e e e e e e e e e meeting to all who are able please the Pledge of
Allegiance director Egan is excused this evening and I will read the land the land acknowledgement on behalf of this board and the Cherry Creek School District I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is being held on the ancestral and unseated lands of the
Cheyenne Arapaho UT and oti and Shak people who stewarded stewarded it for several Generations the oti shaki includes seven bands so I would also like to recognize that over 40 additional tribal Nations likely use this area for trade ceremonies and
social Gatherings I'd like to call for a motion to approve the agenda of the March 10th 2025 regular Board of Education meeting so moved is there a second second roll call please
directors Allen I Bates I Garland I nolles I motion carries I'd like to call for a motion to approve the minutes as listed on the March 10th 2025 agenda Some Mo is there a
second second roll call please directors Allen I Bates I Garland I nolles I motion carries at this time we will have reports from our Board of starting with director
Alan good evening and thank you for joining us on this beautiful spring day finally we're finally here um first I just Dr Hansen you're here yes Dr Hansen while you are still known
as the most chill assistant principal and missed by your students at Campus Middle School I'd like to thank you and the entire Infinity Middle School Community for hosting ton tonight's event I'd also like to thank our security and setup teams for um hosting
this event at in our Mobile location so we can come visit all of the incredible schools in our district uh this week is Cherry Creek reads week this year's theme is read together celebrate together it reminds us that literacy is the foundation of learning and
opportunity the featured book a faces a poem by Julie morstead encourages readers to recognize and appreciate the uniqueness of every face and as board members we have this incredible opportunity to visit our schools and share this book with uh lots of our
students and today I got to kick off boards we by reading at my in my son's classroom which is such an incredible experience and those fourth graders got such a kick out of this book and had so many comments that I would never have thought of so thank you to principal Romero for inviting me in he's
too and also um I I I I love this to celebrate the power of reading and the connections that we can all make um when we when we read together and as a board we're committed to advancing literacy as a core priority in our
district strategic plan strong literacy skills open doors to succeed in school work and Civic life empowering students to pursue their pathway of purpose and I just have a couple of congratulations because those winter sports finals are
heading our way both the Grand View girls varsity basketball team and the Eagle Crest High School boys varsity basketball team have made it to the final four I'd like to let everybody know when the the final four games are because they're really convenient the
girls are Thursday this Thursday at 11 a.m. and the boys play at 12:45 p.m. so if anybody is bored in the middle of the school day please come cheer our students on and if not I'm hoping that they make it to the finals
because they will both both be playing I if they do they the finals are March 15th at uh the let's see the boys are at 4M and the girls are at 1:15 p.m. at Denver Coliseum if either of our teams win I will be there cheering them on I
hope you can join us thank you thank you director Allan director Bates thank you a good evening and thank you to Infinity middle for hosting us this evening and as always thank you to those who ensure that our meetings can
take place remotely and not always in a boardroom coming up on March the 27th Cherry Creek Schools foundation will be hosting their annual Elevate Gaya the funds that are raised at this event help support students in CCSD by
funding educator initiative grants mental health programs and emergency relief for families in need if you would like more information please visit Cherry Creek School District Foundation CCSD foundation.org once again I would like to remind
everyone to look at the state of our public education in our nation and especially in our state last week superintendent Smith and CFO Scott Smith sent out a very informative video to All staff and to the community as well on
social media please view this video and learn how cuts to our public education will impact you everyone will be impacted in one way or another speak up go to your legislators and demand that education is fully funded public
education has taken the hit for far too long and our kids deserve better I hope you all have a great spring break with your families and friends and be safe and that concludes my comments this evening thank you director Bates
director n thank you so much I appreciate the comments from my fellow directors I have no additional comments tonight thank you thank you and my turn high school students who are part of the superintendance advisory Council recently had the opportunity to visit
the Colorado state capital where they engaged with state legislators about the critical issue of school funding this visit allowed them to voice their concerns directly to policy makers giv them a firsthand understanding of the legislative process for these students it wasn't just about advocating for
better resources for their schools it was about learning how policy decisions are made and understanding the importance of being involved in the Civics process they discussed the long-term impacts that funding or the lack of it can have on the quality education in their communities and made
it com and made a compelling case for more uh Sustainable Solutions The Experience highlighted the importance of learning Civics at every level local state and federal understanding the intricacies of government helps young people see how their lives are shaped by policies that
are often made beyond their school walls this type of Engagement teaches valuable lessons about the interconnectedness of our communities the role of elected officials and how citizens even those who are not yet eligible to vote can influence change advocacy is a powerful
tool in democracy and by participating in the process these students are not only advocating for their schools but also learning how to be responsible active citizens in a democracy their visit to the capital shows that Civic engagement is is not bound by age
it is a practice that everyone can and should participate in voting is just the minimum as the future voters of Colorado and the nation these students are gaining Essential Knowledge that will serve them for years to come educating young people about the political process beyond the active voting helps them
develop a deeper understanding of how their voices can shape policies long before they cast their first ballot it empowers them to think critically question decisions and advocate for the issues that matter to them this this kind of early involvement Fosters a generation of thoughtful engaged
citizens who would carry the torch of democracy forward ensuring that the values of of participation advocacy and civic responsibility continue to continue to thrive and that concludes my report superintendent Smith excuse me
thank you president Garland so first uh it's women's History Month I want to thank you for your leadership on this historic Board of five women and I also want to thank all the women leaders in the Cherry Creek School District who impact the lives of students every single day in Cherry Creek School
District um I've been kind of a downer the last couple of months with my comments um looking at the forecast of school Finance but we got a celebration one it was amazing to see the Brilliance of our students down at the capital advocating for themselves and advocating
for their peers the other thing we received this month is our school s or our district success survey I just want to share three pieces of information off of that survey first 93% of our staff says that they have a
trusted coworker that they can go to in times of need that is huge the other piece 89% of our staff are proud to work in the Cherry Creek School District we're not perfect but it's better here than any place else and 89% of our staff feel
that they make a difference in the lives of students every single day that they show up to work and get satisfaction from their job these results are unheard of across this country the organization qual tricks had to redo their calibration on our school survey or our
district survey because they haven't seen results across this nation and they work with thousands of school districts across the United States but that is because of the staff of Cherry Creek I want to thank them for all that they do they're constant effort to make the lives of our students better and each
other better and I want to Echo Miss Bates please please take next week rest take time with your families and be ready for the end of the school year because here it comes thank you president Garland I'd like to introduce Dr Tony P for our presentation tonight under special populations Dr
P I will also add just just as a reminder to our guests the the board has seen this presentation several times so it can a little bit paired back today thank you superintendent Smith um I also would like to start the the presentation off by recognizing that
someone has a birthday today Miss Kelly Bates turned 21 today and how does she choose to spend it right here at a Schoolboard meeting and uh Miss Allen I understand you have a birthday this weekend no it's canceled
and okay we'll celebrate that at the Coliseum hopefully huh let's see how that goes all right that's why we had the mariachi band oh all right okay so I'll just jump right in I do have my special populations direct them last week so I
won't reintroduce them but I want to thank them for coming so this just a quick special populations update um just to show uh how we're progressing on the Strategic plan and other information from that department so we're going to start off with Early Childhood also known as
preschool our director Stacy peoples is sick so she is not here tonight she offered to get medicated and come and I said no that the rest of us did not want to get sick um but by the Numbers preschool you can see how this breaks out we do have a large preschool
population we're up to 2,60 students now Universal preschool brings in about 1,500 of those students so Universal preschool has definitely um become a very popular thing in Cherry Creek and then when you look at our
special education students I would point out that of the 672 of those students about 335 of them have severe needs we are seeing an increase in severe need students coming into preschool in the
last few years uh by the Numbers uh you can look at it from Just postco and see how preschool has grown that first year of universal preschool in 2324 um should have been a much higher number but the state uh registration
system was so confusing that you know a lot of families weren't able to to participate um we started to register those families on our own and that is why you've seen the increase this year SU successes and progress um
probably the the greatest success we've had is moving these four-year-old students into our elementary schools and having them be welcomed as part of the elementary school um Community our our principles at the elementary school have been incredibly wonderful about bringing
in these kiddos and adding another grade and helping this be successful and making everyone feel welcomed we do have a streamlined registration process in Cherry Creek as well and that has benefited our families and amazingly um our early childhood
department is fully staffed they even have a little bit of extra which will help because there is a high turnover there more successes in progress coloro shines is how the state uh grades
preschools all of our um preschools have a rating of four it's almost impossible to get a rating of five so we do have highly rated preschools that's def definitely a success um they're a strong professional Learning Community Stacy peoples has led that work for years and
they've been at the Forefront of getting their staff to participate twice a week or twice a month in uh professional learning communities they're also being being trained in trauma informed practices and transdisciplinary play-based assessments and then we look at hurdles
the biggest hurdle right now is the Department of Early Childhood from the state they really need to focus on funding not trying to run enrollment because it doesn't work very well for them um we can't directly enroll or place kids in Bridge care we're hoping
that a Senate Bill might address this um funding reconciliations are difficult with the state and there are family participation gaps because of some of the state processes other systemic hurdles there's a sped funding shortfall um that always
hurts us especially in Universal preschool there are freezes to the CCC the CC cap um which actually helps low-income families the state has frozen that funding we're not sure if it's going to come back and then we struggle
with a lot of Licensing regulations in preschool that can make it difficult um they're redundant and they really don't fit in our school environment um and we have space con constraints in Cherry Creek we don't have any empty buildings so it is
difficult to find space for all of our preschool needs our strategic adjustments for 25 and 26 next year this slide would have been fantastic I think that Stacy and her staff put some great thoughts into how
to make up for some of the shortfall they were very thoughtful about it and how we could increase Staffing to children but we are now hearing that the state may cut Universal preschool funding and that we may not be able to offer this many hours and so this whole
plan might be out the window we will have to wait and see what the legislature does next language supports and services under the direction of Dr Holly Porter this is our multilingual Learners um and you can see the the
topic of immigration has been a hot one for the last couple of years and you can see how our growth progressed um through February of this year we had 1698 immigrants into the district you can see the languages that are spoken we
do have a lot of languages spoken this District um we now have over 8,471 multilingual Learners in Cherry Creek making the Elsas Department the largest of the special populations
Department um special populations actually if you count up all the kids that we serve in all of our departments we serve over half of the students in the district percentage of population is at
16% and then you can see our non- English proficients are right around 1300 students and and note that note on the bottom is important not all NEP students are newcomers or new to the country um many of these kiddos are actually born in the United
States number of newcomers new to English and new to the country actually sits at 369 our supports for these kiddos the rose Community Foundation has been fantastic we had a two-year grant that paid for some great supports they had
newcomer teachers and cultural Liaisons and trainings that we provided and unfortunately this grant is coming to an end so we will have to find something to backfill those supports other supports we have our
school-based welcome Leons at the holl Overland Prairie and Village these Liaisons work with kids new to the country for a few days before getting them into the classroom and then they also support parents with questions and resources we have our cultural liaison
17 folks supporting 11 languages districtwide these folks support schools with whatever needs arise um there's like time at West every morning or additional support of the over Overland and the Hol um they run parentes and they help us with
International family welcome days in the summer our program leads are also another support for newcomers the program leads there and partners there's seven people who actually are out supporting the schools these folks are more um content
and instructional experts in the world of multilingual Learners so they're helping out with co- teing and um assisting the newcomer classes celebrations 37 teachers in this District have already completed the
first round of the ASU cohort to ear earn their culturally culturally linguistically diverse endorsement and we've already hired three of them into our department um on access the Elsas test the Statewide test um our median
growth percentile is A4 eight percentage points above the adequate growth percentile defined by the state no schools had low growth on access um and 74% individually met their adequate growth percentile and the graduation
rate for MLS has remained at 90% or higher since 2017 um and then we have a celebration in exceeds for multilingual Learners on our school performance Frameworks the following schools ranked in the exceeds category for both median growth
percentile and on track to El proficiency on their school performance framework this is especially difficult to achieve at the high school level but we had to high schools do it so that was quick but a great list of schools and a
great celebration and then our breaking news that is no longer breaking because now it's over a week old sorry Holly but still congratulations to Holly Porter 2025 case distinguished service award winner for her years of service to multilingual
Learners okay neuro diverse Student Services Under the direction of Rebecca Lopez by the numbers you can see the growth that we've had in our students identified as gifted and talented coming out of covid um the number that you see
there for 2425 is just as of the end of February uh April March April and May are heavy heavy identification Seasons so we will see that number go up significantly our strategic Plan update
uh the NSS Department continues to go out and meet individually with every school with the principal and the GT teacher and they look at that individual school's proportionality scorecard and identify places where kids can be
identified to help reach proportionality in our GT identifications those occurred in September and October in January there was a there was a midyear update meeting with the principes and now in April and May that department will go out and meet with all of those principles again to share year end data
and get ready for next year um Talent identification is still a continued focus and we have ongoing training and support for our teachers and Equitable identification practices and then excitingly we have a change in our
Universal screener practice so the universal screener at second and sixth grades is the coat and that is the state approved screen screener we do that but what our department has now started doing is isolating the that data by the
local population in that school looking at the top five% of students who didn't hit the mark and then recommending them for further testing when we do that we find that more than half of those
students actually do qualify for gifted and talented services on the followup tests so the department is actually mining deeper into the data building a bigger body of evidence and then helping to identify more
students talent pool growth is continuing to to go up for us those numbers are as of February 25th for this year that talent pool hopefully will get up to about 900 to a thousand celebrations in
NSS um in August and in Jan January you can see the schools that had Equitable data I won't read all of those to you but we we are seeing great growth in schools becoming Equitable and having proportionality our twice exceptional
population is booming we are seeing a a dramatic increase in identifications 188 new two students identified since August that's about one a day uh twoe students now make up
30% of the gifted and talented population we also have our twoe center-based programs these are unique in all of the country we have them at Arrowhead and High Plains Elementary Robert thank you see you in the back um
but these are serving gifted students um with moderate to severe disabilities and these are really students who in the past we have struggled to serve because of their disabilities and their giftedness and then finally more
breaking news it's also a week old so it's not breaking anymore but definitely news the World Council for gifted and talented children 2025 World Congress in Braga Portugal the theme the power of
gifted education and talented development in a changing World Rebecca Lopez director of NSS was accepted for not one but two presentations at this conference that is attended by gifted leaders from around the world she will be presenting on her first session on
serving the uniquely gifted severe needs twice exceptional center-based programming and her second session equity and action attaining proportional identification in gifted programming congratulations Rebecca Lopez and special education
update our strategic planning work in special UC education is around disproportionality but we also have to answer to the Colorado Department of Education for the indicators in special education that they track one of the
things that we got dinged on by CDE is that they identified that we have disproportionate discipline for students who are on IEPs by race black students in this District are being suspended out of school for more than 10 days at a
rate that is high higher than their peers of other races about three and a half times more when that occurs the Colorado Department of Education requires us to have a remediation plan and so we are now working on our action plan um that so far will include
professional development with Deans AP sped teachers and others um building wide deescalation training and some FBA training and behavior intervention plan training and more to come so we are excited to actually work with Derek ER
and the edop group and his part of the Strategic plan to identify this problem as you look at our part under the Strategic plan for proportional identification of sped students the Colorado Department of Education recognizes that we are in fact
proportional in our identification of sped students and not only by race but also by disability category which is a great celebration new programs and initiatives we have sped Hub that's going to be onstop shopping for all your sped
resources the answer to everything you ever wanted to know about special education but we're afraid to ask you'll find it in sped Hub Northstar this is our new affective needs Community for middle school students it is now at
Falcon Creek it was developed an open and it has been quite successful we also now have Elementary sped coordinators we've never had that before so there's one identified lead sped teacher in every elementary school and they receive
extra training and they are our point of contact and then we have our ilc redesign as well we tried this out at three schools that were short staffed and it's just a way of trying to meet staffing needs creatively using slpas
kodas OTS and different staff um psychologists social workers um and that has been quite successful as well well um we've also looked at Contin expanding our Continuum services at secondary schools um we've done an educational benefit review which followed the CDE
format that we had last year and then we've engaged in professional activity units trainings and bcba skill-based trainings our enrollment in special education continues to increase um about
101 students this year so far according to our December count that's pretty standard um ever since I came into this job 13 years ago we've grown anywhere from 100 to about 500 special education students a year so Cherry Creek
definitely seems to still be a destination district for families with students with special needs oops and finally our celebrations obviously the proportional representation and the appropriate identification our Northstar students AC academic growth um more
student centered and School supported problem solving processes and then interestingly um we're increasing the accessibility of ccic 17% of CCI students on IEPs um now with a 58%
increase in applicants for next year so we're getting more of our sped students into ccic and getting them those opportunities and with that I will take questions just like to add one thing Dr P um I'd like to thank David gunridge
Nory Marsh I know you're leaving us at the end of this year we just want to thank you for your Decades of service in the Cherry Creek School District and thank you for what you did for yeah thank thanks for abandoning me guys thank you director Allen do you have any
questions just one I is it is it possible that you're missing a celebration about Dakota Valley and their excellence and growth for their multilanguage Learners I'm only asking because one of my really good friends happens to be there and heard that she
they they are being commended for their excellence and growth Holly zakota valley oh it was did I miss it it was so fast he you got through everything so quickly that I blinked so anyway that's that was sorry about that one it was far away and I don't like wearing my glasses
I'm a little s conscious so there's that well I'm glad you corrected that because for the millions of people watching at home home we want them to know that Dakota Valley got that award I I I think I love when people come with me showing the pr The Pride that they have in their
schools and their achievements so love it I'm glad that you had it up there now I mentioned now we mentioned it twice um I don't have any questions I am so amazed at how quickly you're able to really um capture each of the special populations groups in a way that's
accessible to us um so we can you know make sure we're doing the right for all of our kids thank you thankk you so much and to my director's credit they have to do the same thing for me explain it to me in a way that I can capture too because their their work um is highly
Technical and I think the interesting thing about this department is each of them are content specialists in addition to being leaders and and they are very specifically well trained in in what they do thank
you thank you director Allen director Bates all right thank you again for this presentation um I had most of my questions answered the other day I believe um but I do I appreciate what you just said about your
um directors and um I think you have a phenomenal team and so I appreciate the work that they do with with the special populations that we have because those kids everybody's kids needs to be served and so I appreciate that so thank you
thank you thank you director Bates director nolles thank you so much I do have some questions yeah curious with Northstar what how does one get enrolled in that program yeah Northstar is actually a
placement so that would be just like our Elementary School uh effective needs programs it would be just like our twice exceptional programs that is an IEP placement because it is a very restrictive setting so you do have to qualify to go there because of the needs
that you're showing uh in your current setting and that you need a higher level of service so like a principal or a teacher or someone would recommend a student or they can but in general it comes out of um the special education
teams principles certainly let us know when they have students that are struggling and then um the IEP team has to go in have a re-evaluation look at the present levels and decide that Northstar is an appropriate setting and what are the max amount of kids that you
think you could take at at Northstar in general we try to keep those programs around 8 to 10 students per teacher um any more than that and and it it's it's not um conducive to learning sure so
about 16 okay would make Northstar feel very big and is oh go ahead I was just going to say one thing you know I I need to commend Tony on that Dr P on on on that move these are students that we would
have had to look for outside services for these students so being able to keep them inside of our school district continues to make them feel that they are part of our family because they are part of our family so I just I just want to say thank you I also want to say thank you to our security team at Falcon Creek Middle School because they do a
ton of work when students need time to walk the building or need time to go outside and just regroup the security team at that school is really embracing them under their wing so I I just wanted to recognize that as well and I have to give credit to Lee Williams too Lee this
was Lee's idea um and Lee did the groundwork to get you know Falcon Creek to be willing to house this program and she went out and picked out the space and um Lee's done a great job helping lead that program and this is doing really good work for kids who really
need it that's great can I ask you about link as well would that be you um not really really that's more Christy heart but I could make something up I got to get you know what I could make something up and make Christy accountable for it that's okay that's all right I'll ask
Christy on the side um so March April May being months for high identification of GT talk about that like what how does it end on those months usually it does it ever end Rebecca but go ahead how did how does that work out
got it it's kind of a snowballing identification process you start with that small body of evidence and as the snowball gets bigger then you make the identification and I think the Snowballs get big in March April and and may yeah makes sense and then just wanted to um
ask for uh for multilanguage Learners is it once you're a multilanguage learner you are always one or is it kind of like when we talked about the student immigrant uh where you for three years you know that is who you are and then you no longer are so yes the state does
require us to have those students English proficient within three years so it is not a a lifetime okay I didn't know just because you might no Hol shaking her head now okay because you you know multiple languages for forever I would you know so
I e so once you are proficient you're no longer considered a multi okay forever okay thank you those are my questions thank you so much thank you thank you thank you um director nll
stole my question I was going to ask about the multilingual Learners as well but sure and so and then um I just have a comment I'm just um happy and excited and thank you to everyone for working on the issue of disproportionality um it's
just I think that's one of the things that's important that we are sticking to that and I love that and also I just always um applaud the experience of my children because when I was in school I'm particularly special education was like down the hall blank
classroom just you know not a part of the not a part of the building so I appreciate that we work hard to include all of our students and that um all of our kids are exposed to one another that um we all learn from each other and so thank you for working hard at doing that
and I don't think we have any more questions good to go thank you all right um now it's time for audience comments I don't do we have any do we have any we do not have any public speakers this
evening all right I'd like to call for a motion to approve the consent agenda resolutions 25.3 3.1 through 2.3.7 so moved is there a
second second roll call please directors Allen I Bates I Garland i ns I motion carries our next regular meeting is April 14th 2025 at 7M and it
will be held at West Middle School 5151 South Holly Street in Greenwood Village I'd like to call for a motion to adjourn our March 10th 2025 meeting so moved is there a second second roll call
please directors Allen I Bates I Garland I nolles I motion carries our meeting is is adjourned e