um I gave a four, but I have to say I'm super excited about the direction we're all going with like our linkage sessions and having conversations with one another and not having it just be, you know, a single perspective. I feel like
everybody on the board is super open to that. So, I really appreciate that. So, it's like a for gaining speed, I guess I would say. Um, same thing with the next one, an initiator of policy, not merely a reactor to stash staff initiative. I
think that's really cool. The linkage sessions when working on change and kind of how are we supporting the staff and working with our really amazing team back there um feels really collaborative, feels important. And so I give like a four with momentum on that.
Um, as far as board member code of contact conduct arrived on time for meeting, I think everyone does great with that. I gave a five. Properly prepared for meeting. I just gave a four because I think there's room for all of us to have growth on that. I know some meetings I do better than others with
like preparing my questions in advance and really reading through all of the reports that you all take so much time to give to us. We want to make sure we're giving the same time and space back. So, I think people do a good job. Just always room for improvement. Um, myself included. Um, gave full attention
at meeting. This is the one that I probably would think maybe we have the most room to grow on. I know we're all super busy people and parents and it can be hard to unplug, but I think as much as we can not be looking at our phones, looking directly at the speakers when
they're talking, giving that same full attention to them that they're giving to us, I think we could see some some growth there. Uh worked in a business-like manner and appropriate decorum. I think everyone is super respectful, does a good job with that. I
gave a five. Listened and responded to the statements in a respective manner. I also gave a five. And then business was conducted lawfully and ethically, a five. Um, in my last comments, I just want to say just as a newbie on the board coming in, I didn't really know
what to expect. I have some experience of school different school districts, not 27J kind of get worried about people kind of pushing maybe their own agendas. And I have been so relieved coming into 27J. Every single person in this room, I
will say, is always what's best for kids, how can we do this, how can we work together, has really good head on their shoulders. So, I'm just super proud to serve with everybody and that it's so focused on just doing the right thing for the kids in the community. So,
thank you all for having such good heads on your shoulders. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, for well thought out and reasoned report. Uh, with nothing left to complete on our agenda, I'm adjourning this meeting.