questions in terms of where to set up. That's okay. Yeah, I think so. really different. Where are people? One minute. Oh yeah. So that's what you're talking about. I just
All right. I was like, Okay, sure. Yeah. Oh, I'd like to think so, but thank you. Okay. All right. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our September
Fantastic 9 presentation. My name is Kayla Maldonado. I am the internal communications manager for district 49. Tonight we have some great nominees. We will recognize staff who are exceptional examples of how district 49 is the best choice to learn, work,
and lead. for our honores and who nominated them. When your names are called, please come to the podium for remarks and then you'll head to the photo backdrop in the back of the room for your plaque and a photo with the individual who nominated you. We ask that our nominees please stay until the end of the program so that you can have
a chance to chat with the board and receive some congratulations. Before I introduce our honores, I always like to give a shout out to our sponsors. Um, we're so grateful to Dion's Air Academy and our new sponsor, Raising Canes, which yeah, if any of you are at the
Peak View All Staff event, people are very, very excited about the Raising Canes. So, um, we are so thankful that they have partnered with us and have donated gift cards to our nominees. Um, our first nominee of the evening may look a little familiar. She has received a Fantastic 49 before and that just
shows how great she is. Um, Kim Marshall, math teacher at Sky View Middle School. Kim was nominated by Ben Nolting. Um, she voluntarily took on the roles of multiple teachers during a critical instructional period. She designed and delivered intensive
instructions among multiple classrooms, supported long-term substitutes, and maintained high academic ac um expectations. Um, the eighth grade math department has even noted um the growth on their students STAR math assessments as a result of her work. So, if I can
get Kim and Ben to come up here and give them a big round of applause. My turn. Yep. All right. So, last year, Sky Views Middle School 7th grade math department was basically hit by a hurricane with all the events happening and going on
there. Um, situations arose where the team was needing uh heavy answers and that answer was Kim Marshall. uh she took the weight of herself and another teacher and carried the team to success while supporting her own students as well. Uh she rotated classes with
substitute teachers, gathered data, adjusted lessons, combined large sessions in the library, and effectively prepared over 200 students for CMAS while maintaining those high level of standards. Uh it's an honor to get to recognize an outstanding educator such as herself. as
a new teacher, getting to watch her and getting to spend time in her classroom and just watch her classroom management was amazing. Uh it's something that I truly strive to be. Uh her resilience, leadership, and commitment to her students truly embodies the values of Sky View and this uh or that Sky View is
striving to achieve and what the Fantastic 49 award is all about. So, let's celebrate Kim Marshall. Thank you. [Applause] picture here.
I just I just want to say thank you to Ben. And honestly, everything I did was for the kids, but I wouldn't have been able to do it without people like Ben behind the scene to help me. Maybe sometimes propping me up, but helping me. Um, he also helped a lot for me
because he came in on we went in on a Sunday I think and I think I we spent almost I don't know I spent about 12 hours there getting in the room ready for a sub to come in and stuff like that. So Ben was definitely a big help in how I was able to do everything. So thank you.
[Applause] All right. Our next and I just realized this is pretty cool. I used to be a Sky Middle School student and a S Creek High School student. So, both of my schools are represented in Fantastic 49. Um, I'm very excited to um introduce the San
Creek High School Rally Day team. Um, they were nominated by Amy Sanchez Martinez. Um, I will let her kind of explain um the event that this group was able to pull off. um they took a great deal of teamwork, planning and trust and building relationships with staff to
take risks on a new approach to the start of the school year. I actually um attended um the rally day to take some photos and it was a really really really special event. I wish something like that existed when I went to school. So I will bring up the rally day team and Amy
Sanchez Martinez. Hi everyone. We're so happy to be together tonight and I am honored to celebrate the team who's behind me this evening. This is uh of course we're at Justin's Renaissance School. We earned platinum status for the second time in a
row this year and that I believe is because much in due part to the people who are behind me right now and because it's a team effort. So these are the team members who we took to the uh Renaissance conference this summer. Something that we talk a lot about at
San Creek is that if you're going to go to a conference, you better do something about it. Don't just go and learn and say it's great and then you go back to what you were doing before. You go to learn and you go to in implement something. So there was one afternoon and evening where we were supposed to
go, I think to SeaWorld and we chose not to go. Our team chose not to go. We decided that we were going to get some pizza and we were going to plan and we were going to do some things. And so we spent a few hours together in uh right by the side
of the ocean which was probably um the icing on the cake I think but it was something that we did together and Rally Dane was born out of that. And so what we talked about and a lot of what Justin's Renaissance is is having a healthy culture of belonging where everyone is recognized for the great
things that they do. And so our team said, "We need to do something that will head everybody with this on the first day of school in order to start the school year off right." And it was a complete reframing. So Sarah uh who used to work at another school in our
district had a similar event that she did there in the past and we took some of that framework, we took some of the needs that needed to be filled and rally day was born. And students loved it. They had a blast. We had a blast and everyone went home exhausted. And that
is something I remember my very first day of teaching, the superintendent came in and he said, "You've got the right idea. Now make them tired. You want them to work so hard that they're going to be more tired than you are at the end of the day." And that's what happened on rally day. Everyone had such an amazing
time. We met our goals and everyone their hearts were full, their minds were full, and their bodies were tired. And so I'm so proud of this team. It is because of this team that it worked out. It's because of their risk-taking. It's because they had a vision and they saw it and they moved forward. And I
couldn't be more proud of them. They transformed our culture on the first day of school this year. So with that, I want to present you to all of them. [Applause] I just want to say too, uh, we had boys
hard screaming I love Sand Creek the entire day. So, it was a wild time, but it was great. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you to the San Creek High School Rally Day team. Um, they are
receiving uh courtesy of Dion's a pizza party as their um Thank you. And Miss Marshall is receiving our first Raising Canes gift card. So, good treats for all of our nominees tonight. Um, before I wrap up, I'd like to turn it over to Miss Lori Thompson, president of the
board of education for final remarks. I don't know if I heard correctly, but did they say that Kim got 200 students ready for Camass? Over 200. Over 200. Now, I can only speak for myself, but I remember what it was like
getting two students through homework. So, that is that is really really fantastic. And as to the rally team, I think that was incredible because culture, to have a great culture, to have the school spirit, to have enthusiasm, to
have a thank you, that's so important. So, I just wanted to make sure I got everyone that it's Lauren, Brian, Kylie, Ally, Miranda, and Sarah. Did I get everyone down? Yeah. All right. So, thanks, and way to go, Sand Creek. Awesome. Thank you all. The
work session will begin promptly at 6:30. is going to ask for a point of work. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the January 6 January 16th. What is this? Hold on. We're in the wrong notes here.
I put the time travel. Welcome to the September 24th special session of Board of Education. The time is now 6:31 p.m. and I'm calling this meeting to order. Can I get a roll call?
Dvala here. Hyle here. Olivia Wright here. Schmidt. Thompson here. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? I move to amend the agenda. Second.
You want to amend it? Yeah. I move to amend it removing item 2.5 policy proposal JBA. Okay. And move it to our next regular session. Second.
Okay. Under policy be um in a special meeting, if we're going to amend the agenda, it has to be a unanimous vote. Correct. May we have a discussion on the motion on the table, please? Any discussion? Director Hy. So policy beedh public
participation says that we may add public forum to a special meeting. This board is currently constituted has unless I'm misremembering established a pattern of only using action items at a special meeting for items that are time-sensitive and usually non-controversial. Tonight's budget
resolution fits both conditions. We have not made it a practice to place controversial non-urgent action items on a special meeting agenda. The previous board did, and whenever they did, they added public comment. All five of us have at various times expressed a
commitment to transparency and community engagement. Voting on this item tonight without public comment added stands in conflict to that commitment. We cannot cure it by adding public comment now. It's too late. Some who would have spoken are not here. Others who are here
are not prepared. So the only way to cure it is to move policy JBA to our next regular meeting. The clock isn't ticking on this policy. We have plenty of time to be sued later. Okay. Director Levier Wright. Okay. I want to start by saying it was
absolutely legal for President Thompson to set this agenda as she has said it. However, I want to um correct some things that I have seen in email things. Um, specifically there is a timestamp given where a reference to a special meeting was made and the timestamp given
is reference to my statement. My statement at the September 11th meeting was specifically and solely regarding the time-sensitive finance resolutions. This policy hadn't even been discussed yet. Um, so that that piece of saying
that was the indicator that this policy was not going to follow our standard practice was inaccurate because it was my words. I and at least one other board member were both surprised at the great as at the same time as the greater community when this gend agenda was
publicly posted and this item as well as the student fees and the policy and procedure review were also on the special meeting. Um as a board member I didn't know either. So to imply that everyone in our community should have assumed that the fact that a special
meeting was mentioned meant that the entire action agenda that normally would have been moved forward to October 8th was then going to be on this meeting I think is unfair um an unfair expectation of our community. I also want to say
that it's not accurate to state that there has never been public meeting comment at special meetings. It is accurate to state that there has never been public comment at special meetings under the current board president's tenure. However, there was under President John Graham. There was under
President Tammy Herald. There was under myself. There was even under Dave Martin. Um, so that's the actual record of whether or not we've had public comment. That has been the practice of the current board. Um, but that has been this president's tenure and her
determination based on her power as president to be able to set the agenda. I just wanted that set straight given the time stamp was my words. Director Dvola. Yes. As I recall, our last uh special
session, all of the action items were on the agenda whether they were considered the primary one or not. We had about five actions on the last special session and I would say only one of them was was the one that we would we needed to vote
on. So this is not a surprise that we would have this. Um according to policy be the president can call a special meeting at any time but there's been a comment made that this was an illegal action. So I'd like the
attorney to weigh in. Uh Brad Miller speaking. Uh there is no statutory basis for that that compels this objection and I I I do have information that this was brought forward in a regularly construed
agenda setting. I wasn't a participant, but I know it was brought forth in that setting and that was the right protocol. So there's nothing out of order here. And I'd like to just address one thing. When public comment was brought up, we actually did have public comment at the
se September 11th meeting. And we have always had in the past and sometimes it begins at a work session and sometimes it begins at a regular meeting where there's typically two readings, one that includes public comment and one that doesn't. So we did have public comment
at the September 11th meeting. and director Hy I just wanted to address Jam Lynn's um point um I'm pulled up the last uh um special meeting agenda it was for June 25th so that was um right before the end of the school year and I'm looking at
the action items on there supplemental budget resolution that was timesensitive interfund borrowing resolution that was timesensitive beginning fund balance resolution that was timesensitive superintendent contract act of employment that was time-sensitive. Uh our resolution to CASBY that was
time-sensitive. So there were two policy changes here that I would have to dig into more. But um of the ones that immediately jump out of me, five out of five um were timesensitive. The only question I have is on calling a special meeting. Is there a requirement
or prerequisite that they be timesensitive? No. And uh I I you know I operate in many many entities and and it's in place some places routine to have special meetings on the bimonthly occasion without public
comment sometimes with public comment. There's there's nothing here that strikes me as unusual. And while I I recognize I'm not trying to invalidate any of the concerns. But I'm just saying from a legal perspective, I don't see any any gurgles here.
Director Dvola, and you can always make the motion to um have public comment. That's one of your options. Yeah, I addressed that. Um it's too late because there are people who would have come who aren't here. There are people who are here who would like to speak
that are not prepared. Um we we really needed to notice that. um further in advance. Any further discussion? Can I get a vote? Dvala, no. Hyle, hi. Levia Wright,
I. Schmidt, no. Thompson, no. Motion to approve the agenda now. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve the agenda. Second. Any discussion?
Okay. Can I get a vote? Dvalo. I. Hyle. I. Leave Wright. No. Schmidt. I. Thompson. I. And that passes. Okay, we are on to item 2.1, new or
adjusted student fees. Can I get a motion for action item 2.1? I move to approve the new or adjusted fees. Second. Any further discussion? Student board, do you have any questions
about the new adjusted student fees? Can I get a vote? Davalo. I Kyle. Hi. Levia Wright. I Schmidt. I Thompson. I. And that one passes. Can I get a motion for action item 2.2?
I move to approve the resolution for use of beginning fund balance. Second. Any discussion? Okay. Can I get a vote? Dvalo. I. Kyle. Hi. Levia Wright I Schmidt I Thompson
I and that one passes. We are on to supplemental budget resolution. Can I get a motion for action item 2.3? I move to approve the resolution for the supplemental budget. Second
any further discussion? Can I get a vote? Dvala I. Hyle I. Levier Wright I Schmidt I Thompson I and that one passes. Can I get a motion for action item 2.4?
I move to approve the revised policies listed under the policy and procedure review. Second. Any discussion? Okay. Can I get a vote? Dvala I. Kyle I. Levier Wright. I Schmidt I. Thompson
I. And that one passes. Can I get a motion for action item 2.5? I I move to approve action item 2.5. Second. Any discussion? Okay. Um, I think what we're gonna do is I don't know if the student board wants
to weigh in or if you want to hear the board first before we go through that. Okay. So, I don't know if we want to go down this way or whose hand was up the first, but I will start with Director Schmidt. Okay. So, I have read many emails and I want to assure everyone here that nobody
in this room wants any student bullied for any reason. We must however also respect the needs of students who want traditional private spaces. There is no perfect answer. However,
this policy is in compliance with HB231057, which says new or renovated buildings, non-gendered singlestall restrooms shall be provided where required by state building codes, but they shall not
replace or convert existing sex segregated multi-stall facilities unless approved by the board to maintain title 9 compliance. So, it's a difficult thing and we have to weigh it all. There's
some law here and I guess I'm ready to vote. Director Hy, I'll just quickly summarize my main points from my previous discussion since all the board members have heard it before and they've been repeated in a
massive emails we've been receiving this week. This policy is morally indefensible as it knowingly and intentionally sends students to bathrooms and locker rooms with a target on their backs. This policy is legally indefensible as it is in clear conflict with state statute and the state
constitution. Existing federal case law is less clear but extremely unfavorable. I'd also like to repeat key statements from our student board at the last minute. One said, "Nobody in my school is talking about this." Another said, "We don't care who else is in the
bathroom." Those were both high school girls representative of the most at risk group if we're to believe the hype. And they weren't just representing themselves. They had done their due diligence in polling their peers. I'd like this board to consider our legacy.
This board collectively as currently constituted and with a few exceptions spent its first year primarily focused on issues of substance comported itself with dignity and began winning back the trust of staff and constituents. In late October of last year, we took up our
first topic related to trans students policy ACA regarding chosen names as required by new state legislation and we passed it the following month. And in March, this board began a pattern, including this one. Seven agenda items
in six meetings in only six months have related directly to trans students. This doesn't even count all the time the topic came up during board updates, discussions on legislation, etc. In a season where we have to find n million
in budget cuts for next year while still wearing 135 million of deferred maintenance in the next 5 years. This board has become singularly focused on about 1 and a.5% of our student body. This board, if it is ever remembered at
all, will be known as a singleissue board obsessed with what's happening in our students underwear. Election season is open and the question before the residents of two of our director districts is this. Is this the kind of
board you want to keep? Thank you. Director Leia Wright. This policy violates our state statute. It violates Matthysse which our district has been in compliance with since 2013. because it violates state statute and we know that implementing this as a
governmental agency means that our liability insurance is not going to cover the litigation costs that will happen very quickly. We already need to reduce our budget by $9 million next year. Yet, we're willing to impact take on a policy that increases our liability
for which we have no coverage. If you don't like a law, you work as a private citizen to try and change it. You don't act as a governmental entity to break it. I personally believe it is a violation of my fiduciary responsibility and ethical obligation to uphold the law to use taxpayer dollars meant to educate
our kids to try to challenge a law some on the board do not like or do not agree with. Civil disobedience is the act of private citizens not governmental agencies. As a governmental entity, we need to follow the rule of law. That is how our country works. Thank you,
Director Dola. I think it's extremely important for us to realize that this is a safety issue for everyone that's involved. It is extremely important to make sure that we are protecting the rights of our
girls and our boys and all others. And in order to do that, it's important that we have sex segregated bathrooms so that our girls have private spaces in order to do their business or to change
without having someone with who is biologically a man in their bathroom and that is that is something I will stand on. Also, I would like to move to amend the
policy um 2 where it says other reasonable option. I move to amend it to strike other reasonable option um off of that policy.
Can I get a second? Second. Um just just one point because we weren't through with the discussion on the first part but so I think we'll complete that before we go to that revision and and I do have some thoughts on that as well. A
couple of things that have come up and uh to be honest I hate the way this has been portrayed multiple times. They do reference Colorado state law. They do reference protected classes and if you go through the protected classes they do include gender expression and
gender identity. They also include sex. I have not yet seen and it may be out there case law where you have two different protected classes where there can be a collision between the two. And
so as to quoting just comments from our student board and and one of them wasn't really complete because they also represented some of the lengthy conversations that we had at student board and they have been thoroughly discussed and I'll let them speak to that. It wasn't a unanimous consensus.
It was the same thing with the sports policy where we had different student board members who had different opinions on the sports policy. So, it is a shame that a lot of people feel targeted. Um, there are also students
that feel uncomfortable in trying to find some of those answers. Um, Director Schmidt was correct when she was quoting from House Bill and I forgot the numbers of it where they talk about the requirement to have a single stall non-gender bathroom that is available.
That's one of the things that's written into the law. Then they're talking about renovations. When school renovations happen, they're calling for these changes. They're calling for individual stalls. They are calling to have a restroom set aside that is a non-gender
specific bathroom. And just like u you know, director Olivier Wright in the past has mentioned um an IEP requirement to have privacy in a bathroom. There's people who want some privacy in a bathroom. And so there is no perfect solution to this. There is no perfect
answer and trying to find something that would work for students. It can't be just it must be this way and it must be that way and we talked about that in student board that it's very difficult to find the solution. But before we discuss that amendment, I would like the student board just to weigh in on some
of the discussions that we've had. Nikos, do you want to start off? Yeah, sure. Uh as everyone is aware, this is an issue that no matter the result of this policy passing or the
policy being extended or neglected forever and we just forget about it, it will be impactful to a group of students. And it's been mentioned several times that there is no perfect answer. This is a highly complex issue as well. And there will be no way to
ever get to a point where everybody's happy. It would be wonderful if we could just get somewhere. Everyone's happy. We find the perfect policy. But the truth is that just can't happen. As it was discussed, student board has discussed
very much so amongst ourselves in our own meetings about this topic, just trying to think of that perfect solution. And I'm glad to say that the student board is represented by a wide variety of students with a wide variety of beliefs. And that has been true across both of my years serving on the
student board. But in all of the discussions, the same thing comes up which I have mentioned and has been mentioned that you can't find the perfect solution. And I'll speak for myself personally here, not necessarily the students that I'm representing, but I think that this
policy in particular, its intent is to protect as many students as possible. I don't think that the intent behind this policy personally is to single out students who choose to identify in a way differing from their
biological sex. I don't think that this policy wants to cause them to be more unsafe. And that's noted in several parts of this policy saying that there will still be available options. There will still be those single-use restrooms. And I think at the end of the
day, the thing that should be covered most importantly is the safety of all students. That's what the board should serve to do as a student. Obviously, I'd like to be safe. I'd like my friends to be safe. And I think that this through
several of its clauses including the provision of single use, not single use but single occupant stalls does serve to do that to a level which isn't perfection as I've said many times as I think that's a very
important note but it gets to a point where I think as many students as possible can be protected. Max Yes. Um, so what Nikos had, I guess to
add on to that, I agree with the fact that this policy kind of tries to find a balance. So I get it. It's not necessarily going to meet everybody's maybe needs. However, I do think that in
this sense, the policy tries to or andor tries its best to come up with a solution for giving students the option. And I think providing that option to students is something that is at least
what I see from a student perspective and I think on behalf of the board members is just I think giving those students the option is important and necessary and that I think that it is u
beneficial. Um, I don't know. I don't really have anything else to add to that though, Nikos. Yeah, I know I already blabbed a whole bunch, but I thought of something else. So, I'll continue on on what I was saying. I think the issue is that we
have to face the fact that there are individuals who may have ill intent, who may misuse the freedom to use a restroom, which is conforming to their identity. Whether we like it or not, there there
are people out there, there are students out there, adults, people ranging from ages and backgrounds who would abuse this opportunity to okay, I identify in this way, so I will use this restroom. Obviously, that's not the majority. A majority of people who are wishing to
use the bathroom conforming to their gender identity, they simply want to affirm that to themselves and to others, which is understandable. But you have to consider the minority in this as well, the people who may misuse this policy,
whether that be an adult or a student. I think that the benefit of having a policy in place, maybe not even this exact one, but the benefit to that is that that's restricted. That is not impossible because obviously you could still walk in wherever, but by policy,
you are not supposed to. Just like the law, like we're not supposed to murder people, but people do it every day. You're not supposed to use the restroom non-conforming to your gender that is assigned at birth. And this policy still does allow for students who identify in
a particular manner to utilize a space where they can be safe in the form of those single occupant restrooms while also mitigating any potential threat or discomfort to other students as well. Just one thing I wanted to mention. Um,
a few years ago, one of our high schools in district 49 had a gender fluid student. And so this student would present both as male and female. And when they presented as male, they use the males restroom. When they presented as female,
they use the female restrooms. And I was reading up on a bunch of different things. My understanding is currently as far as what's documented there are 72 different gender identities and so trying to accommodate the needs of 72
different types of identities. Um it's something that we'll have to see what happens with building renovations and what we roll into in the future as far as individual um stalls. I think we're going on to the amendment and if you could state the
sentence again that you wanted to change. So I had moved to amend the policy to strike the words other reasonable option from two bullet point two.
So technically I I'm thinking maybe you amend your motion to adopt the policy with that change and if the second follows then we're in good order. You made the original motion, did you not? Yes. So you want me to amend my motion?
Amend your motion to adopt the policy with the change you're proposing and then if it's seconded, then we're good. Okay. I move to adopt the policy that is presented with the striketh through other reasonable option for bullet point 2.
Let the record reflect that she's moving to amend her original motion to say that. Thank you. I don't apparently I don't know what I'm doing. Do do I have a second? Second. Okay. Can we have discussion?
Director Hy, my understanding is we did discuss this during discussion. We did not come to a consensus and so it was left unchanged. Um it removes the opportunity for our building managers to make um individual
decisions when there are no single stall options available. So great example of that, Marie and I were just at uh the 4.9K fund run. We were out at the Falcon High School. We noted the bathrooms. There were only men's and women's. Director Dvola.
Uh, yes. I believe we had consensus to um add an additional phrase to that bullet point and it's not there. It's not reflected there. This is Brad Miller speaking again. I think what we had considered um and then I had rendered an opinion that it would
be suitable to reconsider that this meeting was a clause at the beginning of that bullet point stating that without compromising the intent of this policy, then going on with it as stated so that you would get the clarity with respect
to the intent that this is not to give a building leader some sort of flexibility to violate the policy. But it was to recognize that uh single other reasonable options such as one that director Thompson raised in a
conversation earlier just having to do with visiting schools um who use the female locker room for um halftimes and so forth. Um, Director Dola, is it reasonable to say that that should be there already and we don't have to
vote on that again because we had consensus for that phrase to already be added? I I suspect that that's accurate. Yes. I don't have the record in front of me, but that's my recollection as well. So, I I think it's it's not inappropriate to add it. And
and so I was thinking about when we have a visiting team, typically the home team, the bo if it's a boys game, the boys use the their locker room and the visiting team uses the girls locker room. Um another thing we have to keep in mind is emergencies. If we have an
emergency situation that should come up, um and I remember, not to put you on the spot, Director Dvully, you had shared with me that at the school where you teach, you're supposed to use the staff bathroom, but the students bathroom was closer. there's times you didn't either have enough time or something would come
up where that would be kind of a more urgent situation. So I think to have some flexibility that does not violate the intent of the policy. I thought that's what we had agreed to as well without violating the intent of the policy to have a reasonable option
because there's things we can't foresee. Director Devola. Uh just to clarify, actually we've changed our policies and we are no longer allowed to use kids bathrooms for any reason at all when children are on campus. Um but going back to to this point, I heard about the
um visiting teams. Absolutely. When I was a a ball player, uh we would use the men's locker room and we were an away team. Um however, item 2.2 does not actually fall fall in that category. 2.2 two is saying if a student or parent
guardian requests an alternative. So that would be if there's a request there from a student or a parent that's not an emergency, that's not an away team coming, that's not that that does not actually fit there. So that's why I'm saying we should probably just
remove the other reasonable option because emergencies and other things that happen are probably going to be covered in our R. I will just respectfully suggest that there there may be independent options
that aren't singleuser facilities and my speculative guess is that we might have a nurse's bathroom with both a a urinal and a toilet and and if is that single use or not depends on the circumstances. And so
my suggestion and preference would be that we use the clause at the beginning rather than to pull other reasonable option. Nikos. Yeah. I just I remember this being a major point of content during the public comment that took place on the 11th.
There was I'd say probably a majority of the individuals who did come up for public comment were noting that clause particularly people who were opposed to this policy as a whole but I honestly think that including hm
before the policy before yes before the policy uh it's I I think it's important to include that because it does leave a level of ambiguity which of course is an issue when comes to legal documentation. But I
think that it makes sense as a district to have faith in our administrators to make decisions when it comes to reasonable options that are kind of in faith to board implemented policies and having that other reasonable option
covers the bases where there are exceptions because there are always exceptions to things. And I also agree with what was being said that doesn't apply to emergencies because this does say via a request which I'm guessing that a parent probably isn't going to have time to email the principal as the
students actively like I can't make it across the school. But I think having other reasonable option there is a necessity to avoid situations where it wouldn't be available to students who need it at that time.
Well, and I I agree especially if with the addition if without violating violating the intent of the policy is just to have that in there where where there could be a reasonable option without violating the intent of the
policy. Director Schmidt, I have a question. How many of our schools have reasonable options? How many of our schools have single use or unisex or whatever you want to call
it? How many of our schools actually have that now? All of our schools have some option somewhere in the building. Um I I wouldn't single use to me sounds like disposable. They're they're single occupancy, right? They're they're even
the one that that Brad alluded to where you might have both a urinal and a and a toilet. We would still consider that generally a single occupancy facility. And there there are there I can think of I can think of
situations and and I believe director very right alluded to the very common practice that every so often many men have stood guard at a door to a men's room while a daughter, sister, wife, girlfriend used the restroom inside. um that is a reasonable option in that
circumstance because there was there was something else that wasn't available. I I I agree with Brad. I would prefer that we keep the language of reasonable option. I think that the pre the prephrase that says without violating the intent of this policy, that's as
ironclad as we can make it. If if I were to permit somebody to use this as some sort of a loophole, you would rightly land on me for violating your policy. And I wouldn't do that because your policy once passed is going to be authoritative. Director Dvola.
Uh just one more thing to point out. I believe we can include the other reasonable option with our Dash R. So I just I again I think we should remove that to just make sure that we're not having anything that's unclear.
And my thought was the consensus we had was to do the addition of without violating the intent. Nikos. Yeah, here I am on the mic again. Sorry. Um I I just another thing I thought of
just kind of further provide I think the necessity of having other reasonable option having the ability for a parent, student or guardian to make that request. There are situations outside of emergencies or outside of things mentioned where I think it still becomes
a necessity for someone to be using a restroom that is more in line with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth. And this comes in the form of I I haven't heard these from people who I know personally, but there
are too many accounts of individuals who are transgender or non non-gender conforming to their sex at birth where they utilize a restroom that is in line with their assigned sex at
birth and they face not just verbal harassment but physical violence towards that individual. And that becomes another safety issue because you can have students who are now by this policy
being forced to use that restroom which aligns with their assigned sex at birth and they become a point of attack. The word target was mentioned and I think that that's truthful because kids are
mean. They do mean things and horrible things. So, I think it's important for a parent to have the opportunity to say, "I fear for my child's physical safety. There's verifiable proof that harm could come to them if they come in line with
this policy." And that just I think is continuing on the importance of safety for everyone. Director Schmidt. Yeah. I'm wondering if the other options or other options
could not include figuring out a way for a non-conforming student to use the biological how they were born to use that bathroom in an emergency
instead of forcing biological Let's say females. Let's just stay with that just because I'll get confused otherwise. Instead of forcing biological females to have someone they're not comfortable with in their
bathroom. I mean, it's the state doesn't mandate that you have to have a person of another sex in your bathroom. I don't believe that's mandated, is it? I suspect that for me to adequately answer the question, I'd want to do it
in executive session. Director Lev, you're right. So, there's been a lot of random things that aren't directly related to the amendments. So, I'm just going to make a set of statements that kind of address some of the things I've
heard. Um first um there is in fact something in Colorado. It was the Matthysse decision in 2013 which was a Colorado civil rights found um finding based on Colorado law and it found that offering a trans student a single stall
bathroom was explicitly not sufficient. That's the Koi Matthysse decision. It's from 2013. The district's been in compliance with that for 12 years. So we have been navigating this for 12 years with a lot of complexity and a lot of grace and a lot of amazing um
individualized things by by our administration. So there is is actual law um it's not a law it's a finding but it's the finding is based on Colorado civil rights law um which is why people are writing us. Um, second, the bad
actors comments that I keep hearing are um, as someone whose family has a heck of a lot of guns and hunts, that's the same argument I hear about gun restrictions against the Second Amendment is because some people choose to use guns wrong, we should be
restricting a whole bunch of other people. We're basically saying that to trans students because some people who aren't even trans might somehow try to take advantage and use the access that they've been granted for the last 12 years to do something bad. We should
prohibit what we've already been allowing under the law. It makes as little sense to me as as taking my husband's hunting rifles away. Um I I it's funny because those arguments come from two opposite sides
politically, but the reality is they're the same exact argument. Bad actors do bad things. It doesn't matter what the rules are. Um and to say they'll take someone's going to take advantage, therefore we should restrict the right of someone who's just
doing what they need to do um is something personally I disagree with. Um the third question, um the comment was, "Do we have these single stalls?" Yes, we do. Um at least when I taught at high school, those the majority of those, um were considered teacher bathrooms and
they're locked. Um so students have an additional barrier and that they have to find someone with a key and communicate to that person that they need the key and that person has to realize they have a right to have the key. Um so those are additional restrictions. Um, but that's
just the commentary on all of the little pieces that have continued to be added. At this point, I think we're we should probably just move on and get to y'all voting. Yeah, I'd like to make a point of order. Just a just a quick uh thing. I think HB231057,
which I think was was that this year? Because that specifically specifies um when they where they're talking about um single use or um bathrooms to be part of
that House bill going forward. So, it was just so a point of order. Um we have an amendment in front of us and we've kind of ranged far a field from that topic. If we could just stick to that topic, vote on the amendment and then we can return to general conversation.
Director Schmidt, could you please state that, please? Thanks. The amendment again. The amendment. Yes. Oh, great. Um, would you like me to take a shot? I move to amend.
No, I move to approve the policy with the following amendment. striking other reasonable option from bullet 2.2. That's what we've been discussing and I assume you limit. That's the motion on
the table. Then then the general conversation is still part of it because the the Okay, Director Schmidt, I believe in at least one of our schools, we have a unisex bathroom that has been
transformed with signage and all the stuff that the building code wants you to do. So maybe we should see how it's working there. Seems to me that it was working just fine. What point of order? We're we're going to vote on this.
Okay, go directors. So um in thinking about the uh the bad actor um situation that you described earlier in Nikos, we have to remember that we also have policy ACA which I uh
mentioned earlier. So policy ACA is really restrictive uh for the student as far as changing um their gender identity. We require write uh a request in writing. We require notification to the parents. And so then once that has
been communicated to the school then that becomes their you know assigned gender. If at any point point aren't we discussing the amendment not ACA? No, because we just discussed that I I was I was trying to talk about the amendment, but when she repeated the
amendment, she said, "I move to approve the policy." And so that means the policy is back on the table. We didn't vote on the amendment. The amendment included the entire policy. Yeah. If we vote for that amendment, we voted for the policy. Correct.
Yeah. The way it was stated, it was to both approve the policy with the change and not just on that change. Okay. I withdraw my motion. Second. Can I get a second? I don't think you need a second to withdraw your own motion. Cool.
I move to amend the policy to strike the words other reasonable option. And I am going to call the question on that. So, can I get Okay, we have the second. Okay. Can we get a vote? Tvala I.
Hyle nope. Levierite. No. Schmidt I. Thompson. No. Thank you. Now we can move on. Yes. And what I would like to see is what we had discussed last time where we
add the addition which I thought we had a consensus for um to say without violating the intent of this policy then we had the verbiage for other reasonable options.
So, so I I I think technically we would need to either act on the original motion and then make a decision to do that or if Jamie Lynn were willing to amend her motion to reflect that new clause, then we could do it that way. But right now, her motion is the one on
the table. Voted on it. We voted on it and it failed. So, we have no pending motion whatsoever. Well, I have no idea because there's been several of them weren't rescended. So I think I have no clue what the actual motion
does have an original motion at this point. Go for that. So the original motion is the motion. Go for a original motion. Jamie Lynn make a make a motion. Okay. I move to amend the policy to add
the phrase without violating the intent of this policy to the beginning of 2.2. Second. Any discussion on that? Okay. Can I get a vote? Is this a vote for the amendment only or
to approve the policy overall? Amendment only. Amendment only. It is not approved the policy. Brad Miller speaking. This is for the amendment. Okay. Davala I. Hy. I. Lev Wright. I Schmidt. I Thompson
I. And that passes. That amendment passes. All right. Now we're on to the original. Okay. Now we are on to passing the policy as amended. Original policy. No, not the original policy. The policy as amended. As amended. So make a motion.
Can I get a motion for action item? Let me get back to this one. 2.5. No, no, no. You don't need a motion. The motion on is on the table. The motion. We are now voting on the policy. The motion the policy as amended. So you don't need another motion. We just you
just call the vote now. Can I get a vote? Dvala I. Kyle no. Leave right. No. Schmidt I. Thompson I. And that passes. Point of order. Point of order.
Yes. Peter. So having passed this policy um we do need to provide some guidance to administrators, principles primarily um and other administrators. We would normally do that in the form of a - R and it is my intent to develop a dash R
under current policy. When we develop a dash R that is either new or potentially controversial and this clearly checks both of those boxes, then the board has the the expectation is that we present that to the board and that the board
tacitly accepts it or directs some revision to the DHR. Um, reasonably, it is going to take us one board cycle to develop that Dash R and get it in front of you. And so, I would ask for at for I would ask not to have to present
that until the October regular meeting. And depending on your uh depending on your response at that point in time, my reasonable expectation of principles and other administrators is that they would begin to implement that dashr after fall break, which would take us toward the
end of October. Um this is not a matter on which we want principles and administrators to improvise regulations. We want to give them clarity. They deserve that. And I want to make sure we give them the time to to think about how they're going to implement
Yes. So I would be referencing a new agenda item on the October 9th meeting. No, I think it's very important to give clarity because frequently the principles are the ones who have been caught in kind of the crosshair of
trying to navigate difficult situation and sometimes with parents on two very different sides of this and so I think it's really important to have the dash done thoughtfully and presented at that time.
Okay, we are on to action item discussion item 3.1, social studies task force. And now we get three presentations by the bodacious Brian Smith. Where's your walk up sign? We need your
walk up song. Walk up song. Yeah. Where's your walk up? Figure out what that is. I don't know. Rocky. All right. Good evening board. Uh Brian Smith, Falcon Zone Superintendent. Um and I have had the honor of helping to
chair our social studies task force. Uh this was something you tasked us as an administration to work through and look at requirements of courses for social studies, what our intent was, resources we're using. Um and so I'm proud to be
joined by our department chairs here from all three high schools. um Andrew Height, Molly Padilla, and Jennifer Scarcelli um who are here to help answer questions and and provide some additional insight into um what we have
provided for you here. Um and so our task force has met several times virtually and in person. Um and uh we've really looked at how courses are aligned and I'll give you a quick overview on that piece as far as what we presently have and then what we are recommending
to make sure we align between all three high schools. Uh we also have some clarity around what United States history will cover uh by creating a statement of intent um and we've included text key documents units that we cover in that course and then we've
done the same for American government and civics as well. So, as a part of our research and work, um we found that all of our high schools, uh Falcon, San Creek, Vista, and Patriot, um we're all offering key
courses at different times. Um you can see based on the diagram there that we had government in different places and we had US history in different places, which were the critical courses that we wanted to look at. Um, and we wanted to look at just from we know we have a very transient community with people
transferring to different places and so how does that best align um, but how does it also prepare our students for the complexities that some of those courses can have and make sure they have the right information for their future. Um, and so as a task force, we collaborated together um, to really look
at how we could align this as a district across the board. Um, and so we came to consensus as a task force that we felt US history was best served the junior year of high school. Um, and that government civics uh was best served as a senior year course in high school. Um,
with that being said, sometimes there are some exceptions to that if students have certain pathway courses or college level courses that they are in that dictate a different um um order. And so we do handle those as they occur. Um but for the majority of students, this would
be what we are recommending to further align to. Um we know there was some discussion also related to world history. Um and so some of our high schools find it better to offer in the ninth grade. Some do offer better at the 10th grade partially because there's
different courses students may be taking or what they're looking at to complete all of their graduation requirements. Um so we did not want to lock that into a specific year. Um, but we still do encourage all of our students to take that course and a majority of them do. Um, and it's typically in one of those
two years. Um, so our recommendation is to for the two specific courses, US history being at the junior year, American government civics being at the senior year, still offering a wide variety of electives um, at all of our schools. Um, making sure the personal financial literacy components are
included, all those types of things, but we're really focusing on the alignment with these two essential important courses. the task force worked in detail uh to create our statements of intent. Um and so I don't think I should read this to
you word for word unless you want me to. Um but uh basically they collaborated. I will really commend this task force teachers from all four of those high schools coming together collaborating about the best needs of our students um to be uh welle equipped citizens in our
society. And so we have crafted a very well done um US history statement of intent. And then you will see on the subsequent slides after that and there's also a document in your packet that has a summary report and these links are active that you can go in look at unit
uh plans. You can look at the course sylli from the high schools and see those pieces. So they are linked for your further review. Uh but you'll see the units even though there may be more or less the essential content is all there between all of the different schools um and covering the key things
especially with related to American history uh US history and I will commend the department chairs we had put this list together and they all reached out to me saying uh hold on this is not complete there's a lot more documents that we look at and things that we use
and so there is a supplemental document in your packet that lists a whole bunch more documents ments that are there um as well as key court cases. So kudos department chairs for making sure we had the right information there. You will see the same thing is contained for American government and civics uh as far
as our expectations and what that course will deliver um for that course content in the senior year. Uh so again the overall vision there and following slides also again show the same key units that we are using as well as key
documents and on the supplemental document it's got the additional documents that are used as well. So huge kudos to this task force for their work in putting this together. Um we're excited about this work. We're excited about the alignment between the high schools um and making sure we have the right things in place to support our
students with social studies content. And so that's the general overview. They have promised me they're going to answer any and all questions. And so, uh, I'm going to let them be here. I'll support them as well, but I really want to commend them. These three and their teams from the high schools have done
tremendous work. And I guess I should clarify, I had to use bodacious cuz last time I called him belligerent Brian. So, I'm trying to make amends and come up with other be adjectives for you. And I see Nikos's hand up. So, I want to
Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, I I do have a question. I imagine the intent is to apply this to high schools across the district, but I couldn't help but notice that the campus is not included anywhere on this document, which is my high school. Yes. So, I did reach out to the campus
on this and they informed me that they were pretty well aligned. There were some things we're looking for. I did not get specific documents, but I know Mr. Horus and I have talked and so we will make sure everything is well aligned. Director Schmidt.
Okay. Back on page four on your proposed one, there is PFL. What is PFL? Jennifer Scarcelli, department chair, S Creek High School. PFL is personal financial literacy. It is in the standards and it's now a new graduation
requirement passed by the state of Colorado and signed by the governor on May 23rd. Okay, great. I'm I'm the acronym lady. I don't know I don't know the acronym. You got to remind me all the time. Um, also on that uh on the on page four, um, only
patriot says civics, but I'm wondering are all the governments is it an umbrella that covers civics in all the American government or does it have to be specifically civics? Uh, I'm Andrew Height. I'm the department chair for Falcon High School. Um, so civics uh includes two parts. The
first part is like a comparative government aspect. So it incorporates those uh Colorado Department of Education standards that look at all governments and then the um aspects that we are incorporating with our uh texts and our documents are focused on the American government and the processes
that uh go with our political institution here in the United States. Director Hy. So, one of the things that stood out to me was um that in the uh statement of intent for um US history, we're starting
from the end of the Civil War and moving forward from there. Um which is, you know, great because so much of the more recent history tends to get lost, but the the real intent when this board first started talking about this um task
force was making sure that our students had a firm understanding of our our founding. And so looking at the American government, um it looks like we're going to focus on, you know, revolutionary
events in there. Um but I wonder, you know, one argument would be that it may be reducing redundancies between the two classes, but I wonder are we really accomplishing the stated objective of this board of making sure that PE students understand our founding
principles and the history behind that? So if you look at the alignment with the standards in 8th grade is where colonialism begins and the high school standards begin at reconstruction. It does not mean that during this time
the constitution the amendments and prior documents are not also taught because you have to know your past as we all know as we evolve through our future. So it's all covered. Thank you. Uh, I'd like to add something to that as
well. So, um, when we're teaching at the high school level, right, this is three years almost removed from when they learn the content. So, mo most teachers, especially the teachers within Falcon High School, and I could probably speak for the rest of the high schools as well, they spend a good amount of time reteing that information. So, when
you're looking at what we're required to do, we go above and beyond to make sure that we're including the uh information prior because again, a lot of these kids come in with that, oh, I learned that in eighth grade, it's so far removed, I don't really remember what we're talking about. So, making sure that um it's understood like this is the requirement
as far as the standards go. It also includes a revisiting of all the previous standards that the middle school requires uh to teach as well. Nikos. So we identified that PFL as personal financial literacy and if I heard correctly it was stated that that is a
graduation requirement but it doesn't seem to be in the core sequence for Falcon Vistridge or Patriot. So is that a graduation requirement that was decided to be at San Creek? So that's a graduation requirement San Creek has and Jennifer you can correct
me if I'm wrong. Do you want to jump up? About 10 years ago, District 49 required PFL to be taught as a graduation requirement across all the high schools. When that went away with a new board, S Creek High School has always kept that. The state of Colorado itself, the state
legislature has now enacted starting with the upcoming freshman class. Yes, I believe the upcoming freshman class, it will be a mandatory graduation requirement across the state. So every high school will have to align to this.
I had a quick question too on that. Um was it removed by one of the boards of education that was yes social studies standards was increased to 3.5 to meet that requirement and with the changing of the guard social studies across the district
by the board of education and administration dropped social studies from 3.5 to three credits. And so a lot of schools put PFL on the chopping block. San Creek did not. May I clarify? Personal financial literacy standards
are a graduation or course, but there is no requirement that it stand in an independent course just like just like civics. The standards are required, but they can be embedded in other courses. And currently our other high schools do have opportunities to ensure that those
uh personal financial literacy standards are met. Director Dvola. Uh, first of all, I want to say thank you all for your very hard work in this. I we couldn't have done this without all of your hard work, and I know you were
like, man, we have so much to do, but we're going to go ahead and dive into this so that we can be better as an entire district. So, thank thank you for your dedicated hard work. I really do appreciate it. Um just to piggy back off of um Director Schmidt's question about
the civics versus u American government and your the response that there's the comparative government aspect of civics. Is that also included in the American government classes, the comparative government um aspects or is that only happening at
Patriot High School? So as far as um the way that like our classes are taught for civics as a whole um we incorporate primarily the American government as the focus and then when it comes down to the comparative aspect it's more supplementary as far as like
understanding the place of American government. So it's not so much we are teaching both in order to hit both standards especially because comparative government is more of the middle school standard focus. The high school standard tends to lean more on the American side, but again, just like the American
history standards, it's very much a remember what we talked about before so that you can understand the current standard. Um, I think that might be something that we want to consider as a board of of do we want to make sure all of the schools
are doing what you had mentioned where um they're doing some sort of comparative aspects to their American government course. So all the high schools are already aligned and we've been aligned that we
teach the standards, we teach the content because a unit or anything within might have a different name, different semantics, it's still the same content the kids across the district are getting.
They're getting I'll tell you my kids are in D49 schools from kindergarten. And now they're in high school S Creek with me and I would put them in any of our high schools. I work with the best professionals in this city and I have for years and I
trust everybody and they're getting a good education. They're getting everything and they're getting more. We could have the supplemental list just so you'all know was paired down and it was paired down. That is watered down compared to what we do in the classroom.
you would have to pay us a lot of money to put down the exhaustive list because that is the extensive education that district 49 graduates are getting. Just for the record, I would love to pay you a lot of money. I really would. Um,
well, Lori, this was all done on our own time and dime and not just us. So, we're willing to have a mileage and a pdeium. You know, I think that is a I think that is a reasonable request. We're going to have to pass that on to the superintendent. But one thing I wanted
to say is I attended one task force meeting, just one, and I was so impressed by the collaboration, the professionalism, and the dedication that I saw in that room. There was differences of opinion, there was agreement, but mostly what I saw was
collaboration. Were you raising your director? Right. Mine's kind of more at first to say thank you and I have very recent graduates and some not quite graduated yet. So, um I've sat down with
my kids in their DBQs and so I've seen the level of primary documentation that they're being asked to read and to analyze and you know my last child who went through who had Mr. Height who loved Mr. night and talked about all kinds of things that were amazing at
home and still had to do it as credit recovery cuz god forbid he ever hand anything in. Um, still got a lot out of those classes. And all three of my students who are graduates of um, Falcon High School are all also registered voters who have participated in the
electoral process. And um some of that I'm sure is cuz my husband and I do, but I know some of it also is because of the teachers they had and the education they had. And I'm a science nerd. I am not a
history nerd, but I still have this book, The Origins of the American Constitution, a documentary history, which is literally all primary documentation. It is not someone's opinion. It is not their take. Um, it was one of four books for my class as a
19-year-old in college called The Morality of Citizenship, which included um, Lach Rouso, this and democracy in America, and a philosophy professor and four of us brave enough to take it. Um, that class by Dr. Bricker um who then
became a mentor for me for the remainder of my college time even though I was a science teacher or a scientist in training and wrote my recommendation to get me into science grad school. Um he was a founding person for me but so was Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Hamburgg who
I had 40 years ago now almost. Um, they were my high school government and US history teachers and they were the ones who got a whole generation of us in my hometown excited. We respected them. We listened to them.
We had very my my um government teacher was an atheist, which is very different from who I am. um and the level of respect and dialogue that we could have in his classroom to help us understand why it was important to respect all of those points of view really helped form who I am as a citizen
too. And so the work you do with our kids there there's there's some of it that is just we're man it's my job and I'm showing up every day but you are forming our citizens of tomorrow. you are impacting what our government is going to look like in 15 years based on
who chooses to participate. And so what you are doing is incredibly important. And those of you who were involved in encouraging my three who are old enough to vote to be registered and active voters and to participate in that process as a minimum of their
citizenship. And that is the minimum you should be doing as a citizen. There's plenty of other things in my opinion. Thanks to Dr. Bricker and Mr. Mr. Hamburgg and Mr. Chamberlain. Um, but that's your role in in this generation's
lives and I hope you cherish it and I thank you for it. I'd like to kind of tag on to that because my son became a history major and his love of history started across the street at San Creek High School and
um as soon as my kids were old enough they also registered to vote and to my knowledge they've never missed an election and so the love of history for my son began across the street. So I want to add on to what director Olivier Wright was saying is sometimes you get
to see the fruits of your labor. you get to see the student who comes back to visit you. You get to run into them in the grocery store and wonder when they got gray hair and wrinkles. Um, but it's really really important to know that each teacher involved plants those seeds
of greatness within the student. So, thank you. Is there any other comments about this? Okay. Are you ready for your next presentation, Mr. Smith? I'm not next, but do I think we are requesting action on this one, correct,
Mr. Hilts? So, because this was a tasking, we'd love you to move it forward for for approval of this presentation of this alignment of these materials as presented. And I'll I'll add my thanks. Um, recall, and I'm trying not to over
overdo this, but in my last evaluation, the board asked me to delegate more. It started out with me and leadership on this committee. And I can guarantee you, you would have not gotten the quality or the the depth of presentation if Brian Smith hadn't stepped in to lead this task force. And so, thank you very much
to Brian and for all those teachers and others that participated. I really believe they heard your intent. They were respectful of it and responsive to it without conceding uh or or or adopting the position that we hadn't
been doing a good job. we were doing a good job, but we're doing an even better job of making sure every student will have this exposure. And so, I think this is a good example of board, administrative, and workforce collaboration. Thank you for for leading us to that place. And thank you, Brian,
specifically for leading the process. Director Dvola, uh, yes, just to clarify, I have I have a couple of clarification questions. I believe at our last not our last meeting but the last time we discussed this um
the board had wanted to have some input on primary source documentation or resources that we wanted to see a part of these um classes and of course yes we see lots of the supplemental materials. So some of them already might be listed
um but to to kind of focus around. So, um, specific things to kind of focus around when it comes to to that. And I don't believe we actually did create a Google Docs for us to share ideas on that. So, I'm not I'm not comfortable moving this forward until we've had
board input with that process that we had talked about at our last discussion. So, yeah. So, we've now we've served and if the board would like to return serve um having looked at the supplemental documents in those lists, if the board
would like to supplement the supplements, of course, that that's the board's prerogative and we could welcome that. I don't think it's an eitheror. I think it could be a both end. Uh the board could generate uh its own internal work process. Uh, I I typically wouldn't
do that on your behalf, but if the board were to look at the supplemental materials that are attached in tonight's agenda and say, "Here's the additional 16 things. We want to see something by Frederick Douglas or we want to see something by Robert Bella." Okay. Um,
and then the board could add those to the action item at the next meeting and say, "We we endorse this and we contribute this additional set of supplemental documents." Perfectly reasonable. if the board believes it can generate that collaborative work product
in time to get it posted through Lynette. Well, my question was too because I think that Jennifer Scarcelli said this is not an exhaustive list and so that's why um everything isn't actually listed here.
So, I don't know. Were you looking at reviewing the complete list or I was going to like look and review the the supplemental documents, etc. Um, to see kind of where we're at. Uh, I'll be honest, I did not have much time to go
through that before this board meeting. I would want more time to to really hash into that. Um, well, if we move it forward for action, you can go through it and then you could also add additional questions at that time. I don't think that gives us enough time
to really have that discussion back and forth because if we have supplemental materials and it's already there, we would have to have that dialogue with the task force. Does that make sense? Because it's not an exhaustive list as Ohio. So, I disagree. I think we could give
them a list of the things that we are interested in and if the um teachers look at that and say, "Oh, well, we're already doing that." Then it has no effect. Um and if it's not on their list, then they can incorporate it. So, um, it it would just be something we're providing to them as an addition. But,
um, I, you know, Miss Garcelli was pretty clear about the amount of effort it would take to produce an exhaustive list of their, um, their supplemental materials. So, that's not something I I want to ask for them for. I don't I don't want to ask them to to
produce that either. Uh, I also know that part of the intent behind our task force was having some sort of actionable item for like citizen um action such as going and um seeing a
swearing in a ceremony or um uh I don't know serving on a I don't know some something actionable behind uh the citizenship piece of it. Uh so I'm open to a discussion on that of whether or
not we want to also bring those suggestions forward. Um for one, my one that I would suggest is having them take the citizenship exam and having that as part of the course. So it could be something like a
participatory um like attend a schoolboard meeting or city council or something of that nature. It could be participating in a um voting drive, uh volunteering for a campaign. Um I think I because I think what I'm what I'm
getting a sense of is you're looking for some sort of civic engagement. The problem that is going to happen is there are going to be a number of students who just do not have the the family support that they need for transportation and stuff like that. So I would strongly caution us against making that a
requirement. Yeah. And I was thinking the same thing, especially if it involves transportation or district resources. Um, but for something for extra credit, but it looks like Mr. Smith wants to say something. Well, I can I can just state from what I heard in the discussions of the task
force that our teachers are asking our students to participate in those things or go observe and and see them. Andrew came back up so maybe he can add further. Um, but there is things where our teachers are encouraging and asking for that to happen as a part of what
they do in these courses because it is important. Do you want to add? And next thing you're going to tell me that the state supreme court held hearings at Falcon High School. They did. So, a couple things. One, uh, at least at Falcon High School, but just from talking with the other department
chairs, um, I know for a fact that we do incorporate citizenship tests in some way, shape, or form. that's also incorporated in our US history curriculum. Uh the second thing um I agree I think citizen particip participation is very very important and
I think getting kids to be able to see in action those things are very important. One of the issues that we have come across is lack of funding. We would love to take our kids to these kinds of events but we have no way to get them there. We have no money to be able to get there. And when asking the kids to help pay for things a lot of the
responses are we can't. So, I worry that requiring or adding on a requirement without the kids being able to actually be able to participate would be um harmful, especially if it becomes a board directed requirement that we can't fulfill because of those kinds of
issues. So, I think if we're going to add something like that, we need to talk about how are we going to be able to get it done from a financial standpoint. Director Schmidt, could we be more creative? I mean, could we There's a lot of patriotic songs. There's a lot of patriotic fashion. There's a lot of
things that kids could delve into without taking any kind of a trip, but find out why, you know, our songs were um actually I think we saw a presentation of that out at Falcon High School where
they were incorporating some of the patriotic songs and the history. And we have also had World War II veterans come speak. We have had a lot of really exciting guest people come in to talk to the students at assemblies and I see that Nikos has very patiently been
keeping his hand up over there. Did you have feedback on that? You're going to tell me next that Olympic athletes came to your school. I mean that might be true but not what I was going to mention. Um I I think that there are a lot of opportunities for
creative use of physical participation which would support the course material. The example that comes to mind is we were talking about attendance at a board meeting or council meeting that could be simulated within a classroom where students are assigned roles like you are
a board member or maybe even the election process to become a board member is simulated as part of that because that allows for active participation in the activity without the need for really any funding or transportation. And I will say to that point and Miss
Schmidt yours as well those things are happening. um in the task force discussions hearing those teachers talk about the opportunities and the real world experiences they are providing students 100% that is happening. Max did you have anything you wanted to
add? Yeah. Uh I guess I can kind of attest to that. I I think overarching um is the opportunities that we present to students. Um I can kind of attest to that myself just because um I think
although having requirements for civic engagement is important and even beneficial. Uh I think it's just what we present to the students um such as the stu like the board meetings or even just like um at school for example like being
a part of like student council or your organizations like I know that those are separate that like from technically the curriculum but it's those opportunities that I think kind of um I guess spur some of that I guess more desire at least coming from me as a student kind
of that have sparked some of that interest in engagement and just trying to I think get more engagement out of like our schools and the teachers and the community and just building up from there. Yep. And before we bring him to a board meeting, we should check the agenda um
for that particular night. Director Dvola, uh some other options too is is virtual. So like having um being able to zoom in or to virtually most of the things that happen in the uh senate like the state
senate the senate house is livereamed or streamed. So that's could be something that's an option if they're not physically able to go um to places etc. But it sounds like you guys are doing a lot of that already. Um that's what we want to hear as a board. Um, and I think
another piece too is um I love I absolutely love the phrases that you guys put in there to have more of a focus on um cultivating an appreciation for our country and our our
founding documents. And that was part of the the um reason why we wanted this task force was a really that patriotism component to um learning about our US history, constitution, founding documents, where
we came from, um why American exceptionalism is awesome, why the free market capitalist system is the best in the world. Uh those types of things I think is uh really important to the board as a whole. So, thank you for
sharing that information with us. Oh, question. Is it a requirement to take the citizenship exam or is it just kind of a fun activity that the kids go through? Uh, so it's not a requirement, but we fit it in different units. As far as uh
US history, we incorporate it into our um guilded age immigration units. So, when we talk about like that um big immigration push after the civil war, uh we incorporate it there. In civics, um we incorporate it into our citizenship um and immigration units where we talk about like what does it take to be a citizen. Um those are our two main
requirements. We also have used it in world history too because um when we talk about different uh cultures around the world, we say here's how ours fits alongside others. So it's in outside of even just the general civics or American history curriculum. Awesome. Thank you.
So with are we going to move this forward for action? And I think that's where we were at before. Okay. I personally want more time, but that's okay. I say move it forward. I
I also would like just a little bit of more time maybe come in and talk with you. And I think that we could I'm going to say that we should move it forward and I think we'll have time in between to look into some of the supplementals and have those discussions. So, okay.
Do we do we want to pinpoint who we want to contact? Should we go through Brian? Is that who we want to go through for all of our suggestions, etc.? Yeah, you can route things through me and then I can disseminate it appropriately. Awesome. Okay, thank you. So now you will be beneficial Brian.
Okay. Or beautiful Brian. Okay. We are on to discussion item 3.2. Good evening, board. Dr. Nancy Lamont, uh, deputy superintendent and executive director for individualized education with reports from three of my I didn't
touch anything. What? I think so. Okay. I'll bend down. So, do I have to start over from the beginning? Okay. Dr. Nancy Lamont, uh,
deputy superintendent and executive director for individualized education with reports from three of my departments. Okay, I'll try to get this close so you guys can hear me because I am quiet. Um, I'm Stacy Powell. I'm the director of early childhood education.
Can you speak directly into We really can't. You can't hear me. No. Oh my goodness. Okay, you might want to raise it up and then lean in a bit. Okay, here we go. I'm I know I'm quiet anyway, so I'm trying to make you hear me. Um, I'm Stacy Powell. I'm the director of early childhood
education. So, I first want to talk about some exciting things that happened for us this school year. Um, in the slide, you'll see a picture at the top of some kids playing on our new playground at Falcon Elementary. We got a new fal a new playground this summer.
Um, the only elementary school where we have preschool classrooms that does not have a new playground or an updated playground is Evans. So, we're getting there. We're getting almost all the wood chips out of our way and and a safe, fun place for the kids to play at pres at uh
recess for preschool. Um, we did open um a full day classroom at Evans this year. The intent was twofold. We wanted to increase our enrollment at Evans and support that moving into kindergarten.
If we can get kids in at preschool level, we're hoping that they'll stay um in the in the school for for kindergarten. Um and it also is um a place for some of our staff members to send their children when they need that
full-time um support for their kiddos. So, it's full. It's been full. And so, it's exciting to see that that coming to to light. Um, the graph there just shows you our capacity and how full we are. As
you know, the IEP spots are always the least full because we save those spots for kids that come through during the year and then are identified with special education needs. Um, our UPK spots are full. Um, this was as of 9:15.
I'm not going to lie and say they're still 100% full, but they were on 9:15. We took a snapshot of it because we were all very excited about it. Um, we did overfill our UPK preschool grade level spots because this year, Colorado
Department of Early Childhood is asking for monthly enrollment reports and we're being paid um based on enrollment and attendance for our UPK3s. So, um that's that number. And then the tuition, we're
fairly full, um just over 70%, but the spots that are remaining for tuition after fall break, we plan on converting those into UPK uh pre kindergarten level seats so we can get more kids in the program.
Um this is just a picture of our staff. We did add two new staff members this year. We were able to hire an itinerant early childhood special education teacher to support our classrooms where we don't have a a special education teacher as the lead teacher. And then we
also are getting some support from one of our district um behavior um analysts for preschool. Looking forward, I was looking into the quality standards um from universal preschool. They were supposed to be
implemented this school year and they pushed them out to next school year. So, I was just curious about what we're looking at and what we're already doing. Well, so that's what this slide is talking about. Um, basic eligibility, parent choice. We do allow parents who
reside within our district. When they apply, they can select any of our programs that they want and if we have space there, they can enroll their students there. But we don't accept out of district placements at this time. teacher quality and workforce. They don't um at CDEC they don't require
teachers to be licensed. However, we do. So, we have licensed teachers in every one of our classrooms. So, we surpass the training expectations there. Instructional practice, we use approved curriculum, healthy development, we're already doing universal screenings. Um
we started that last year, so we're on track with that. And then family and community engagement. We do have parent engagement events um at all of our schools throughout the year and we are working in the child find program to develop a community outreach plan so
that we can make sure that we're finding kids who need our services. This is just looking at the future. Um this is not much different from what it was last year. Uh we have the fewest seats available in the power zone. We
have a high demand in the area that is out by Inspiration View. Um we do have an overflow class at Ridge View where we place students that we can't get into Inspiration View. Um we have a high demand in the Falcon zone and our Falcon Elementary um preschool is really an
overflow for Bennett Ranch, Meridian Ranch, um all of those Falcon schools. We are planning additional full-time programming. We're in the process of looking at that for next year. Um the pros for that are it does meet the needs of some of our families. However, it
does also limit our capacity. Um it takes away half of our our seats in one classroom. So that's all I got. Thank you. So bossy to me. I don't know.
Hi, I'm Karen Sandage of the Dina Peak programs. Good evening board. Mr. Hilts, let me tell you a little bit about what we got going on. Can you hear me? Okay. Okay. So, we have some strengths from this year. Um, last year we had students
participate in 53 opportunities of learning outside the classroom. Some people might call those field trips. We learn outside the classroom. Um, also we had 23 opportunities for professional development within our building to
increase the skills and capacities for academic and and behavior interventions for students. Four students last spring graduated from peak programming and returned to a neighborhood school or school of choice. We had students participate in football, wrestling, and
track at Vista Ridge High School while attending Peak. We have one student this year who participated in volleyball at Falcon at Horizon Middle School. 20% of the students qualified for gifted services last year. This year, three
more students have been referred. And if they qualify, which I'm expecting they will, that will be 31% of our student population is twice exceptional and accesses gifted services. We got to continue to improve though. So, our
opportunities for improvement are I sadly have to tell you that only 35 visits from neighborhood case managers happened last year. And the minimum that I expect on my goals is 90.
So, case managers from the neighborhood school aren't coming to build a relationship with their students. So, when they graduate, they have their go-to person, which is really important for them. We have at least two students right now that are presenting with a dyslexic profile and uh we don't for
reading and we don't have anyone to screen them. So even though we have a program in the district that supports that kind of students learning, they're so inundated with the work they're doing at their building that we don't have opportunity to have our students uh more
formally screened than with our reading specialist. future growth and a built and improvement. You got it. I want a bigger building. Um with the bigger footprint of classrooms and a gym. We're getting
some new cabinetry over October break so that we can improve our culinary arts part of our art art therapy. Um I also see an opportunity for us to get out into the schools, pair professionals, teachers, myself, school psych to do
positive behavior interventions for educators and par educators in the neighborhood school because I think we have some tricks up our sleeve that that might help them in managing classroom behavior or just knowing when not to
react to a situation. Instead, lean in with relationship. I would like to have all district principles, assistant principles, and deans come and visit our programming so they can see the kinds of things that we're doing to help kids be successful.
And this is the most fun of all. I can't wait to share this with you if I can figure out how to make it work. I'm talking, but there's no volume. This is what usually happens with me. on the right.
Right. Okay, hold on. I'm got to go back. Got to stay within my time. Pause. Fuzz. Okay, someone help me. Who's good at this? I know it's important to sound rec. Where are you looking?
Right margin. All the way to the right. No, they're not seeing it. So it we can't see it on our end. Oh, okay. That's what the problem is. Oh, it is up. It's up. It's up.
But this got to go back. Oh, no. No. You can't read. You got to hear what it is. It's so amazing. Okay. How many How many does it take to make the volume work? Do you still see it right out here?
I'm clicking, but it's all white here, folks. Yeah, I I think that the mute may be that we don't run this we don't run the sound out of here. Um I think the mute they're seeing is on the television screen. Yeah, because here we're showing we're showing
heavy volume. Do you have a way to test that from here? [Music] It's about to Thank you, Peter. Ready? Yeah, I'm ready. It's still not setting. It's because the HDMI has taken the sound.
HDMI has a sound has a sound layer as well. Um, okay. So, we'll just play with no distractions and you can just watch. I will send the video out to the board via Lynette. Do you think if we go to the D49? So, so it's on the D49 or website. So,
okay. Okay, great. Unless you want me to play this, you could just listen to it on your own. I just was super excited because the kids love the new accessible playground. It's unbelievable because now they can access and they can learn. They can
learn through playing. Just say Peter. Where's in that full. Good job. when you're ready. Good evening. Uh my name is Paty Prettyman. I'm the coordinator of school
health services for district 49. Um pleasure to be here tonight. Uh would just like to pres uh present some information uh in regards to our nursing services and our main focus as district nurses. Um we continue to promote
behaviors in children's and adolescence through collaboration with community agencies to meet physical and mental health needs. We advocate for policy changes imp and improve health. School nurses provide quality health care and intervene in actual and potential health
problems around chronic and acute illness as well as injuries in the school setting. So it's not just about band-aids when it comes to school nursing. for sure. Uh for we are first responders focused on prevent prevention and as you know communicable diseases
which we have seen significantly in the past and we are both nurses and educators. So we do love to come into the classroom and teach students about uh different topics uh for um where it could be handwashing uh growth and
development and other topics that pertain to health for our students. We have been uh successful in partnering uh with uh I love care program. Uh this past spring I love care program came to
uh all of the uh San Creek zone schools and performed a comprehensive vision evaluation for students who were identified to have uh difficulty with a vision screening. So in a from April through May of 2025, 441 students were
evaluated and 172 students were provided with two pairs of free glasses. So that was a great success for our partnership. We take pride in uh providing uh support uh with training for our staff. Uh we
are focused on providing stop the bleed training uh for we did train 28 security staff uh during the months of July and August of this school year. Uh CPR and first aid training between July and August of
2025. We did train 107 staff members who received a two-year certification for CPR first aid and AED training. Our opportunities for improvement is continue to adhere to our cultural compass as a nursing team, continue to
focus on the delivery of highlevel training for our nurses and especially as we're seeing a higher level of medically necessary treatments in the school setting. So we take pride in that
in ensuring that our nurses are skilled, competent to perform those uh duties and those skills uh within the school setting for our students. And we continue to partner with our uh other school departments such as transportation, preschool, special
education, school counselors in different areas uh with transportation as you know, special education uh buses um with a pair of professionals who are trained and delegated to also provide emergency care for students while
they're on the bus. um as well as our counselors and partner with um and any needs with uh mental health needs for for our students. Our future and growth and improvement of
course providing educations for staff, students and parents on opioid crisis. We take that uh in as as one of our priorities and outreach. We remain focused on our goal to promote a safe and healthy community in which students
are encouraged to be lifelong serv uh learners to self-manage their medical needs and advocates for their own health. Uh we also continue to uh play a prominent role in providing health education for students and which might
include including uh topics such as healthy eating, physical activity, stress management and mental health. And we continue to work collaboratively with uh teachers and counselors and to focus on a holistic approach for student
health. Okay. And these are just some areas of uh responsibilities for the school nurse just for you to have that information. again continue to provide immediate care for students in acute care, chronic illness, health assessments and
screenings, medication administration, uh immunization management, uh the development of student individual health plans so they can access their education without barriers. community health connections for families that may not have the resources
um to come to connect them with the resources that they may need whether we've had a u families who have moved into Colorado and just getting them in touch with providers especially with uh specialty providers
uh provide health education such as growth and development for our students gather health data and provide that data to the state of Colorado and of course training of school staff. Thank you. So, um I just want to say for the three
women that are standing up here, um individualized with these three truly means individualized. Um we had a student the other day um experiencing a medical situation. bus driver came back and was followed to the home by the
school nurse um in their personal car. Um we have medical needs in the um preschools where we are working with a family with the child who is newly diagnosed with a medical condition to support that family and um that student.
So individualized with these three is truly individualized and I can go on and on with what happens at peak that is individualized but um what questions can these three leaders answer for you director Hy
I don't have any questions just a couple of comments so um Karen I remember your very heartfelt plea for space um last year and we heard it again today um just stay tuned Um there's some things that uh you might
hear be hearing about uh regarding that in the near future. Um as far as the nursing program, I just I really want to um say how good I feel to see specifically the um eye exam uh portion happening there. This hit my own
family. So there were three of us, four boys who were in uh at of school age. One of them was referred to the nurse for um vision screening based on some behaviors he was exhibiting in school.
It was not caught at home when he was identified as having a a deficit and it was one that tends to run in families. All three of us were then sent in and they found an issue with me that
was correctable and thank goodness that it was caught and it was caught early and um now I get to sit in front of you with no glasses on. So um just really great programs. Love hearing from you guys every year. Thank you,
Nikos. Yeah, I just have a question about the nursing. So I'm here on the district website right now looking at the school nurse directory. I don't have one. So, I was just wondering if if maybe you you may know why or who and maybe
they're not listed here, but I mean I've never personally met the nurse of Pike Peak Early College SSA if we have one. Yes, there is there is a nurse assigned uh to PEC. Um I will take a look at that
website and make sure that it's on there and updated. I apologize if it's not. Yeah, thank you. I was just I was looking on here because I was like nursing and that reminds me. Who's mine? And it's it's just it's not here. But thank you. Apparently, you're really healthy, Nikos. That's okay.
Yeah. Our school, we just have have peak fitness, health, and everything. I guess we don't we don't need to know. We'll get on the zone superintendent to get that fixed. Director Schmidt. Yeah. I have a co a couple questions for
everybody. Um the child find thing um Stacy you were saying that that is finding kids who need services. Is that correct? Correct. So child find is a process by which we find kids that need to be evaluated for potential special education services.
Okay. Wonderful. I wasn't sure what that was, so I figured I'd thought I'd ask. Um universal screenings. Um what universal screening? What what does that mean? What screenings do you do? So, we offer developmental screenings to all families with preschool age students
that reside in our district boundaries. And so, families can come if they have concerns about their child's development or they can just bring their child in to find out where they are um developmentally. They can get some resources from us. We hand out play handbooks and different things that talk
about milestones and and that kind of thing to educate families. So, um it's just a service that we like to provide to our community. and Karen. Um, you're saying you're dyslexic. You can't get enough people to or you don't have enough people or
resources to test everyone. I'm assuming you were mentioning allies when you said they were overwhelmed as as well. Does any other school in the district offer what you need in that area? I've reached out to the people I thought I could find supports for and at this
time I haven't found the supports to do the screening for the two students that we have. I'm I'm not done reaching um because I'll do whatever it takes, but so far I haven't found the resources that I need yet, but I have an incredible reading specialist who's
trained in supporting students with kinesesthetic learning for reading. And so they're getting supports they need. We just wanted to help them more so by reaching them out to the families to let the family know so that they could be aware of how to best support their child in accessing reading skills.
So then that would be an outside resource or in the school. I'm going to find someone within the district. I just have to I just haven't found it yet. Okay. Well, good luck. If we can do anything to help, let us know. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Okay. And Paty, um vision screening. Thank you. I'm blind as a bat. Um and the opioid crisis. Thank you for Yes. giving some instruction on all of that stuff. Um the immunization management, what does that encompass? Are you just
keeping records or do you actually administer uh vaccinations or immunizations? We evaluate compliance uh under the state of Colorado for immunization compliance for our students. Okay. And then when you collect health
data, where does that go? What what do you do with with the data? With the data. So for example, uh every year in May, uh we have a comprehensive uh data report that's submitted to the state of Colorado. Okay.
For with the numbers of students, uh we in our district with asthma, severe allergy, seizures, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions that's reported. So, it's open to the public so parents can go and and see uh those
numbers as well as immunization compliance. Thank you, Director Dvola. Yes, thank thank you all for all your hard work. Uh we appreciate all the services that you do for our kids in
this district. Uh Karen, I did have a question for you. It's a little off topic. Um, and I would have emailed it to you, but I didn't think about it till now. So, I apologize for that. Um, I have uh I do know with your peak programs, you do have some severe needs
kids or students who are in need of isolation rooms, etc. Um, do you know how we do reporting or are we reporting to CDE on the incidents that um require isolation rooms or the length of time that isolation rooms are used, things
like that? Well, one thing I would just start with, we don't have isolation rooms. It's called a deescalation room. It's a tool for helping disregulated students manage and come back to wizard brain so they
can process whatever disregulated them. So that's a different different term than isolation. So I just wanted to clarify that. Okay. I wasn't sure because I know there was some sort of legislation around isolation. That's why I was confused. clarify that for me. That'd be great.
So, so we do we submitted this year for the first year our um deescalation information to the state and so this was the first year per Colorado law that that we submitted that information. So, we do collect it um it is collected through um data or data forms that are
in powers school and then we do submit to the state again this being the first year. Okay. Thank you. That clarifies. Okay. Sorry, Karen, I had one more question for you as well. Um, you said that you um would like to see
more case managers visiting the schools. Is there a way that we can maybe incentivize or have some sort of like requirement or something that would help them to come to you guys to build those relationships with the kids? I'm just
thinking of ideas. Sure. Um in the in the special education re reference guide or I think if I have a D policy procedures um resource manual, there is a a whole section on if your
student is being considered placement at peak and the procedures to do that. And one of the one of the guiding statements in there is that the case manager will visit once per month to maintain relationship with the student. So we we put it in the manual. Then when I go to
principal meetings, then I talk with principles and ask them to support us by encouraging their case managers to come. And then when case managers do come, then I give a jingle to the, you know, positive behavior enforcement. I give a jingle to the principal and say, "Hey, I
had a couple of your people show up today. That was really cool. The kids really enjoyed seeing them." So, um I I think that it's multi-tered and we're we're this is something that we struggled with since we opened up and
and that's something I'm passionate about getting kids and case managers to the building. So, it's always in the forefront of my mind and I'm always looking for solutions. It really is a resource management issue because your case managers are the
special education teachers in the home schools. So if you're looking at an elementary student, you know, that that's the special education teacher who has their class they're running all day, too. So they're going to have to get over there on their plan or have a substitute or um so so it's a a
management issue on that piece as well. They're not the special education case managers are the special education teachers and then each of them divide up who has how many kids um on their quote case load. But at the high school level it's a little more complex but there's still actually classroom teachers who
are designated as case managers. And so some of it I'm sure is logistics of that need. Um I would agree with that. A good deal of it is. So, I don't think it's a a lack of of wanting to or of care. Um, we see
it even at at the 18 to 21 program transition kids who we have placed out of district, their case managers have to try and come visit at the um places in which they're placed, but they're also out all day doing the district transitions program. So, the way in which they think they can do that and
keep those relationships gets tricky. Karen, I want to thank you for your passion and your dedication. I mean, you you approach a difficult job with a lot of joy and enthusiasm and um I'm just grateful you're here. And I also wanted
to talk about the vision screening and what a difference you're making in people's lives. I mean, if you can identify them early enough, get them the glasses and hopefully encourage that love of reading. Yes. Um yes,
I think that's just amazing. Thank you. And so and I'd like to add to that we are fortunate to have a supportive um leadership in purchasing. We have uh machine vision machines which are called plus optics machines and they can detect
up to eight eye disorders and that's the way we screen students. A couple years ago, we actually identified a student who had a tumor behind the retina in the eye with that machine and that student received appropriate care and it was
identified through the school. So, we are very proud to continue those efforts. And in the state of Colorado, all we need to do is screen uh first uh kindergarten, first, 3rd, fifth, 7th, 9th grade, and new students to our
district. And we take pride in screening all students in elementary school every year just to make sure that we're not missing anything. So, thank you for sharing that story. That's really, really amazing. Director Dola.
Well, um, Paci had a question for you. Yes. Um, so you had mentioned that nurses helped to teach like health classes, uh, the growth and development pieces. Um, back in the day when I was a kid, it was the PE teacher that taught like health
classes. Is this completely done by the health nurses now? So, the PE teachers do not teach health. We partner we partner with our teachers. Uh with our PE teachers, uh the nurse usually uh teaches uh the girls and and if there's
a male PE teacher or a male teacher uh teaches the boys, there's also an opportunity for co-ed um teaching of specific just growth and development. And that's the fifth grade curriculum. It's the fifth fifth grade. Okay. Thank you. Correct.
Nikos. Yeah. Yeah, I just like to go back to the story about detecting that tumor because that's great. And I'd like to propose a new motto. Highly merchandiseable. Checking eyes saves lives. Thoughts? Get that. Get that on a mug. Put it out across the district.
I love it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you all so much. And one last thing for Dr. Lman. Um I get such positive feedback from the people who work with you and so I think you have an extraordinary way of honoring other people. I don't know if
you hear it enough, but what I hear when you're not around is really, really good. So, I want to thank you. Thank you. Um, just be sure the gentleman in the purple shirt over there knows, please. You did hear that, right? Superintendent Hilts. Yeah, just
All right. Thank you very much. I am very fortunate to have an amazing team. I am very, very fortunate. All of them, not just the three standing behind me, but I think they would also agree, the the rest of the team. We are very fortunate within district 49 to have such a great team of leaders. So, thank
you. Cool. Thank you. Have a solution already. We have a solution. What's the solution? We've got a solution. We have a solution. Solution. You just got to find it. Oh, I think the solution is Are you Are
you the solution? I am. Okay. I'm Lisa Phillow, executive director of learning services. Um, good evening board and Mr. Miller and student. Hi. I'm presenting to you the school improvement plans um that I'm hoping
that you will approve uh for accreditation of schools. And um in that continuous culture of um continuous improvement that's all the unified improvement plans are
and what we do is we look at the student performance frameworks that are developed from the CAMASS and our with we train our principles and our teams and we have for we have some work sessions where we support them where we
dig into data and they make instructional decisions. isions re uh financial decisions on how best to spend their monies and how to guide their teachers in instruction for improvement.
This is a just a quick overview of our SPFs this year, our student performance frameworks. I did include prior years so that you can see that we've had some improvement at some schools. Um I'm very proud to say that we don't have any
schools um and our district operated schools that are um below performance. We do have um and then I did get a question about Patriot within sufficient data and you when you look at the student performance framework you'll find they just didn't have enough kids
to test that would create some reliable data. So um it's insufficient data. No, no fault of theirs at all. They do they still develop a very strong unified improvement plan because they do have areas of growth that they need in
literacy and math and the report does reflect that. So they get the same opportunity. They're just not graded against other schools because of their um low low participation. Um you will see that goal has the
highest rating they've had. But I believe in seven years. Um they are in a different framework. It's an it's the alternative it's an alternative framework. Um and their success along
with all the other schools success will put district 49 on a per um performance this year. So this is not yet updated because we have to ask the state to do that for us, but they sent us an email asking us to do it. So, will be
approved, I'm sure. And just this is just a quick reminder of how the school performance frameworks are um assessed. Remember that in elementary schools uh and middle schools
growth is huge, 60% with 40% on academic achievement. And then when we get to the high schools, um 40% growth, 30% on achievement and 30% on the post secondary, the PWR
frameworks. Um so Deb and I already had a great conversation of how that's evaluated. Um those are the graduation rates, dropout rates, and keep in mind the bottom three on there. So, graduation rates, um, the marticulation
grade rates are from the 2024 school year because kids graduate and we need some time to figure out where they go and if they're joining the military or which colleges and then some children wait a couple months before they decide. And so, that kind of affects those
numbers as well. And then I presented to you here our student our unified improvement plans for every single school. So you can have the opportunity to look through those. What you will find is if there's um an
area of growth on their student performance frameworks, they would have they will address it in here. Our team of Shawn Norman, myself, and Karen Bixler, we read every one of them. We have this wonderful spreadsheet we where we document that or we copy and paste
pretty much and give to schools for feedback and they always implement or or they ask us more questions. So, it's a great process. Remember that these um UIPs are Oh, I
don't know what happened to my thing now. Oh, there it is. The UIPs are um an ongoing document that we that and we have quarterly reviews on those. Some schools look at them more often. Um
but and then some don't. So they look at them quarterly and then we'll meet with them when we look at midyear data to see how their their growth is coming along. Um and then last is the UIP SAX sheet. I did sign I did include it here. This is
the document that we collect um indicating in their signatures on there that all our SAC members have reviewed the the document at every school. So it's shared with them. It's shared with the staff. It's a community document for
improvement. Any questions? Director Schmidt, I don't really have a question because you answered my questions earlier. Thank you so much. Um, but I do have a comment on goal. It sounded like they were doing really well. Um, they did move to the
Safeway shopping center and I popped in there one day and talked with the gentleman there and he said they were upund to 150 kids from I think 132 something like that. So, they are up. So, Oh, that's good news. Yeah, it was very interesting to see
that campus. Yeah. Oh, good. I'll visit that one. We are visiting all the campuses on the front range and we're and Karen Bixler and I and Kathleen Granis and Sean Norman and our coordinators for math and literacy are going to meet. We have
scheduled meetings to just see how we can support and to invite them to some of our um professional development. They're always invited. They're always included. They don't always come. So maybe a personal welcome would help. Are there any other questions?
Director Dvola. Um, thank you for all of the arduous work that you had to do in order to go through every single one of those files. I'll be honest, I didn't open them because it was daunting. Um, but I I can assure you they're great,
but I trust you fully, so I'm sure they're awesome. Um, but thank you for all your hard work on making sure that we have those those improvement plans. You're welcome. It's obviously a big team effort. The schools, the the community, the sack teams, the DAC,
there's a lot of you guys. So, thank you. Okay, no other questions. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Oh, are we going to move this forward if there's no objections?
Do we move this forward? Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh. Any objections to moving this forward? Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna mess this all up. Time limits. I just want There he is. The man of the hour.
Do you have a newbie? So, give them a lot of questions. Wow. All right. Brian Smith, Falcon Zone Superintendent again for second item this evening. And I just as they get ready to come up here, um I just wanted
to comment Falcon Zone is super excited to welcome Patriot Applied Learning Campus to our zone this year. Um it has been an awesome addition and we are just thrilled to get to collaborate with Mr. Bailey and his team. Um and so in this first aspect, uh our English language
arts teacher, Miss Ray, has worked on some new courses that will best meet our students needs. So I'm going to turn it over to them. Good evening, Ryan Bailey, principal Patriot Applied Learning Campus. Um, so just as we've joined the Falcon Zone and to empower students and offer enhanced
opportunities, we wanted to offer more courses for students to have more choice and more voice in what they take while they learn the standards, which is the purpose of these other courses. And I'll let Miss Ray explain them specifically. Hello, I'm Amy Ray. I'm the one of the English teachers at Patriot Applied
Learning Center. Um and we we have three classes that we would like to offer uh next year. Um Colorado folklore is an extension of um the traditional mythology class that we would normally present. Uh we wanted a
second option for students that's more um interesting and applicable to them so that they can explore the myths and legends in Colorado. Um the film and literature class um combines your classic um British
literature and explo exploration of satire um with modern-day films that do the same. Uh, and then the culture and literature class allows students to really explore their own cultures um and and how that is present in their lives
and their families um and get that sort of um personalized um learning about themselves. Do you have any questions, Director Schmidt? I don't really have a question, but I would like to make an appointment and come in and kind of discuss these a
little bit and go a little bit more in depth if that would be okay between now and voting time. Sure. Okay, great. Thanks, director. So, I know all of these are um eight weeks at least. Uh the information we
have there is that so is that complete? Yes, the courses are all eight weeks. Um at Patriot we do uh quarterlong classes so that the kids are able to have more options in the year. Okay. And are these elective or um do
they take the place of uh of of the regular English class? They are English credits. Okay. And I just wanted to say um I I I found it immediately interesting when I saw that you're focusing on a modest proposal. Um,
but like in the week one block there, it's talking about satire point of view and movie examples. So I I looked and I couldn't find a movie version of a modest proposal. So how can you uh when I start the class, we start with
short films. So I have several um short films that are anywhere from a minute to 30 minutes long that we use as the building blocks as we're starting to learn more about satire. Great. As a heavy consumer of satire, I approve completely.
Great. I'm just shocked that you're listing Nessie and Chupacabra's myths. I thought they were real. Nikos, did you have a question? Not a question, but a comment for kind of this in general. In my tenure as a
student representative, I've noticed out of all the schools, I noticed the most course proposals from Patriot. And I kind of just want to commend that because it really shows that you guys are pushing strong in that third rock of offering exceptional choices, taking steps to offer courses where other
schools haven't. So I just think that that's really cool from Patriot as a whole and these particular courses. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, if there are no objections, can we move these forward?
Now we are on to item 3.5, district expansion. And Mr. Smith. All right, I'm back. Y So Brian Smith, Falcon's own superintendent. Brian, we missed you. We go. Bold. Did you say bold? Bold.
Okay. Well, we have a bold proposal. So that works. We need I think it's in our slides. as we are getting the slides up here. It is, but we would like to display it. Uh, and it was it was there intentionally and this is when it could
come public. Is it possible that you could place it into public materials and then we'll refresh? Nope. It's executive. So, we're pulling up slides uh just because these were things we wanted to talk with our staff about because
there's implications there. And so, we had conversations with um our building staff today. Um and so, I want to share information with you as far as um some new opportunities we're looking at uh as far as implications with things on the
horizon for the district. Uh specifically related to Falcon Zone. um we have some challenges ahead of us. We have some challenges we've been facing. Uh but we also have some really amazing opportunities and creative solutions we can look at to um address some of these
challenges. And so as we go through um a lot of our proposal, we're showing you where we're starting. Um there's a lot of logistics to still consider and work through. So I don't have those at at this point because we need to work with staff and and work through some more specifics. Uh but this is our general
overview of what we are looking at and we've sort of called the new era in Falcon Zone and in district 49 uh because there's there's definitely some things we need to to look at and be aware of um with changes coming. So specifically in the Falcon zone um we
have had a challenge. You've seen these graphs uh from Rebecca Brooks, our chief financial officer where Falcon Zone, we've budgeted really well. Um but we're not seeing the increase in line that maybe some of our other zones are. And so we've explored that a little bit. Um
we know nationally, uh the birth rate is down. Um but we also know specifically in Falcon the cost of living out there now is much higher. Um and buying a new house for families out there is not an easy task. Um they are very expensive out there. And so we are not finding as
many new families moving into the Falcon area. Um we also are not seeing the level of choice and part of that is we just have a further proximity away from the P corridor. Um and so families don't tend to want to drive all the way out there or or engage in the choice as
much. We still do have some, but not as much. Um, and we're also trying to be really responsible and think about the additional budget cuts that are on the horizon and how we can be fiscally responsible um, to maximize our potential uh, but also maintain things that are really near and dear to the
Falcon Zone. We have great schools in the Falcon Zone. We have great teachers, great staffs, and so we need to preserve that and continue to amplify that. Um, specifically, we have had challenges at two of our smaller elementary schools. Um, Falcon Elementary and
Bennett Ranch are our two smaller schools. You can see 247 students and 328 students in those buildings uh for this year. And then their class ratios. And while this is important, um, elementary are critical years, especially in those primary literacy
years to establish those foundational literacy and math skills. And we have some class size ratios that are larger. Um, we have some classes, especially in elementary, you'll see at Bennett, a couple of grade levels that are even at 30 or above 30. And that's hard at the
elementary level for what needs to happen. And so, we are taking into account that we don't have as many options to spread students out because we don't have as many teachers at those grade levels. So, that has been a challenge um at those two schools in
particular. Um, those two schools are great about telling me, "Hey, Brian, we need some more teachers. we need another teacher at this grade level and the budget has impacted us from being able to do that and so we're trying to find creative solutions that are more sustainable to help ensure that we have
enough teachers at the grade levels. Another implication that is coming as we all know is the new Marzano K8 charter school. Um, and so this is going into the Bent Grass neighborhood, which is right there in Falcon to uh the west of
Meridian, north of Bent Grass, um, just by the 7-Eleven there. And that's going to, as we all know, a K8 charter that is coming that is going to um, work its way up with bringing more students as a choice option, which will have an impact on our schools in the Falcon zone as
well. Um, and so this is something also we are being mindful of. Do you want to add some things on this? Yeah. And so, uh, I I know that the board is aware of what I'm about to say, but I because this is our public meeting on record and we're we're describing this, we will get questions and have already about why are
we letting another charter school come into the district? And my response is we're not um for two reasons. It's right that this charter school has been approved. One is the Charter School Act going all the way back into the early 90s establishes that charter schools
that districts can deny charter schools applications for very limited grounds. They can't if they can't locate a facility, if they can't attract students, if they can't operate a school, then we have a right to to deny that application. They will appeal to the state board. In the case of the Marzano applicant, as you know, as you
heard from me, this is an incredibly strong applicant. They've secured the site. They actually filed on this site today. That was intentionally timed for this presentation. And they um they have two years to attract the students and to
meet some milestones uh that that actually start early in the year 2027. And so we wouldn't have a legal foundation, but we also wouldn't have a philosophical foundation. It is in our DNA right there on the the board that we
want to offer exceptional choices. We absolutely believe this will be an exceptional choice which raises pressure on schools in the Falcon zone that will be in direct competition to attract the choice of students and families. And so while we we recognize that this is
impactful, it's the impact that district 49 has chosen time after time after time. We're very consistent with our philosophy and our history and we just happen to also be consistent with state law and whatever the the state board would would ultimately decide. So this
is a reality. It's not something we should fight. It's not even something we should we should be objecting to. It's a reality of doing business as as public education in district 49. And so what do we need to do in a choice environment to compete? Well, one of the things we need
to do is consider the age of our buildings. So Falcon Elementary in our zone is one of the, if not the oldest dis uh school in our district. Um, and so it has some challenges right now as far as maintaining just utilities costs are
higher. Maintaining some of the maintenance there is higher and has more implications with the larger amount of students in that smaller building. We also know Falcon Highway is going to be expanding in the next few years and where the parking lots sit in that building is going to create an issue. um
we are likely to lose some of our parking lots of that building uh based on that expansion. And so that has an implication on this building for being a fullsize service school as well. Um we also know from projections there are neighborhoods being looked at and
planned out east and so in the district there are new neighborhoods being planned and talked about that will bring more of those affordable housing options to our region. And so we need to start planning for that and think ahead on that. Um, a lot of times we get to that place and then, oh my, now we need a
school. Well, we want to think ahead as far as what the implications are and how we can make that work. Um, and so we know there's property out there we can start to look at um, as a replacement for Falcon Elementary in the future. And so we're trying to take that into
account as we plan for this as well. Um, to support that, there's some district impacts. So just as we would prefer to buy raw land or undeveloped land, we would prefer to buy it before there's a significant amount of growth because
that significant amount of growth is going to drive prices on the market. And so it just would be fiscally responsible for us to start looking now and to try to to identify either a partnership or uh perhaps a land swap or a land purchase. Um and and we do have
dedicated land that plays into this mix. I won't be specific about parcels because then that changes the uh kind it changes our our negotiating position and and we don't want to do that to either side. Um but to get ready for that
expected expansion, we are looking at these two properties. In the bottom left, you see the the Mohawk building that houses the Peak Education Program that you heard about earlier. And then you're familiar with our education service center which is our our uh
ancestral uh district office where many of us went to board meetings for lots of years. And both of these facilities are located along the frontage road along Woodman Road. uh what we currently refer to as Woodman Road is rapidly becoming
the Woodman corridor, which means that the properties along the frontage road and properties that have visibility and easy access are going to increase in value. There are some zoning constraints on some of these properties. Uh there
are other planned developments that will impact in in every case will elevate the value of the properties that we currently own. Uh and so we did commission appraisals of these properties. So we we evaluated both the entire property that is at Golden Sage
along that frontage road on the corner of of Bankrass Meadow. We evaluated the entire property. We also evaluated the portion that is between the fence and the frontage road. Um at Mohawk, we evaluated the entire property. And the reason we did that, the reason we we
sought those appraisals is because we want to be in a position should the board uh continue to support this direction, we want to be in the position to move quickly uh to time the market if that is possible and extract maximum value for these properties when we put
them to market. And it is our intent said here publicly to the board. It is our intent that proceeds from the sales of these properties would fund the project that we're describing here tonight. Uh and we'll get to what that project is in in just a moment. But um
these are not locations or facilities that will serve the district well for very much longer. And so people look at the ESC, the education service center, and they said, "Well, where where will those people go?" I office there. Most of our people and culture and
communications professionals office there in in the part of the building that is outside the fence uh close to the road. And our intent is to build a wall right here,
right where the blue tape is on the floor along about the threepoint line of the gym that we're standing in. and the things to the west of that wall, these spaces would become two stories of office spaces that would accommodate the vast majority of of the people that
currently are are doing their work there at the ESC. Um, it is also our intent because when we move um these programs, we have to know where they're moving to and then we we have to know what we would be displacing. It's also our
intent to find a new home for the peak program um if we ask them to leave their current home at Mohawk. And so Brian will talk us through where that new home might be. So uh as a result of all these things, what our proposal is and looking at
those low populations, initially people might think, oh well, we may need to look at closing a building. Well, the impact in Falcon would not be positive. Um, our schools out in Falcon are a center of our community. They are very favorable in our community. They serve
different populations and they serve them very well. Um, I'm very proud of the work that our schools out there do. Um, Falcon Elementary in particular has been around a long time. The culture, the staff, the people that are there care about that community and care about
those kids. And so, we want to be very intentional that we are not just closing a school. Um, Bennett Ranch is another one as our newer school has served a new group of students. Very powerful connection that they have with their community as well as well as Woodman Hills and Meridian Ranch. All of our
schools do a great job. And so we want to avoid shifting boundaries. We want to avoid just moving everybody around because that's going to change all of the culture of the schools. So, what our proposal is looking to do is I we have
the ability to um house both Falcon Elementary and Bennett Ranch Elementary inside of the facility that is used for Bennett Ranch. Um that is a building built for 900 students. And if you take the populations of those two elementaryaries and add them together,
it's about 540 students. So, it still would not fill that building all the way full. We would still have space. Um, and so by doing this, we would be able to allocate certain spaces for Falcon Elementary. We'd be able to allocate certain spaces for Bennett Ranch. We
currently do it because Falcon Middle School uses space there. Well, in talking with Falcon Middle School, the population there has also seen a decline. We're back down below 900, um, which is when I was a principal there. We had all of our grades and all of our classes in the main core of the
building. Um, and so we can move Falcon Middle School all back down to the core building of Falcon Middle School, house them appropriately, and service them there appropriately. Um, and have that work to where then we only have two programs, um, at the Bennett Ranch
facility. True story, I could leave sixth grade at Bennett, have Falcon and Bennett Ranch all be there and still have open classrooms. Um, but we don't want three schools using one of the confusion. The there's too much. um we can house Falcon Middle all together in
the one building and then we can house these two schools to operate as their separate entities and that's important for a variety of different reasons. They both serve their populations well. They both have respected, caring communities that rally around them. Falcon Elementary is very unique in the the Far
East community of this district that they serve. Um it would not be right to close down that building. um we want to maintain them and keep them partially because we are looking to build a new facility that they will then move into. And so our intent is to keep that going
with with this new piece. And so that new building, Falcon Elementary, would ultimately move there. Um so this would be a temporary housing situation where they would reside there and we can make it work. Let me let me speak to this.
Yep. Speak. So, we spoke to the staff at Bennett Ranch today. We spoke to the staff at Falcon Elementary today. Um, and we spoke to staff at the Peak program today. And the reason we did that is that these are all people that were going to be directly impacted by what we
were proposing. And we knew that we would be with you tonight. We knew that the Marzano filing was going public today. This was all very carefully timed so that it would be both respectful but also honor your prerogative as a board to to have an opportunity to review this
early on in the process. The idea of relocating Falcon Elementary as a school, not just the students or but the entire school operation um is very intentional because we would eventually and I say eventually because
it's multiple years and I don't know exactly what the time frame would be, but we would like to see the district operate a prek through 8 school out on the eastern edge of district 49. Since
we opened our first K8 charter school, we as a district have essentially seated the K8 market. We have we've kind of surrendered that ground in the school choice competition to charter schools. And we have seen massive growth and and
appreciation for the K8 model. There are a lot of families that like the idea of taking their oldest child to kindergarten and knowing that they are going to be driving the same route, meeting the same teachers, connecting and car pooling with the same families for 12 or 14 years as their children get
older and younger siblings come up through the school. That family community model is very appealing and I would say it is especially appealing and we've seen that appeal in numbers in the Falcon Zone. um our constituents are
voting with their feet. They're they're going to schools that have a model that they prefer and another one with the Marzano application is going to be opening up. So our intent is that what we have known as Falcon Elementary would become Falcon PreK8 on the eastern edge
of our district and that's a part of why we want to keep it as a unified school. We'll keep the school number, we keep the tradition, we keep the staff and we keep the leadership and we give them a vision of what's coming. As we spoke to the Falcon staff today, I talked to them
about the metaphor that this is sort of like putting them on the Mayflower and sending them out across the sea. We're not expecting them to live on the Mayflower forever. The Mayflower was a vessel to take them to their ultimate destination. We want this ultimate
destination to be Falcon PreK8. And we are we are grateful to the the staff and community and to the the design of Bennett Ranch um for being the Mayflower we need in this season. And interestingly, it might not be a bad
place for the the Falcon Elementary community to become familiar with because that footprint. Yeah. This this footprint of this building is ideal for a preK8. Um, and
so we we feel by them getting an opportunity to be in this and then to replicate this footprint further out east, it prepares us for that transition. It helps us get ready effectively. Um, and we're we're saying prek8 intentionally. Um, I left that off
earlier today and I felt awful for my Falcon Elementary teams because preschool is highly important and we need to make sure that we we know that this is a prek8 um that we are looking to do to support those families as well. Um, as a part of this, I did talk with
transportation. The buses are already out there out east going to Falcon Middle School. So, they're already picking all those students up for Falcon Elementary as well. So they'd be bringing them that same distance anyway um because they already travel to Falcon Middle School as well. Um so while it is
further distance, we will have to talk about start times to better align so they are aligned together. Um but it's it is doable and it will work. Um and the staff had some great questions and we're already problem solving and thinking ahead. Um, I was really
impressed and and proud of our staff for thinking about the idea, sharing questions, sharing thoughts, um, and just being open-minded um, about what we're what we're considering. Um, the other part of this is based on what Mr. Hilt shared with the D49 um properties.
Um the intent would be to look at the Falcon Elementary facility for Peak um which would give further opportunities to then expand Peak since they're limited in their current um size of building as well. Um potentially expand preschool offerings. A lot of different
possibilities there. Um and so that allows us to again uh vacate those facilities on Woodman um to make this plan fully work. And I already talked about the Falcon Middle shuffle there as well. The exciting thing about this is while we will operate Falcon Elementary
and Bennett Ranch separately, there will be opportunities to overlap and collaborate. And Craig Stevens, our new principal, and Martina Meadows, principal at Bennett have already been talking with me. Um, this gives us a unique opportunity where they can collaborate that if all of a sudden a
grade level is high in one building but it's low in another, they are there and we have the additional sections. And so we can start talking about if we can move some students into an open classroom to lower those class sizes at the primary level. We got to be strategic especially because Falcon
Elementary is title whereas Bennett Ranch is not. So we've got to make sure we're following the appropriate rules. Um, and but in doing this, we can make sure, okay, Falcon Elementary has the extra grade level in second grade, but Bennett Ranch has it in third grade. So, there's a a balance of extra students at
each grade level. That will make sure that we're being equitable to both schools when we have to look at doing that. But you can see now the ratios by combining them much better for our elementary classrooms uh versus some of those upper towards 30s that you were seeing. Um, so this is a creative
solution. 575. Actually, what you see there is still smaller than Meridian Ranch Elementary School's population, but larger than Woodman Hills. And yet, it's in a building that is much larger than both of those. So, we can accommodate this safely and effectively.
And so, in doing this, that allows us to get a jump start on planning ahead um for this new prek8. I needed to change my slide. Um Falcon PreK8 um out on the eastern side of the district. um so that we can then have Falcon Elementary but
Falcon PreK8 take over in that place, keep the Hawks uh in a new facility with their blue and gold um and start that planning process uh because that will take us some time. But I also feel this shows that we're working to be fiscally responsible, that we're not spreading
out using extra utility costs, extra operations costs, that we're really trying to merge together in a building to save money um and be strategic overall. So there's a lot of um forward thinking as far as what we can do to maintain both buildings, but save the district in terms of that budget piece
as well. Anything else you want to add? Questions? Director Schmidt. So, are you going to move the new Peak Playground? Okay. So, we'll keep that. Good. That's
good. Um, how much is it going to I mean, is it going to be expensive to update the current Falcon Elementary School to the Peak View? I mean, I know it's a really old building. How much is going to need to be done to bring it up to date?
So, my friends over in district 11 would snicker at us for calling a 40-year-old building an old building, and they would be right because they operate safe schools in buildings that are substantially older. And we are operating a perfectly safe and secure
building at Falcon Elementary. But as that building continues to age and especially as the the Falcon Highway expands and and they they use the easement that they already have, um that school will become less and less
optimal. It's already on the small side uh compared to our prototypical elementary schools. And it it has a best optimal use and that best optimal use is not as an elementary school. it is as a place for other programs potentially
some other offices perhaps some full day and half-day preschool and pre kindergarten programs. So there are things that we we have shown through the years that we will use facilities um for for purposes that serve the district and support our programs and that would
continue to be the case at this school. Um, I can't answer the question about how expensive, but I can say this. There are teachers at the peak program right now who would take gymnastics classes to
learn how to do back flips. If they found out that they were going to get a fullsize elementary classroom to work with their their programs. You heard uh Miss Anders tonight talk about a gym. There would be a gym and there would be in addition to the playground they already have that is very accessible,
there's already outdoor spaces and and spaces that they could use. There's already modular classrooms that could be used in in concert with other purposes. And so we're not talking about a major renovation of of a decrepit building.
We're talking about a new era and a new optimal purpose for a building that is already serving us well, but is about to outlive its usefulness as an elementary school. We're also doing this in front of a community that expects us to be wise with our dollars. And as some of you
have mentioned tonight, we are facing financial challenges in the current and future budget years. Uh I can I can report to you that we are working very hard and counting on enrollment um so that that number isn't $9 million. We want to bring that down. One of the ways
you do that is by drawing more students into our schools. One of the ways you do that is by offering a school model that our community manifestly wants. So, we believe that a prek8 school will not only draw a lot of students that are already residents in district 49, it'll
draw students in from further east. And as Falcon was 20 years ago, Payton is now. And we're going to see that continued push to the east. And some of those students will be looking for a school on the way to work along the
Woodman corridor or down Curtis as they go to a base. And so, we want to position this school to catch that. phenomenon. So the long bus ride for the people like out on Curtis and Jones Road for instance, you will be able to reassure
them that it is a kind of a temporary the Mayflower. Yep. Okay. Yeah. This is a it it will be a few years. Um but it gives us the opportunity to get on this planning process, start start working through those pieces because our intent is to
then have a school closer in proximity Director Hy. So, couple of question, a couple comments first and then a question. Um, so one of the the strengths of the K preK through 8 model that uh wasn't mentioned during your presentation is
that it is more economically viable to build. Uh it's certainly going to cost us a lot less money than to build a separate elementary and uh middle school. So, I just wanted our community to be considering that as we're we're talking through this and um
there's, you know, we talked earlier about uh you know, how eager peak program is to get into that new space and I I should have picked up on that because Karen was very much less strident about her requirement for space and now we just heard that she has heard
about this plan today. So, of course, um and uh I have the the other piece that wasn't really discussed was the uh the ESC. Um I remember looking through the Val commentary last year and so many of
them were roasting that location and with good reason. I've gone there for meetings and every time I'm walking through those narrow hallways and and getting ready to make a corner, I'm afraid I'm going to collide with somebody like it's just very tight and no visibility. And there are other
drawbacks. That's just the one that I keep experiencing. So my question uh my I understand from our previous conversation that there were more proposed tenants for Falcon L than just the peak program. Were there other
programs that were we're looking at giving space there potentially and and we intentionally didn't list those out in in this public session. Um our district has a pretty specific history of of shuffling with
purpose. So at the Mohawk building which currently houses Peak once upon a time we had a homechool program there. We also had a room full of fire king file cabinets in which we housed all of our special education records for a long time. And so um there are a lot of
places like that in the district that have been through several eras of utility over time. Um there are other programs, there are other even even down to the level of individual offices that might be appropriate in a in a different
location. Uh we're doing some really interesting things at the Patriot Applied Learning Campus. It's conceivable to me that we might take one of those classrooms and do some kind of purposeful applied learning experience that would be hard to do inside the the footprint of what is currently the the
Patriot High School and Middle School. And so, yes, there are probably going I I can guarantee you there's going to be other tenants. I can't be specific at this point about which they would be. Um, I think there's programs around the district that might raise their hand and
say, "You know what? We we kind of like that location. We kind of like that layout. We kind of like that facility." Uh, there are there are spaces at Falcon Elementary that have been an elementary school, a clinic, a preschool.
Will they be something new? Will they continue? Those are those are specific details that will be on Brian's logistics list. and he'll start working with Bruce Brown and he'll start working with Lou Fletcher in operations and the other transportation and operations leaders that he mentioned. Um, but we
had to start here with the kind of public disclosure. And so I just want to point out to everybody that there are a number of programs that are getting a win from this overall plan. So, um, I'm really excited to see it play out.
Director Dvola Yes, I think this is this is a really well well-laidout plan and you guys handled it with great care and I appreciate the the um collaboration the two of you had with like who was doing
which slide. Very seamless. So, nice work. Don't know if you practice, but you did a good job. Um uh just one question. I know with the the the sale of the uh Woodman corridor
offices um in the building that PE peak program is in um those funds would help with this revamping etc. Do you foresee having um other funds available for other
building projects or other um like what else could we use that money for? So the money from the proceeds from the sale of the properties along Woodman in that Woodman corridor, we would ask you to to give your blessing to our intent
to hold those funds in reserve as a down payment on Falcon PreK8. Meanwhile, and those funds will not come close to covering the cost of that of that construction. We have to ask very seriously whether our community will
step up and support us in a bond campaign. Bonds Bonds are for building or whether they will support us in a mill levy override. Levies are for learning and they support the operations of the district. The reality is with with decreased funding from our state,
with potentially significant decreased funding from the federal government, we are going to have to turn to the community. We have worked incredibly hard to give our community the schools it deserves to earn their trust. And we
will we will have to see whether the board decides to ask for additional financial support. Um, and if we've earned that support, it it's probable that we will come back to you over the next several years, several budget
cycles, and and introduce the concept of some kind of ballot measure or or funding measure in our community. And then the board will have to listen to the community. The board will have to listen to administration. and and you'll have to calibrate your leadership and future boards the same to what the
school district needs and what the community can sustain and support. Um, but what we are talking about is a plan that could run well into the 30s and could support our district really for the rest of this century. And so we've
got to take the long view and and give our community reasons to come on board and support us. And one of the ways we build that trust with our community is being hyper responsible with what we have now. And it's our conviction that operating two underenrolled elementary
schools is not as financially responsible as the plan that we've presented tonight. Director Schmidt, so this this money from the sale is completely for the K8, the new K8.
does will you be using any of it for the 9 million that we currently have? So, our intent would be to to sequester that money to place it in a restricted fund and we would ask you to bless that.
You would we would ask you to affirm or or tacitly uh ascent to that. Uh that is not normally how you do district financial business, but we we are justifying that potential sale. And I and I want to tab that please.
Potential sale. It's not a sale till you have a buyer. And it's worth whatever a buyer will pay for it. And so I don't know how much money we're talking about. Um but it only makes this whole plan is only justified. the se the sale of those
properties is only justified if we have a place for those programs to go. We only have a place for the peak program to go if we colllocate put Falcon Elementary on the Mayflower and plan the the Falcon prek8. So these things are enshed and it would not be honorable to
say that we're going to use it for one purpose, get everything rolling and then go use it to cure a deficit. um those really have to be different financial strategies and tactics and we are asking to dedicate these reserves to this
building. I believe that our community will appreciate that because they'll see us bootstrapping the down payment and investing in the future of the Falcon Zone in District 49. Director Lemir, right? I think that's the right approach for a number of
reasons. First and foremost, um, when we're talking about the deficit, that deficit is caused by ongoing operating expenses. We should never solve ongoing operating issues budgetarily with one-time money. This is one-time sale of property money that should be used to be
invested in more appropriate property. Essentially, we've outgrown the two facilities we're talking about. They're they're not very useful in their current configuration at all. Right. And we're watching the modulars that have fallen apart be torn apart. So that building's
getting the amount of num the number of people who can fit in a the building that's going to be remaining is ridiculously small. You're going to have one random orphan department out there by the time you're done taking apart the the the temporary facilities on it. So I think
that's the right approach fiduciarily. I think it's the right approach in terms of respecting intent. um and when we make a commitment, we should be standing by it. I think it's more fair to the um Falcon Elementary community as well. And so I think it
would be very very important um for that not just to be the stated intent, but for there to be a board resolution that's passed and voted on and that holds us accountable to it. Um I really appreciate you talking to the staff before you made this
presentation tonight. Um, and it sounds like you encountered more enthusiasm than fear. I mean, change is always tough, but it sounds like they were already coming up with problem solving. Yeah, I you know, I respect our staff members so much that they're honest,
they're genuine, they they communicate concerns when they have them, and you know, they're being honest communicators about this as well. And, you know, you got to take it in. It's a big wo moment when you hear this. Um, and I think I had anticipated seeing a lot more
emotion. Um, I know they're feeling emotion. I know it's hard for Falcon to potentially not be in the building they've been in for a long time. That's hard. Um, and and I I saw some emotion at first and then the questions of just,
oh, what about this? Could we look at this? And, oh, this seems like a cool opportunity here. And I was like, wow. um just their motivation behind asking those things was super impressive and that just goes to the heart of what that staff is all about. Bennett as well,
they asked and Falcon Middle sixth grade teachers joined us as well because there's an impact um with them moving and they all asked phenomenal questions. They all advocated for their schools and their spaces and the importance of Bennett Ranch, the importance of Falcon Middle and maintaining those schools,
but also understanding what we're looking at and the challenges we're facing. I was super impressed with our staff members today. You're here. Also, I think what weren't there some projected growth um housing developments that they also talked about in Payton?
And um I think what you're talking about was that flux position when district 49 began to experience the growth, but they didn't necessarily have the underlying infrastructure at that time. Um and so I can see the potential to have a little bit of a draw if if they're not quite
prepared. The other question I had is the Falcon Homeschool program and supports. Do we have more plans for that particular program? So, I was part of a set of board discussions and and public uh public
analyses and presentations where we offered to give the the Falcon homeschool program uh their home and we actually built the wing at at Inspiration View Elementary School. It was purposebuilt for the homeschool program. And that is a program that had
gotten bumped around multiple times. It was, as I said, at Mohawk. It was in the Baker building out at what is now Patriot High School and and there were some parts of the program that ended up down at the campus what is where Spring Studio and and Peek are. And so that
program really appreciated having a stable home. Um they understood and I gave them my word that they were going to have that for an extended season if the board were to consider whether to
relocate that program at some point. Um there it would not be dishonorable. Um you know when you buy your tire you get a lifetime warranty. Well that lifetime warranty is for the expected life of the tire. It's not forever. It's not your lifetime. It's the tire's lifetime. And
so um the homeschool program has had a very good home there. But we've changed the the number of grades that we serve and the nature of that program. And it is it is conceivable that a future team of board and admin in consultation with that program might decide that there are
other spaces in the district that work well. Um I would not presume to get ahead of that conversation and that would absolutely not be part of our short-term plans. Um but you might have equally asked me a question about uh
other kind of niche programs like PEC or we have hosted goal or we had Falcon Arrow Lab or or we have other specific programs that might possibly benefit from a different location. Not necessarily the current Falcon Elementary, but just a different
location. So all of those things could be on future conversations. We've been really intentional though about just talking to you about the things that are are kind of critical to this set of transitions that are that are kind of the known knowns. There are some known
unknowns and once we know more about them, then we'll come back and have those conversations. Well, it's kind of interesting. I wasn't even thinking about a relocation. I was thinking about a possible satellite, but like I said, I can see where this would be a future thought. So a support not
necessarily a relocation. Are there any other questions? Okay. So on this one, what we're looking to move forward is to approve any initial steps to explore alternatives and consider whether expansion is
appropriate on any specific timeline. So that's what we're talking about moving forward is to explore those alternatives. if I'm reading the cover page correctly. Are there any objections to this?
Okay, wait. Just to be completely transparent, um when we when we say explore, we're not really in the is this possible phase. We're we're exploring implementation because we've we've now been very transparent with you. This is
what we want to do. We want to have hawks and bulls under the same roof in August. And so we're exploring how to make that happen. We'd like to see the peak program and its amazing playground at the what is currently the Falcon Elementary campus. And so this
exploration is an implementation exploration based on uh based on your approval that that this is a direction that's good for district 49. And I think the first few words were appro approve any initial steps. Yes. So I think that was part of it. So, any
objections to that? Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And Brian, you did it. 3 and one night. And with that, we are adjourned at 9:25 p.m.