##VIDEO ID:3hmFibjplKI## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e what up e e e ser this I e e I didn't know if you're all waiting on me or if you're going to say something so I just walked up welcome to the October 23rd Board of Education work session I am calling this meeting to order at 6:33 p.m. and we will start off with item 1.1 good evening I'm Jim roor the the district procurement manager I appreciate this opportunity to present before you tonight as the procurement manager for the district I would like to discuss the creation of a new position an asset manager which I'm seeking your approval our school district manages a large volume of assets ranging from technology and instructional equipment to furniture and facility equipment currently these assets are tracked and managed by my department and has grown to require more oversight and time commitment we currently have three asset and inventory Specialists and plan to convert one of those positions into a manager that will lead the other two the asset manager will provide a leadership structure for the asset team ensuring better coordination efficiency and accountability this role will be responsible for ensuring that our assets are properly tracked allocated maintained and disposed of which will help improve cost Effectiveness reduce waste and ensure compliance with state and federal regulations key responsibilities will be to lead the asset and inventory team develop and maintain districtwide asset tracking system coordinate with schools and departments to oversee purchase puring life cycle management and asset disposal ensure compliance with audit requirements and optimize asset usage identify underutilized equipment or materials in one location and reallocate them to schools in need preventing unnecessary purchases also to manage the sale of obsolete or Surplus equipment through our Public Surplus auction site in order to return money to the general fund benefits of this role uh are to achieve better Financial oversight and budgetary control by ensuring we have accurate real-time data on asset conditions and their locations reduce redundancies and avoid unnecessary purchases prepare for audits more effectively and ensure compliance with state and federal regulations with that I'm formally requesting the board's approval to add this new asset manager position to our District staff in plan the detailed job description has been reviewed by the CFO and superintendent and is aligned with our District's strategic goals I'm happy to answer any questions you may have why don't we start with the student board Kira you want to go first honestly I think this is a great idea um I love that you're all about like the efficiency of things and like reducing unnecessary costs I think that's great um good job like Round of Applause I I thought it was great so thank you Marin um I'm just gonna say the same thing as her I don't have any questions for you it all seems um beneficial to the district as a whole so good job thank you director Schmidt thanks Jim I think this proposal really covers what it needs to and I think it's going to save the district a chunk of change um I'm a business owner and I help with the asset manager part of it so I understand where sometimes stuff wears out uh sometimes things accidentally get ordered a couple times and there's an occasional order that just doesn't meet the needs so I think it's a bonus to have one pair of eyes at least on all the assets and whatnot I also like the idea of deleting one of the asset and inventory Specialists and promoting from within um to replace that position and making it you know giving somebody a raise giving them a supervisory position so I think that's really nice um I was going to ask you where the money went to when you sell the stuff and you told me it was the you you said it was the general fund so I don't have to ask you that um I'm not sure if you can mention salary at a public meeting or not but I was just kind of curious what the salary was going to be for this and those are my only questions I'm not exactly sure uh it's a range I think it's um manager three um and I think it's 70ish I want to say if I remember correctly I'm not exactly sure well worth that director H I just want to say um that uh this makes perfect sense um we are an extremely large Enterprise and we have a lot of things to track and this is a very common position in the corporate world for and Enterprise of this size and um yeah it it's it speaks for itself you director liia Wright no questions thank you and your detailed summary was very well laid out and I don't have any questions so if there are no objections we can move this forward for Action thank you very much next we have the star math performance update good evening um members of the board I am Christina tan the coordinator of math performance I'm excited to share with you our star beginning of the year um math performance um before I do I just wanted to take you along the journey just um in November of 2022 is when I started um at that time I was the coordinator of math performance I was also excuse me the project manager of our current um Mission DNA uh doia Grant and I was also writing grants um I'm still writing grants and and that fall of July 2023 we were awarded to two grants one of those grants was the CDE high impact tutoring Grant we're still using some of those funds I'll talk about those in just a moment um they're dwindling down um and we also were awarded a CDE curriculum Grant where uh we adopted um the savis curriculum where our three District high schools are using that same curriculum and then in the fall of 2023 we hired Desiree mag who is our current project manager of now two grants and uh we hired two District math coaches in October and November um and then as we look towards finishing out the year we ran two summer camps one for grades 3 through five and then one 6 through 8 um we put together a zern summer work for all students within the district uh we set up a partnership with CDE that continues today um they came in and trained all of our teachers um our secondary teachers at the beginning of the summer um our coaches our two math coaches partnered with the literacy coach and ran a coaches PLC um which was very valuable for our coaches throughout the district because oftentimes they feel like they can be in a silo um so that was really important for our coaches and they're continuing that work today um and we also uh were asked to participate in a high impact tutoring Sprint um we were asked to participate in this and I believe that there were nine school districts throughout the nation that were um participated in this and we just put together throughout the Sprint we put together a a portfolio and presented um unfortunately we didn't win the money at the end of the grant but again we're always trying to win money to uh continue to get our these tutors to stay in our classrooms we were just awarded the $2 million I'm not sure if you heard that or not I haven't been around so I couldn't be more proud or happy about that that was a labor of love for myself I couldn't have done it without a team um many nights and weekends were spent writing that Grant um we just returned recently from a trip to ncsm and nctm where we took over no not over we took 47 teachers and leaders um we currently have um tutors at uh Horizon Middle School um they are actually UCCS candidates and then we have uh a tutor at San Creek High School who is an Adjunct professor who is just taking a break from the classroom and that is our leftover money that we were awarded way back in July of 202 three still trying to fund those positions because our hope is that those UCCS candidates will become our teachers eventually um and so and and we love the fact that they are supporting our sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade classrooms at Horizon as we look ahead to right now uh what the math team is doing um we're continuing to align with our district uip to improve math um and specifically we want to concentrate on 6 through 12 with our new grant our new Grant is 3 through 12 but we're really want to reel in our uh secondary teachers we want to concentrate on sustainability and the impact that our previous Grant has had we don't want to forgo the impact that that has had um our coaches are coaching um their schedules are pretty full um We are continuing to to run um data digs um even with our Charter Schools um jod Reynolds our secondary coach is running what she has named the cat and that is connecting algebra teachers throughout the district she is running that and then uh Viola is partnering with strive um we've been asked to have do a math pilot with them um and there isn't really a tool to pinpoint um opportunities for growth in mathematics like there is um in uh reading where you can find pheic femic awareness um so that is uh really cutting edge if we can be a part of that tool so Viola is working with some teachers for that I am running on Tuesday nights I I've partnered with uh usafa and a math professor there and we have uh three cadetes um and the professor we're running homework help uh on Tuesday nights from 6:00 to 7 right now we have um San Creek High School and as well as Falcon high school that uh Falcon High School is showing up on a regular basis um some nights we don't have very many students and some nights we have too many students Our Hope would be to bring on more Cadets we have more Cadets waiting in the wings um so I'm I'm pretty excited about that we're going to work with the Falcon Zone as they are thinking about adopting a new curriculum and we're still writing grants I just dropped an attent to apply on my boss's desk yesterday so the first thing that we're going to talk about as far as uh fall 24 star math proficiency what we're looking at here is grades 1 through 11 um this is really a dipstick for us when we're talking about our percent proficiency to see where our students are as they come in um from the summer see where they're at see if we need to make any adjustments um and so we have this and really ouri tells us whether we need to Pivot and make any adjustments within our classrooms and within our curriculum for our teachers our 3 through eight um this really aligns there is a Colorado linking study this aligns and makes a projection to tell us right now these this is where our students would lie um if we were to fast forward to C Mass so although we may see that our seventh grade is just above the 20th percentile the last time that I presented this um in the fall of 23 it was below the 20th percentile so although we want these numbers to be up up up we are making growth we also have another measurement where we can uh compare math um our star math to our PSAT and sat so what we're looking at on this slide our first set of um our our first set of bars up there is our SAT and then our next next one is our PSAT our SAT um and then our PSAT excuse me I should have said our star math PSAT our star math psat1 star math and then our SAT we're just trying to see if there's a strong correlation between how students are doing on their star Math and how and where they land on uh PSAT 8 n and 10 and of course our ESS T um when we look at peek there is no score for um them for the ninth grade as well as Patriot High School I have a little star there there's a blank space there their end size was less than 16 that's why we don't have data but we can see that there is a strong correlation there is opportunity for growth here um the team and I as well as georgana Rapaport we were talking about sat today how to um get our teachers into sat insights how to get that information in their hands and what that is is um where teachers can access uh questions that they can get into students hands now that the SAT is digital they are not releasing the SAT questions as they were in the past so they have just a warehouse of questions and we want to be able to get those questions and our teachers hand which and then will get into our students hands so then they are practicing and of course we're talking about our grant um we're looking here at our military connected students KY through five we are in close out of this grant you'll only see four years of data because normally with a grant uh our Department of Defense grant their first year is planning um and so what we can see is that we have made some enormous growth over time our students are coming back and they are not there's not a summer slump um we are hearing from our teachers in K through 5 that students are where they should be and that they are not having to fill in unfinished learning in so far as they used to have to do that I recognize that there is a 16% in um urgent intervention and a 12 12 for intervention but if I if I flash back to last year if I think about my fall if uh for 23 24 it's 15 and 15 but then when we finished last year it was our urgent intervention was less than double digits I think it was 88.9% so we really made an impact there so again this is just what has happened over time for our military connected and again our grant does not just touch our um military connected it touches all students and so uh we just wanted you to have eyes on this um it has made an impact on all students K through five um and so um we're making a difference we couldn't be more excited about the award of this Grant and the continuation of these teaching strategies and the discourse that potenti can happen in the secondary level thank you okay Cara do you have any questions um I love I love everything you've presented here I feel like it's very informative and we're all um very glad that you're here with us today um I'm just curious like what's your overall like what's your hope like to see with the data for upcoming years like do you have a specific because like you have a lot of initiatives going on with like the cadets which I think is fantastic and coaching and tutoring um how do you see that like supporting the ending Vision kind of thing so I think uh there's probably many ideas um that we have but I think one of the biggest things is that we don't want students at the secondary level um to be we want them to be empowered to ask for questions um we would love for uh not to just have three usafa cadetes and a professor helping us we would love 13 I would love to be running 13 breakout rooms so to empower students to be able to ask for help in mathematics um that I think would be one for uh as far as the grant for students to be able to have more discourse in regards to mathematics to be able to talk about it what does it feel like what does it look like I didn't arrive at that correct solution and you did or you didn't and what does that mean um and so not necessarily or always about the correct answer but the process to get there Marin um I don't have any questions um but it sounds like you guys are working hard to like adjust to your students which is good to hear as a student um so goodess to you and your team thank you director Schmidt thanks Miss Christina for all the information that you shared with me I know I had a lot of questions um I feel like the more information the board has the more we can help student achievement so um it really helps when you answer what you did um your explanation of the data was very understandable tonight and I appreciate that as well because I caught a couple of things that I didn't catch was some of the questions that I had asked you over email so um I really appreciate the work you guys are doing and thanks again nice job thank you director Hy just want to commend you guys on your efforts and um everything looks to be very intentional and um you know because the the progress is is right here before us and it's it's very impressive we still have a long way to go and I love your dedication and um you know go team thank you director L Wright um my first question is when you mentioned the USA program is that the online thing every Tuesday yes okay as a falcon parent Falcon parents get an email every Sunday from the principal that makes reminding us that that makes me that toring opportunity is available so I kind of made the connection in my head I um I have had some parents uh log on to see if it's legitimate and then they see me and then they hand their computer to their to their student so it's legitimate doesn't surprise me um then this is kind of a an odd question I think maybe but when we talk about literacy there's a whole whole lot of information like when you mentioned pheic awareness we know a whole lot about how reading develops what the different components are and how to evaluate each of those components and how to recognize um students who fit the profile of Dyslexia where they specifically have a learning disability that impedes progress in that area and need different teaching are we anywhere close to that level of understanding in math or is that what they're starting to try and develop when you're talking about the strive P pilot for example so I think that um that's exactly what strive is hoping to um develop um if we had that um recipe we Pro my boss and I would probably not be standing here we we would be yeah um so I think that that's the magic question and the reason that it is a pilot is that they are asking is they're asking our teachers for feedback in terms of is this too much to take on is this too much for a season teacher is it too much for a younger teacher and are we asking the correct measures so it is it is such a large take on right now for our teachers and our some teachers are doing it so um let me back up we have a few interventionists that are doing it and then we actually have a couple of classroom teachers that are doing it classroom wide so we'll be able to see and get feedback from those two different things but since it's a pilot strive isn't sure of the end State and we're not sure of the end state but what we can tell you and what we've put eye on is that they really we believe they're going to have a great product and I know after having worked with georgana for such a long time um in other areas that she said if ma if strive could come up with something like they have for reading for math it would be wonderful and lo and behold they asked District 49 to be a part of that so blessing really so well and it's it's could have a generational impact I mean I'm I have two kiddos who are dyslexic and as a parent I dove into what the heck does dibles mean and then tried to figure out every way I could help each piece of that right but I have one to who also have learning disabilities in math and there is no way for me as a parent anywhere that I can find to say okay here is the key piece that's working different in their brain like I can with the reading um and it sounds sounds like that information still is kind of elusive in what they're still trying to work on which is why it's going to be harder for these numbers to follow the the trend that we see in literacy because we just don't know as much about how they learn it either is what it sounds like it it is and I think no two it's not one size fits-all at this point um and so I think with the measuring stick that they have in place um we'll we'll soon find out I think uh maybe in the spring I'll have more information for you because we be done with the pilot and we can only be optimistic thank you director Deva uh I'm just glad to see all the significant growth we've already made um it's not where we want it to be but it has shown that this program is working and and uh Mission DNA is is impacting our district significantly and I give a lot of credit to you um for heading that on and really pouring out your heart and your soul into helping our teachers teach math and to teach it well so thank you so much thank you when I was reading about online tutoring and homework health I was thinking where were you when I needed you I think that's wonderful I really think it's incredible and so I just want to encourage you to keep up the good fight and keep seeing those growth scores go and it's always good to see the growth taking off so thank you thank [Applause] you now we're on to the literacy update yes good evening it's good to see you all I'm georgana Rapaport coordinator for literacy performance and I'm happy to be here to share with you primary literacy update and some data from the beginning of the year in comparison to last year so um this first slide is just we'll start with our Dibbles eth data and as I go on I'll kind of explain the difference between some of the assessments we use for reading but um D dibles eth is a measure that is a performance assessment that's done one-on-one with each student measuring the different um foundational skills that students use to put together to become skilled readers so on these slides What I've Done um is show you beginning of the year middle of the year and end of the year data from last year um and because Dibbles eth was a new assessment to us last year this is the first year we have comparative data so we have some data that we can compare because it was the second yeah the second year of this assessment so what I've done um with the green line is just connect beginning of last year to beginning of this year so you can kind of see a a a trend line so this is all grades K through three um and as you can see we have at this time at the beginning of this year about the same amount of students as we did last year in grades K through three who are performing well below the Benchmark but we have um slightly more students performing at those at and above ranges um and then so 28% of our students are scoring well below at this time in K3 and 56% are scoring at and above and so this is a good time to talk about what our goal is right so our goal is that 80% of our students are scoring in those at and above ranges are proficient on that dibble's eighth assessment but we're also paying close attention to students who have 95% accuracy or higher when they're reading because we know if they are accurate readers they're well on their way to becoming to getting that speed in place and to getting um that all those pieces to come together they're decoding the words correctly um they're putting those words together we just have to increase the speed a little bit and we want to recognize that because there are students who will just never be fast readers um but if they're accurate then that's an important thing to to pay attention to and so we're also thinking about how are we moving our students out of those well below ranges because we know that can take multiple years sometimes especially as they get into the upper grades so just celebrating when students move even from those well below bands into below and at so this is just showing kind of a trend over time and we do have a mix of data points here so um from 1819 all the way through 22 23 school year that was the dibble's next assessment which is just a previous version of the Dibbles assessment and then because the early literacy assessment tool grant that we receive from the Department of Education every year which covers the cost of dibble's eth Assessments for our K through three students change the assessment they use that's why we changed the assessment so that was the reason for the change from dibble's next to dibles 8th um last year but I think it was just interesting to notice the trend because Dibbles is an assessment of risk so we're seeing how our students are um increasing their proficiency over time um we weren't really sure how how things would look with dibble's eth but I think at 76% last year was a good place for us to start with that assment assessment and we'll see some good growth this year so just going through the grade levels um what you'll notice in kindergarten on this slide is that according to Double's zth our students are coming in less prepared and a little bit more at risk when they come to kindergarten um but we do have to remember the growth we saw last year um and you can see it on that you know on that top slide um was pretty phenomenal in kindergarten and so um we're excited to see that again this year um in first grade our students are coming in a little bit more prepared than first graders last year and then those numbers at the bottom are just kind of showing regression so where did our students end kindergarten at the end of last year and where did they begin at the beginning of this year and then we'll look at second grade and third grade and second grade students are almost exactly in the spot in terms of at risk levels and proficiency levels as they were last year um and in third grade a little bit more prepared and less at risk um beginning this year and you'll see at the bottom that regression as as we go up in grades the regression you'll notice um decreases and I believe that's because as students are mastering those skills of reading they're holding them right is as they're reaching those levels of proficiency they're holding them over the summer we're not seeing that slide as much and you'll see that here and um in fourth and fifth grade as well so again in fourth grade students have a little bit um more risk um and fifth grade a little bit less risk on this assessment so this is a comparison um that we get from amplify comparing District 49 performance to the National user base and so um in all areas except for kindergarten we're outperforming the nation in all levels um and that kindergarten measure again doesn't worry me because we saw that tremendous growth last year that I'm certain we see again this year and then this is just comparing to the Colorado user base so again kindergarten being an opportunity for growth and the rest of the grades um are performing above compar comparatively to our Colorado users so as we move on now we'll think about um star and so this is when I'll I'll just stop and talk about the difference between dibles and star so star is in a mment that students take independently on the computer um start early literacy um our L littlest students our kindergartners and first graders um they do have um headphones that has some audio support that's supporting them with the questions so our proficiency rate for that start early literacy assessment in kindergarten was 53% and in first grade so on this chart you're seeing proficiency on the left and then growth on the right so we have growth in first grade and our growth which is was looking at fall to fall growth so fall last year to fall this year was in the 78th almost the 79th percentile so comparing to other students growth Across the Nation that's really remarkable growth for those first graders and Then star um early literacy comparison just looking at over time how our students did last year from Fall to Spring and then to fall um at at the beginning of of this year so um we have strong growth from Fall to and fall to Spring last year and I think the level of preparedness that you'll notice for kindergarteners from first grades according to Star early literacy is um a little bit higher than um it was last year and then star reading is for second grade through fifth grade in our elementary schools um I star reading again is taking in taken into dependently um on this chart with the exception of fourth grade students in E each grade are entering more prepared than the previous year I think that's a positive trend to notice um and again as Christina mentions star reading is highly correlated to Cass so we look at this data carefully to identify progress towards grade level standards and for that predictability about how the students will perform um on that Cass assessment so this chart is comparing um this is the the the first time we have some data to kind of triangulate so we can look at dibble's eth performance and Then star reading performance and then CS Ela performance um and these are just some of the questions and things that were they were noticing if you know a percentage of our students are proficient on dibble's eth and then a percent different percentage in Star reading and CS Ela and what does that mean what does that mean for our instruction what does that mean for our students and how how they're mastering foundational reading skills but as they move across from D's eth to Star reading to Cass um English language arts assessment the test is getting more complex you know they're they're basically um demonstrating their ability to decode words and read fluently in dibble's eth but then when they get into star reading and Cass they're really applying the skills of reading comprehension and writing um and so these are just things we pay attention to and we're always looking to think about and our instruction um and our planning and use of curriculum and how we're um challenging students in those application of skills so thinking about just some action planning and some work we've been done around data analysis we've um we've talked about looked at data at our district level meeting and then we've also had Zone level meetings with data conversations um looking at the very same things that you guys have just looked at with me um and having the those conversations around where are areas of strength and challenge um we're really digging deeper and talked a little bit about third grade and fifth grade students who are performing well below Benchmark um because we know that's our goal for third grade and that's the goal of the Colorado react is that students are readers by third grade um and so if they're not we're really digging into that and identifying ways that we can support that and also fifth grade just being that important year before we send them off to Middle School right what else can we be doing to prepare them for that next step and then also using program evaluation tools which are really pinpointing our systems and our structures within schools um things like um our assessments and our administration of Assessments um our inter intervention um blocks and our intervention instruction our data analysis protocols um all the things that support High um impact literacy instruction um at a kind of a system level in each school just just as a way to ask questions and dig deeper we've had really great success long before me with primary literacy um and so we're really trying to take it kind of to the next step and see okay we've gotten to this point where our teachers have done the redact training they're highly knowledgeable um we have really um highly rated curriculum that we're using um so what what are our next steps to kind of take take it to the next level and so thinking about literacy professional development our literacy coach Yuki Rockwell um is is continuing to spend pretty much all his time in schools next to teachers and coaches doing just absolutely excellent work of um working with teachers and coaches and things like embedded writing instruction what does that look like within our ccla curriculum what does it look like our cross content areas he is working with um professional learning communities to support their work in data analysis and really Target tared instructional planning aligned to the standards thinking about small group intensive instruction support and how we're intensifying instruction for those students who need it most um and doing thing professional development and coaching on things like whole class engagement within CA to support the students really doing the hard work and taking that lift in um in student discourse and writing and um lots of time and text reading um to improve those literacy skills so some other things we're working on strive Consulting is supporting us in elementary and in secondary um with data analysis and targeted activities to support students um right at their instructional need level in tiers one and tier two um additional in um initiatives are um many of our district schools are participating in the PLC PS professional learning um which is really just building the colle of efficacy of teachers and Leaders with that Collaborative Learning to improve the what and the how to really make an impact for student achievement um many of our schools are participating in seven steps of a language Rich classroom which is just an outstanding program for student discourse through structured conversation and structured writing um that's making an impact again and getting students really to dig into that work and then the San Creek zone is um implementing writing by design a new writing curriculum that um is um aligned with CK and so that's certainly exciting too so that's all I have what questions do you have for me K um I don't have any questions um but I thought this was a fantastic presentation and thank you for uh helping our students become better readers thank you Marin um I don't have any questions either um you covered it at the end but I really did like your um like how you're going to put it into action at the end so good thanks Miss Georg director Schmidt thanks so much again um you did a really good job answering my questions as did Christina um the assessment calendar chart that you sent me made a lot of sense oh good so I was kind of like okay so what's this test for when's it done how long's it take all that stuff so Christina yes Christina whip that together oh okay I thought it was you that's okay that's good thank you both but the information you guys are giving us is is really promising and you know like Mike says um we got a little ways to go yet but it looks like it's very promising so we're looking forward to seeing as it goes on yep director H so one of the things I really wanted to refer us back to is the comparison to the um the national and the uh um State averages where our kindergarteners those are kind of like an indicator of the the raw material that is coming to us and when we see that that they're they're coming to us you know below average for National about average uh for State benchmarks and then we are moving them from those states to um well above um average for both National and Colorado that is an indication of the quality of work that that is going on in here and know although we just learned that you have the easy job uh you guys are still doing a wonderful job and I just wanted to show the data is absolutely speaking to that yes Kudos his kindergarten kindergarten teachers and and all those coaches and leaders for sure yeah director L Wright so upk has only been in place for one year correct correct so um because nationally availability for things like preschool um and family access is very different and that could be a piece of what that statistic is is because most of the time that number is really about what exposure have they had more than what they're going to be able to learn um are we anticipating seeing an increase or hoping to see an increase from upk and will we be able to track if there's a difference between programs offered students who are enrolled in programs offered through d49 versus those who are taking privately offered programs and whether we see a difference in literacy preparedness for those for those preschool students yeah that's a great our garden like are we going to are we thinking about tracking or does it make sense to track how our preschoolers do who we owned at four versus preschoolers who come from all the little programs that are popping up to take in the upk funds yeah we certainly can track those students that that were with us and that are getting those early that early intervention is really powerful yeah I think that's a great question could be a great marketing tool for our own preschool when we eventually have seats too if we can show a difference director devola you're you guys are doing a lot of intense intensive work so I wouldn't say it's the easy job we just know a lot more about it uh so um thank you for all the work that you've done and your your whole team and I continue to look forward to seeing our middle of the year and our end of year results me too um I always get excited when I see that big jump so yeah keep it up agreed thanks okay thank you very much great thank you [Applause] thanks next we have the student count update date hello I am Spencer M cave the budget manager um you all have seen this uh presentation before the only difference is that Orange Line is now complete we're past October count um and really the only two lines you need to focus on are that Dash green line that's flat and the orange one the dash green line is what we projected the budget to be B based off of back in June um and then the orange line is what we are currently funded at for students so it's a little bit under what we were expecting and then all the slides after this is just broken out by each school and zone so any questions Kiera do you have any questions about the student count um I'm just like trying to think back to a couple months ago and gave this presentation so you noticed um so sorry so you said that the uh orange line is the completed one versus the August presentation right yeah or the I don't know if it was August might it was September I don't know so was the number of students then less than what you expected in the student count um yeah so you'll see in the Orange Line cuz the data table below it is um it's each week since July and so really that second week of all August that orange line really fled out and so it was just holding at that number for a while and so it was also a new trend line this year so we were kind of just expecting that to hold until October count Marin I don't have any questions director Schmidt I just want to say thanks doing a good job thanks for keeping track of our money it's important thanks director L Wright no questions thank you yeah this is a great job and my question is is these are the district operated portfolio of schools there's no tracking of how many of these kids end up with some of our Charter Schools I was just curious so there's no tracking if they like left our schools to go to the charters but we do track the chariz counts and I think they're in they're also in this presentation just closer to the bottom um I believe well outside of goal I believe the charters are also down a little bit but goal's up we do have access to some of that information um and we get as we true up our attendance from October count into the December then we get we get pretty clear information um but it's one of the it's one of the points where Charter School schools are cautious about sharing their enrollment data with us okay thank you next presentation next we have new and adjusted student fees good evening um board I'm Heather is the interim CFO uh thank you uh tonight we bring to you the additional uh revised or missed school fees that were brought to at the b& of the school year um we have just a few compared to previous years um don't know if you had any time to look through them and if you had questions so no questions director Schmidt I just have a couple comments Heather first of all thank you for taking over interim that's not an easy thing to do um these were summarized really nicely um what I'd liked is we could look at the summary you know all the blue numbers that you had in there we could look at that quickly and then if we thought anything was out of line then we could look at all of the receipts and whatnot to see you know if we had any questions about it that saves us a lot of time so I really appreciate the way you put that together for us it was easy to go through and very understandable we started a new process this year so you start a new process yeah this is how it's going to be going forward wonderful thank you so much you're welcome director H yeah I know this isn't for you this is really for the the program managers um but uh I continue to blanch at the uh cheerleading program uh $1,500 a year is uh pretty steep um I'd love to see our um our principles and the uh people who are running those programs see what they can do to to make that a little bit more uh reasonable for our families director L right director devola not a question just a comment um just like uh director Schmid I want to say that the formatting is beautiful so you actually you eliminated a lot of questions that I would previously have asked from other presentations that we had so yes good and congratulations thank you and I have to agree the way it's laid out here was the fee increase this is why this happened it was really an understandable presentation so I wanted to say thank you and I hope you have a nice stien for your new temporary child or however that will work thank you and Mike just to uh kind of give you some background on why things seem so high now compared to let's say five years ago what we did is we made we asked the coaches and the athletic directors to kind of give the parents an upfront total cost instead of saying cheerleading is $300 then as the year went on then you had to buy bows and sweats and and in the end it ended up being $1,500 so it seems high it is high my kids were not cheerleaders thank goodness yes I I absolutely um admire the uh the amount of transparency that we're doing it you know parents can can be fully informed go in uh with eyes wide open and that's a terrific approach yeah now not only is it more transparent but because the entire amount is there families who qualify for reduced or free lunch and therefore don't have the financial means for their child to participate actually can now still sign their kid up because the full cost is there upfront and we as a board have a process to cover those fees for students whose families can demonstrate that Financial need so it actually ends up being more Equitable in the end because more more students can be included whose families would have originally said well yeah they said $300 but now my kids's dropping out because they're asking me for this check and this check and this check and this check and the $300 got waved but the 1,200 didn't um so I appreciate that we've been able to through that transparent process and the will of the board to ensure that there is an equitable ability to participate that we've taken care of that with us so thank you thank you and I want to say thank you again to director lri for bringing up that when people apply for the free and reduced lunch program there's a bunch of benefits not only on waiver of certain student fees and exam fees but there's a lot of other benefits to our families so I appreciate you bringing that up again thank you very much oh here comes Mr hiltz I'm coming up for the next item if if you tell me that we're ready to go okay item 1.6 so um I'm I'm setting this up because this this really is following on to the presentation that we did last April where after we uh made the change to the salary schedule then we had the the conversation about repositioning and so um I I'll share a couple of the slides and then other members of the team will jump in depending on what questions you have um but basically we've done what the board asked us to do on the time frame that we thought was realistic and so the background is that when we moved teachers from a schedule that had been frozen and then defrosted and then doubled and then UND doubled and there was also a recision in there somewhere and a lot of negative factor when we did all that um we ended up having to make a decision about how do you place teachers on the new schedule we used the closest Dollar model for placement and that resulted in uh a condition where some people had a difference which we call a Delta that the reason we use Delta is because the difference is is completely individual every teacher has a Delta for a lot of them the Delta is zero which is good it means they're where their natural years of service would place them but for some there's a there's actually for some a negative a very small number and for some a positive Delta which means they're multiple years away from where they would have been and so we analyzed that last year you asked us to create some further analysis and scenarios and recommendations and so we are coming to you with some of that well we're coming to you with our response to that tasking and you'll see um how we've laid that out and so there are some Dynamics to consider and for this I'll invite Heather Diaz our interm CFO back to the podium so as you can see here uh as we projected we're about 700,000 below from what we projected at the beginning of the school year and then there's other major Dynamics with that as well we have the competitive wage pressure is rising um we have all of the other salary schedules other than the teacher salary schedule that we need to take into consideration um our insurance and benefit costs are increasing and our pair of contributions are escalating a lot so these these major Dynamics are the environment or the climate in which we're making a recommendation and making a presentation um we are we are in a challenging year and um Heather's going to nod aggressively this is probably the best year out of the next at least three to five years um because what we're projecting from the state budget uh is that things are going to get tighter not not more generous in the years ahead so those are things the board should consider that we definitely are considering and these are the three decision points that we asked you to anticipate last spring one should we either use an absolute service year model or should we acknowledge the Caps that people agreed to when they joined the district so if you came to the district in the 90s uh it didn't matter if you had 20 years or 15 years you got seven years of service credit that's what you got if you came in the late 90s if you came in the early SS you might have gotten 10 or a little later gotten 12 um we're up to 20 now because that's a market Factor as other districts increased the size of their cap of their allowed service years we responded in some cases we LED and right now there are uh a couple of districts that have no cap whatsoever and um most of us that have a cap in the neighborhood of 20 years so we have to decide if somebody agreed to a cap in in 98 or 2004 do we want to reposition including the cap as it was in place then or do we want to leave the cap in place honor the cap and reposition instead based on um any Delta that has happened since that original hiring date that's one decision point the second decision point is timing um the faster we do this the more the more expensive it is the bigger the hit immediately um and the more benefit to the teachers that would be repositioned in in a positive direction the slower we do it the more manageable it is to um to our budget overall uh given the that we anticipate budget time budget times getting harder um our recommendation takes into consideration the the Dynamics of doing it fast slow or or in the medium and then the third the third one was a little bit of an abstract and and I went back and read what we said about the the repositioning what we mean by teacher cohort is further down we actually embedded the entire April presentation and what we mean by teacher cohort is if somebody's here in their first five years of employment they're in the first cohort and then if they're six to 10 they're in the second cohort and so on until we get to the 26 or higher cohort at the far end we called that the silver cohort and then it was the purple and you saw orange and blue and one of the decision points was if we didn't do this all at and we are recommending a two-year phase in so if you were to follow that part of the recommendation then you would have to guide us on do you want us to begin with every teacher that has a Delta get some of that and then they get the rest of it in the second year or do you want us to say uh perhaps the most veteran teachers in the top uh the most three senior cohorts they get all their Deltas in the first year and everyone else waits in the they get theirs in the second year so it's either a longevity based model or it's a Delta based model uh we move everybody at least half or more than half of the distance and so I can answer questions about that if we get to that so this is our recommendation uh we think we should honor the Caps um I want to give you some additional information about that we think we should do this over a two-year period and we think that we should do it based on the Delta size which means that everyone who has a Delta would get some of those steps in each of the the two years if they have one year of Delta then they would get everything in the first year but everyone else and and more people have more than one than not on the first bullet um the board may want to to consider some new information um back when we showed you this this information in April we were working off of self-reported unverified service years and what we found was especially at the far right end the the most senior cohort we had um the self-reporting was imprecise and as we achieved more Precision by verifying it those numbers came down substantially U that is no longer the highest average uh Delta cohort uh but it it was when we had that data back in April and as a result the difference between honoring the Caps or refunding the Caps that difference is $105,000 a year the total cost will be at least a million 7 going forward but it will adjust for for inflation and so the difference on this first bullet here whether we do it based on cap service years which is what we're recommending or whether you rejected that recommendation and said no we want you to we want you to refund the Caps as well that difference would would take us from a million 7 um to a million eight uh and just a right at 1.84 million um please remember that that is a recurring cost and that cost will go up as our teachers gain seniority and they they gain their natural raises but to put it in perspective if we had the salary schedule and we stood here in this coming March and we were thinking about are we going to give our teachers a raise we always have at least we've always tried to um if we want to give them a 1% raise that will cost us in the neighborhood of $600,000 so if we're thinking about a 5% raise to the entire schedule 3% of that will be taken up by the repositioning leaving 2% for the scheduled generally so a lot of people will get a big raise because they'll get the repositioning raise but there will be some particularly in the younger cohorts who won't they'll get the 2% raise um so that's another factor for the board to consider um and and again I'll I'll be redundant but it's purposeful redundancy this is a recurring cost so that 1.7 million will be off the top every year going forward so the decision points slide back back here is really what we're looking for in terms of guidance from you and this can be some discussion this can generate a formal proposal that you could vote on and approve at the next um Regular meeting but we also have as you know a lot of supplemental data that we can jump to if you need further analysis um these are actually PowerPoint links that link to the slides further in the presentation it's not external data um but because this is a PDF I'm not going to use those I'll just jump forward or backward as you need me to and we have other smart folks that can explain parts of it better than me what questions do you have Kiera I was trying to think of a good question but I don't have any questions thank you Marin I don't have any either good director Schmidt um that that 700,000 was that the projection from the student count yes this Dynamic that is budget number one okay that is correct and so although our student count is trending um there are two ways of looking at student count uh we we create a we created a budgeting Factor related to Patriot High School enrollment uh we actually fund Patriot High School at higher than its actual enrollment because that's a program that has has required more resources so we subsidize it the way we have subsidized it historically is by inflating projected enrollment we're not going to do that anymore because it created significant confusion we're just going to acknowledge it costs more to educate a student at Patriot High School than it does to educate a student at Falcon high school and so there is a there is a um a way that we could use pictures and show you that but the bottom line is we think we're going to track about 700,000 when we when we equalize some other Revenue that has come in um and the revenue that isn't going to come in uh we think we'll be right at 700,000 short short to projection let me be clear we have lots of ways of making sure we we have to have a balanced budget when the real budget comes to you in January which is the amended budget which is now fully informed by student count by true up and byy some some other things like Staffing vacancies we don't want Staffing vacancies but when we have them they release money that we would have spent on salary back into the general fund so when when Spencer comes to you in January with the amended budget presentation um that'll be the the truest test that's good to hear that you're not going to base it on end guaranteed numbers in the future because I really didn't like that part of it um my opinion on the three and I don't know if we're making decisions tonight or not but this just my opinion um I feel like we should reposition based on your years of service but with a generous consideration of absolute years so some of the teachers came to us with a lot of experience that's why we hired them and that should be considered and rewarded in my opinion um we need to air on the side of the teachers I also think that we should phase it in as quickly as possible I don't think we should make teachers wait any longer than they have to and finally I think we should make whole the longest serving teachers first so can call it a delta or cohort or whatever you want to call it just make the longest serving teachers first so those are my thoughts director Hy so my inclination is that we should absolutely do all of those things right um I would love to do everything we can for our teachers and more the problem of course is you know being good stewards of our budget so when we see that for this year we're going to come in uh forecast 700k under projections um then it becomes difficult to do everything we would like to do we have to start making some some tough choices so when I look at when I hear about the you know honoring the the uncapped Delta and I calculate that that is basically another 6% increase to the uh recurring costs that doesn't sound like much should be doable except when we are dealing with some significant headwinds with uh the the state budget uh having some having some difficulties we had since this original presentation there was changes at the state regarding property taxes um so you know we have to do this in a way that is responsible to our taxpayers while doing everything we can to honor the amazing contributions of our of our teachers director Olia Wright I actually have a a couple questions first so can you explain um the recommendation for repositioning over two versus three why do you prefer doing it over two versus um three what are the advantages and disadvantages so the majority of that recommendation is is based in this Con concept here um that if we do it if we do it over two years so imagine that there's a teacher that has a Delta of two and we're going to recover that Delta over a two-year period we'll move them their natural step plus one in the first year and then we'll move them again their natural step plus one in the second year and so that that gets them to to their final natural step over a two-year period And it moderates the impact on our budget if we were up 1% in enrollment we would have project we would have recommended to you to do this in one year that would have been our preference but we're not we're going to be down and just coincidentally we're we're down about 1% of the teacher schedule so we've got to find the money for that and so that was it was it was primarily a budget moderation recommendation but whether it happens in the second year or the third year at some point we are recommending that we take on the 1.7 or 1.84 if that's what the board decides um if we do this in a two-year cycle there will be teachers who have three Delta and so the reason you see our year One cost is is more than half of the total is because our intent would be that if a teach if a teacher had an odd number of Delta steps we would fund two of them and then one for three or we would fund three and then two if they're five or you can do the rest of the sequence you guys have pattern recognition Okay and my second question is um has this been taken to the um VCT and what was their feedback Paul will you start the answer to that as our VCT leader hello I'm Paul Anderson executive director for people and culture so we we haven't haven't yet done this present presentation with uh the VCT we intend to do that between this meeting and your next meeting um and um so they're on break right now when they get back they'll have an invite to uh to a meeting to to go through this and and for that purpose of getting input questions uh feedback at the time we had our last VCT meeting we didn't have all of this built out but we were able to tell them what the three decision points were going to be and we had an ear not quite yet precise idea of what the cost was going to be so they and they expressed an interest in having the followup presentation uh but respectfully this was your task and so you're getting the report first then they will weigh in on it so by the time you would be taking action you would have you would have further input from the VCT because my preference would be to have their feedback before finally weighing in on which option because my gut is honor the Caps um that's just kind of what we what happens in standard business anyway and I think the the sense of fairness there most people I in and but that's where I don't know if my perception is correct but I would think that most people would feel that there was a sense of fairness to that of saying hey if you hired in at step seven 20 years ago of course they're not going to go back and count things from before you were in d49 and Reed them um especially when we're then saying and then saying we're doing it not by cohort but by size of Delta so everybody's getting an amount based on how far they are off that in some ways probably hits that older cohort anyway um because that's where some of those larger Deltas are but I think there's also a sense of fairness to that of saying of recognizing that piece but I'd like to hear from the people who it impacts to see if my gut on what feels like fairness comes that way too because that's a part of the purpose of this was to be as Fair as we could but what our perception is and what the perception of our employees is can be different and we should be considering that too in my personal individual opinion so I I think the change in the cost may have shifted that but I can tell you that the VCT in our last meeting last spring we talked about that at some length and it was a pretty strong consensus and I reported this to you I I went back as I said and watched the video um I reported this to you the consensus of the VCT was that completely refunding the cap was overly generous and that completely leaving the cap in place was overly stingy and so I used the cold hot warm porridge metaphor um but I'm going to tell you that was when we thought that the difference between capped and uncapped was quite a bit larger we thought we were talking about multiple hundred now that we're talking about about 105,000 I will project and we will verify my projection is the VCT will say that's a small enough difference that you should just take the cap out of the discussion and and honor absolute now that creates a secondary decision because if we're not capping those who came to us 20 years ago and we're still capping those who came to us this year we create a different problem for Paul's group and if we're going to remove the cap from our calculation from then I'm going to come back and say then I think we should not have a cap at all and there are districts that are doing that it's expensive it has real ongoing recurring costs um and so we'd want to think about that but we can find out whether I'm right and the VCT has uh shifted a little bit because the dollar the the sticker price has come down dramatically on that specific issue yeah but the sticker price is still pretty big right it's still it's still a large amount of money when we consider the amount of money we have to put into salary schedules yes but the sticker price for the difference between Delta and between capped and not capped is $15,000 which is not frankly in in the scheme of what we pay teachers it's not a very big Delta if it was $500,000 like we thought it was going to be that's a that's a more significant number these are all really big numbers I feel bad saying in front of students that 100,000 is a small number it it isn't but on a budget that starts at $343 million it doesn't feel so big yeah the problem the problem though again becomes you know what because it's a recurring cost and we're looking at you know potentially I mean we're we're currently seeing declining revenues and we can probably forecast that to continue that becomes a real challenge director devola yeah I'm of the am I'm of the mind that uh uh we we should honor the years of service and not have caps that's my own personal opinion um and just like uh director l w mentioned it it does impact um our more veteran teachers uh at a higher percentage than um the ones who are are currently coming in and those are the ones that we would love to be able to show them um that their years of service mean a lot to us um and so to to not have caps is my recommendation um especially since it is uh not as significant a um Financial difference between having caps and not having caps um and the other two questions let's see oh two years definitely I think two years is the best way to go um and the Delta size I I also kind of agree that there can be a misperception there if we only do it for a certain cohort it does feel a little unfair um and so having it based on their Delta size I think would be the best mode of action that's my own opinion can I assume which I think I reasonably can that on the recommendations we're looking at long-term sustainability which is really important especially with not always being sure how much money we're going to be receiving you can assume that we wouldn't recommend something to you that we couldn't afford but let's be Crystal Clear um affording this means we are going to be really challenged to stay competitive we have clawed our way to get within $1,000 of District 20 it's almost certain they're not repositioning and they're not moving people and spending that it's almost certain that they'll pull pull away again d11 will pull away again and so yes it is sustainable but it but the sustainability is based on a tradeoff that we would prefer not to have to make but we already had that debate last spring and you've already given us guidance and so we're we're making this presentation since I'm already yapping a way to think about the last thing that director DVA said is if you take the cap off bullet one that benefits our most veteran teachers the most if you sequence repositioning by teacher cohort that would also benefit them so they'd be getting benefits on the first bullet and and the third I I think and I'd want to check it with the VCT but if we adopt a two-year model I I think that our VCT would support the idea of everybody get something each of the two years but that in taking the Caps off we we create a special benefit for our most veteran teachers so that would sort of be uh an adjustment to our recommendation in which that's that's our recommendation but you would be returning and saying we're okay with bullet three and two but bullet one we want you to base it on uncapped service years and we could come back and present that to you and that's what we would then take to the VCT for their comments and and so it it it seems from the discussion that that might be a middle ground that the board would want to adopt and and just because without getting into the weeds with school Finance District 49 has always paid a larger percentage of their budget towards salaries than our two most similar districts in terms of size and so it's not a matter of wanting to be stingy it's actually trying to fulfill one of the goals that this board said and the previous board is how do we pay our teachers more so the desire is there but I think we need to go forth with a lot of information and make logical decisions and listen to the recommendations of the finance team and why they're coming up with that so I want to thank you for putting this together and presenting it to us would the board like to task us to bring back a formal recommendation for Action informed by VC discussion that we re reposition based on uncapped service years over a 2-year period based on Delta size I would like to see a comparison but I want to hear what the rest of the board says because once again if we follow this recommendation it would be worthwhile to see this one plus one that is uncapped if that's possible well that that is what I'm what I'm showing you and so what I'm telling you is if you change that year cost to 1.84 that's the comparison it's a $15,000 difference we we can certainly put that on a slide but that's what it but that's what it'll be yeah so my question would be um you know you came to with this specific recommendation and one of the features of it was uncapped so how do we feel for or sorry was capped yes so how do we feel about the sustainability of it um from uh with it uncapped because it looks like other than that we're we're coming around to your recommendations so you're you're back of the your back of the frontal logo calculation of a Sixpoint difference is pretty good it was 5.4 so it it increases the cost of the repositioning it it increases the price tag of the repositioning by 5.4% not by 5% for percent of the schedule or of the budget just of the repositioning cost and so it's it's sustainable um we would not have recommended anything to you that was not sustainable I I can dig further in and further down in this presentation there are more slides kind of on standby if you will um but we would be we could manage the difference between one point the difference between 1. 736 and 1 Point what will be about 84 um is minor enough that if we know now we can start planning for it and what it means is that maybe instead of offering a a five % raise and pulling it back to two maybe we pull it back to 1.9 those are the trade-offs that we would have to have to make it is absolutely sustainable yeah and I think that's what we were promised at the um at the April meeting was you know models essentially so that we could see exactly how the numbers and so we know if we give uh another 5.4 to the repositioning that that is then going to have to come from raises so if if the numbers work out as you said to something as as simple as 1.9 versus 2% I think that the the staff is going to be very happy with that um but I'd absolutely love to hear from them first two thoughts on that one is that's part that they need to understand is then the whole schedule then will be getting slightly less so the people who don't have the Delta will have nowhere near the amount of increase in their pay over the next two years and so that's a part of one of the trade off that's also a fairness thing that can be important when you're looking at your colleagues and thinking about making sure their seat stays full um and that they they don't walk next door right um the other piece God and now I just lost it in my brain I thought it and then it's gone which is really bad um all right one question I have so there were some more veteran teachers who when they signed on they had agreed to a certain cap and that has changed over time so if I'm understanding it correctly and bear with me um if we remove the cap then the more veteran teachers could get more but it could also negatively impact some of the newer teachers my question was the issue for Paul so the question of how how big is the impact when we're looking at okay we're now saying that it doesn't matter that you were capped we're going to give you credit for those other years right but then the side mention was but we currently have a 20-year cap and we just hired a bunch of people with a 20-year cap do we know how significant that impact would be um and should we be considering how removing the cap then creates that problem because our job isn't to just as a board to just look at this piece but also to look at what we're doing to Paul's people when they have to look at people who they just negotiated a 20-year cap with who maybe came in with 23 um but I don't know you know if we're talking one person that's a very different long-term cost than 20 people right um and so that's something else not only for us to consider but also the VCT I think that's a good question I it it won't be hard to get to that it is it's a relatively small number out of the 140 or so teachers we hired I think it's going to be less than 10 that would that be would be over 20 years so certainly we have the so and based on your recommendation you're talking about reposition based on CA service years so I assume there's a reason that's in your recommendation we had to submit our recommendation before we had the final price tag of the capped uncapped and so that's why I brought otherwise I would have put that in the presentation but we tried to honor the agenda uh timeline and so what I am Sol iting from the board is a tasking to bring you a formal recommendation based on these three bullet points except adding the the the prefix un to the word capped in the first bullet so we would say uncapped service years now the question about whether we then go forward without a cap is a separate question I've already showed I played poker with my cards face up we'll come back and ask you to help us uncap because otherwise we create an inversion of the problem we've we've been trying to solve um but given the the discussion it seems that there is a consensus sentiment to POS reposition over two years uh to reposition based on Delta size and to reposition based on uncapped service years so if you if I'm right if I'm reading the room correctly and you task us then we'll put that in a formal uh recommendation and it's not particularly helpful for us to go to the VCT and discuss four models or six configurations um it's helpful if we take them a configuration and if they're really upset about a part of it like they're like we demand caps um we'll come back and tell you that I don't predict that but if it happened we would okay do I have a consensus then to move forward with to task I do have a suggestion um the presentation is a little nebulous for me um I would kind of like to see those scenarios a little more broken down I know usually I ask for a summary and now I'm asking you to break it down but um I'm kind of like Lori I'd like to see it a little bit more I don't know needs to make a little more sense I think to me so respectfully I I have that Curiosity as well and if the board is not willing to even consider a three-year phase in I'm not interested in tasking my business office with creating that model for something that's not really on offer um if the board really wanted us to push for a one year all all in all at once I would go back and do some more analysis for you because that would be so impactful um what we've what the analysis we've presented you with that I've clicked back to a few times is based on our recommendation and so um I am I'll salute smartly and do as you say but I would prefer not to do the work on things that the board is not open to considering so I would like to see just two models I would like to see two years Delta size capped years two years Delta size uncapped years and I'd like to see not only how does that affect the cost of the repositioning but also how does that affect our base um over the next two three years and I would like then for those two models to be shared with the VCT and just get their opinion I understand that I think including the component that impacts H yes absolutely I think that piece as well I think they should see all all three of those parts I did own my and Mar okay so it looks like I have a consensus Paul and I think we understand yes to look at models repositioned over cap service years repositioned over two years repositioned on Delta size and then another one that will show us the same thing with the top bullet point of uncapped years for comparison with the impact on and because next year salary schedule is an unknown we can only tell you what we project the impact would be in a terms of a percentage that's it looks like I have a consensus on that so thank you very much all righty next up we have the charter school performance report which one of these many attachments do you want you want to drive it from here an performance hi good evening V Gutierrez I conect Zone superintendent it should be this one is that me yes it's this one good evening everybody so I'm going to give you oh wait got too big oh are we competing for the mouse okay thank you um so I'm just going to give you a really brief go through the the slides it's very technical um but essentially what you have before you is our version of our review of the charters this is required by um state regulations that we review our Charter so not only do they get their SPF which you've already seen and then they have to um submit their uips and we review that we also have their annual performance review so you're doing the clicking Dave where I am's okay just want to make sure so the arrow is not working technologically challenged which arrow there it is got it so what we do gotcha with our Charters we want to make sure that all of our Charters are high performing and it has to go beyond their academic performance we want to make sure that they have really strong financials that they have safe and secure buildings and that they're operating as they should so they submit a variety of items to us sometimes they submit items on a monthly basis sometimes on a quarterly basis and they do that through uh report well they used to do that in Charter tools but Charter tools has Sunset it no longer meets our needs and so we moved on to report well and like we said we want to make sure we have strong Charters and the review is there like I said it's required by by law um it's also a best practice based on naxa the National Association of Charter School administrators Britney Brennan who's our Charter School specialist did the bulk of the work on this presentation she is actually right now in Houston Texas attending Nexa that's why she's not here and she was very relieved when she found out that she didn't have to uh help me present because she was going to be at Nexa she was afraid to do a Public Presentation she would have done fabulous um it's also supported by um the Colorado uh Association for charter schools and it also meets our requirements for the charter school contracts we have four areas that we focus on academics Finance operations and governance the academics comes directly from the spfs finance comes from their annual audit um glad to report most of our Charters have received their final Audits and they're all coming back as strong audits strong Finance doing really great their operations are things like fire drills are you doing those are you complying with the fire department um all of those different things and then their governance are you having monthly meetings do you have a full board you know stuff like that that gets reported and like I said it all comes in through report well um are they coming to our monthly meetings are they submitting data to us on time I attend their board meetings learn a lot sometimes at those board meetings um so there's a lot of interaction that helps us to get a well-rounded view of how are our Charter Schools performing and then it this is the summary of where they're at most of them are doing really well we do have two that right now their APR their annual performance review is in Improvement it could be that their finances maybe aren't where we want to be or maybe their governance I don't know exactly why they're in Improvement we'd have to drill down in their APR but there's only two of them the rest of them are in good standing all of our Charters are at performance including goal so that's fabulous they're performing really well yes definitely and then just their designation that's what they came in as when they were authorized that's what they said this is our Focus so that's just the summary of our Charters um and then the next couple of slides is what the APR looks like and it's a very complicated spreadsheet that has multiple tabs that connect to one another like I said we populate the academic one based off of the SPF so Britney goes in and she puts in all of the numbers from the SPF the charters then go in and they help to populate the governance the finance and the operations and all of these different fields the formulas calculate and they come up with the different ratings they're either needs does not meet approaching meets or exceeds and the years as you go into the um presentation you will see that they don't match and it's because they're all in different contract Cycles so right now excuse me MVA is in reauthorization so next year will be year one for them and then next year we have two that will be in reauthorization uh ptaa and PC so the following year will be year one for them because next year is year five that's why the years don't match if you went through in you looked at them you're going say wait a minute the years don't match they shouldn't they're on different contract cycles and so the rest of the slides is just where they are the majority of them are in meets there's a couple of approaching I don't I believe there was only one that was um does not meet when I went through but you have a lot of numbers a lot of data and I am happy to answer any questions that you might have Kira I don't have any questions I'm really trying over here to be like okay I got to find a really great question and it's not there yet but thank you that's okay that's okay Marin I don't have a either but good job thank you director Schmidt well like I told you before the meeting I didn't have time to look at this one there was so much data tonight um I have a ton of questions but we're going to have to meet for that I think instead of taking any more meeting time that's fine and like I told you when you stopped me we are happy to answer questions tonight we are happy to answer questions at any time there's another report on there that says annual performance report where Britney did make a note to let you know that we are changing and um director Hy did send me an email so before we were comparing the charters to school schools across the state and we're now moving to compare them to schools in the district it makes sense that we'd be comparing them to d49 operated schools so we are making some changes to the APR tool to make it more current to what we're doing now and so that it makes more sense to the way d49 is operating now this tool is several years old and it needs to be updated a little bit director Hy uh thank you for putting all this together it is very very very data Rich um I would going forward if we could um take the um individual school reports because they don't fit on a portrait on the page it makes it very very difficult to read yes um if if we could improve that some way um by I don't know maybe if um if a copy of the spreadsheet can be um made available to the board through Google Docs or something like that just so that it it becomes a lot more accessible I would really appreciate that we can make those available to you so I love that we're doing this comparison for the district operated schools and you know we see a mixed bag I mean MVA is you know breaking the curve um but um what's really interesting there is a narrative out there in the community we as a board received an email pointing us to a a Gazette opinion piece that talked about how you know Charters are just you know the ultimate in school and uh you know they are lifting up our state averages etc etc and so here in d49 because we are such a you know enthusiastic um Charter authorizer we would expect to see that right here but when we look at the numbers and we saw this a couple months ago during the SPF um uh presentation as well we actually see that by and large our operated schools are doing better than our Charters so um we really want to pay attention to this because if we want to be accredited with distinction our Charters have to come with us and um so uh I'm thankful that you're providing this kind of oversight and looking forward to some uh some opportunities to partner with them and uh you know lift them up uh along with with our traditional schools absolutely that is a conversation we have often in the iConnect Zone because we are 51% of student enrollment they have to up their academic achievement and their growth for us to reach a distinction yeah and as their authorizer we do have some uh responsibility for oversight absolutely yes director Olia Wright um so first question so we can't actually click on any of these things in the reports to get details cu the stuff that we have access to I think is all PDFs are we able to get that information I found the one does not meet um you were right it's under PTEC under additional obligations and so my Curious brain wants to know what those additional obligations are and I can't click on it to find out I don't know if that's a level of granularity we can see as a board or not but we don't currently have a way to click on any of those little titles to see what their data is in those categories so as one person if we can have that that would be awesome I I'll I'll start the answer and and and ask for some Indulgence of time I think that we can give you that level of access I think we should be very cautious about giving you that level of access um it's it's well beyond governance and so it may be that a board member or two but not more than two might want to meet with Britney our our Char School director and and get some of those questions answered um they they aren't really governance questions but board often asks questions that are just for for illumination and insight you often ask questions that are that are in into the weeds some as long as you don't stay in the weeds and we have the an ability to pull you back out and so probably a guided tour into the weeds would be the best approach rather than releasing it raw we are we are cautious because there are um it's it's both autonomy and and because they have some of the characteristics of entrepreneurial Enterprises as in they compete for market share they have tactical decisions we want to be protective of their proprietary uh information and strategy and some of that would be inferable from this database of course I know you wouldn't share that but I would I would prefer to have uh what in the intelligence Community would would be a safe facility I'd prefer to have control over it in a safe facility I don't have a problem with that I was trying to figure out like so because I'm assuming as we use this tool that eventually this is also what we're going to be looking at when we're looking at renewal and whether renew whether there's conditions on renewal and so I don't even know what that category means right but I know that this school is in Improvement in their year three of a four-year review so that that's probably the watch area to see if they pull up exactly so I just and as we get to that piece I I would appreciate a a little better understanding the other piece is and again I agree and I think we do need to move to a model of comparing to our schools not just um because of the hey we want to be a district of Distinction but if I remember reading lots of these Charter applications it was all about offering a educational opportunity that was going to exceed District standards so that's actually a part of what their application said they were going to do and if that's what your application says you were going to do and we're now out striping you um you're not meeting what you said your application was going to do uh for our community in fact you're doing the opposite and so there's an obligation there of meeting what you said you were going to do in your application and your contract so I like it for that reason too I agree absolutely that's that was one of the first conv Sation that I had with our superintendent when I arrived like wait a minute shouldn't Charters be always outperforming district schools and so um if that was part of their purpose and their application certainly if it was about offering a completely different approach to learning for a different type of learner you're looking at a different situation because there's a different purpose behind the school but when it's to offer an academic program that exceeds what's offered in the district then that needs to be a part of your evaluation too right in my personal opinion I will tell you that yeah you did get all PDFs and some of these links do lead to narrative that the charters have put in and so it does live in the Google Drive and if you do wish to see it then you're more than welcome we are always open to have I know more than I don't want to get that far into the weave I'd like to know more about what the categories are so that when I see a r and it says addition obligations what of are inory that we're looking at aition can have together have the definitions and categories so we know the general area I think would be helpful for us when we're looking at it okay just like we know the general area of the spfs of any school we're looking at but we're not actually looking at the granular piece of each part of that SPF understanding that would be helpful to me okay director Deva yeah um director L actually asked the question I was going to ask because I was very curious about that does not meet because when we see red it just alerts blurring flags and I want to make sure I know what that is um because if it's something simple versus something that really impacts I would want to know that um and then the other one I'm I'm concerned about is the Pioneer te technology and arts academy um they've been in Improvement for three years in a row and um it looks like the student growth and student achievement is approaching not that it's in performance but I'm not sure how it's different because it did say performance in that one slide but then it says approaching here so I'm a little confused on what yeah and they do have multiple areas of approaching um and their SPF is in performance so so there's there's two columns one is our a annual performance review which is bigger than the SPF on the SPF their their score this year was 55.7 okay um I do know that their their scores were frighteningly lower than we would want them to be so I have some concerns with that school yeah and you know I'm I'm not going to call out any one school but there could be things for example there's a charter that has a management company and without the management company they would not be able to financially survive so that would put them in the red but with a management company they are very financially stable so we have to consider these different factors and now that we're in the process of authorizing and reauthorizing we are taking a more comprehensive view of not just the application but Dak is reviewing the application cabinet bringing more people in to say we want excellent Charters but we also want to be an excellent authorizer if we're expecting them to outperform we need to support them as well so it's a definitely a symbiotic relationship and so we're learning a lot all of us are now in year two of our roles and changing things and trying to make them more efficient trying to be more supportive I think we have amazing Charters some of them have room to grow and some of them are doing amazing things and they still have room to grow so if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to ours um offices and we are happy to answer those I'll work on getting you definitions of the categories and I'll um send that to you through Lynette and I have I'm sorry one question it was when we talk about meats or exceeds with the caveat that goal is actually assessed as an alternative education campus and so they have a different set of performance I would assume to meet and that may not always meet or exceed the district operated schools and so just to kind of clarify that one part right for the academic yes but for finance operations and governance they still have to be financially stable they still have to do fire drills and whatnot which is really interesting because they're located in strip malls for the most part so trying to figure out how do you meet Fire Marshall and you don't do fire drills because you're online so goal is always the yes but and we figure it out we talked to Dr Jones and we talk to Jill and they're always very pleasant to work with so yes we all right thank you very much thank you do I just close this okay and next we are going to discuss new policy ACA aa- R-1 aa- E-1 but I think at this point we're just talking about the policy good evening Tim Farmer School District legal council um so yeah this uh is basically an opportunity to talk about these draft policy uh proposals uh that have been generated as a result of uh the new law House Bill 1039 uh that requires each School District to adopt a policy uh with regards to a process through which students can request what the statute call a non-legal name change right so we're not talking about name changes on official documents we're just talking about um you know non-legal names so what uh you know how staff and uh other adults in the building would refer to a student um the name they would use um with regards to gender identity uh so these are the policy proposals have been put together again they're very much in draft form um so just looking for some discussion or feedback from board members uh I did talk to Brad for quite a while earlier and I'm aware that um you know you all have had some conversations with him about this and that this is somewhat still ongoing um but to keep the process moving forward uh towards an eventual final draft uh obviously we need to start somewhere uh so here we are I'm happy to answer any questions I will caveat and say if we get uh this is I I'll say this this is an area of emerging law there's a lot of court cases out there there's a lot of things still to be decided uh in terms of how some of these issues are going to play out so depending on how specific the questions become uh I might um recommend that we schedule an executive session at a future board meeting to discuss more specific legal advice rather than a public environment um but any general questions questions about what's in the statute those sorts of questions I'm I'm more than happy to answer uh in public form and I don't know if our student board had a chance to go through that first reading or if you guys have any questions about that um I didn't have a chance to go through it but just based on like what I'm reading here um just curious like what happens if like somebody has a chosen name but like doesn't I I don't really know exactly how I'm asking this here but like but chooses to change that multiple times but then there's like a discrepancy and what if that becomes like a legal thing based on like a genuine like mistake on the teacher like how do we protect like a teacher's rights based on like how do we make sure that we're being fair if it's not an intentional thing I guess is what I'm asking sure I think intent certainly matters and um if a teacher ever unintentionally didn't use the correct name there could certainly be situations where it's like a substitute teacher and maybe they're looking at a legal document like a roll or a roster um they might call a student by the non-legal by the legal name rather than the non-legal name uh certainly there would be accommodation in any policy um to ensure that to the extent possible the students being called by the correct name but also not punishing somebody that had no intent to violate the policy I guess my question to that would be like how would you determine intent and like would this be among teachers staff and students or would it just be directly like staff like how would you determine whether or not it was like okay I'm this person has requested to be called this multiple times and we've seen no change and I know that's like kind of what this whole thing is about um opposed to them just accidentally once yeah I mean that would be most um policies as well as laws including criminal laws there's usually an element of intent that has to be shown uh so if there was a complaint hey I um you know my rights have been violated in this way there would be an investigation to make that determination did the person intend to do it was it intentional was it repetitive was it obvious that they knew they were calling the person the wrong name um all those things would be investigated and then a finding would would come out of that hey it was intentional or he it wasn't um intended uh would ultimately be but it's it's worth noting Too part of your question um House Bill 1039 is I would say it's fairly limited um it has to do with just the non-legal name change right we're not talking about pronouns we're not talking about other aspects of um this topic um and it also only applies to um staff contractors things like that but basically the adults in the building now it doesn't mean that if a student were intentionally you know in a bullying harassing way um using in the incorrect name that that might not violate other laws and policies and anti-discrimination laws it just might not implicate this particular law director devola yeah um I helped to draft this policy so I can actually um answer some of your guys's questions uh so in the policy we do have it where students could only apply for a non-legal name change once for that school year and they would keep that name for the entire the rest of the school year um so they would not be able to do back and forth changes um so on and so forth um and then also uh it would be specific to staff and uh teachers in the building um who are um calling that student by that name um we also have an ex an ex um an ex exemption for um uh religious purposes Etc of um that they would not feel obligated in order to call that student by something that goes against their religious beliefs um we also have uh what was the you had another question Marin did did I answer what was your other question did I get it okay I just wanted to make sure I covered both of your guys's questions and then um uh one other additional thing is that parents would need to be the ones who are signing off on this non-legal name change um and it would be required that uh both legal Guardians if they do have legal uh guardianship to sign off on it um anything else I'm missing yeah one correction if you look at bullet point C students will be permitted to request one non-legal name change within the current school year and they are also permitted to return to their legal name at any time however once they return to their legal name they will not be permitted to return to the non-legal name change for the remainder of the school year and then we also had a provision in here that it could not be um an a intentionally profane or offensive choice we actually heard about an example of one student who designated a name that was spelling out a word that was intended to be offensive and so tried to cover some of the things that have happened and this is all new and emerging so it's really hard to capture everything that could happen but we want to continue to respect all people and to find ways to uphold that respect including both the students the parents and the staff so director Schmidt um I kind of find this as a state overreach um I'm speaking as one member of the board by the way um I stand pretty firmly for parental rights so if the policy has where the parents sign off then that's all well and good um I also worry about the other classmates but it sounds like those aren't the other classmates don't have to worry about that okay and that's pretty much it um I just parental rights and the other classmates rights director H so uh I would like to recommend three changes to this policy um one of them and uh Deb brought this one up in her email is that it's kind of clear as mud that this applies specifically to um name changes that cross gender Norms um so I would like just to put that in the title or somewhere so that we can just be very upfront um so that there's no confusion if Stevie wants to be steo or you know whatever that we're not creating a process that requires that um the second uh recommendation on the parental notification um now this does create a obligation for the staff to respect a right for the students and so if that is violated then you know the students not going to be able to you know advocate for that so a parent is going to have to take that on their behalf um but with that said I can see some a number of situations where both parents might be problematic you know a parent might be on deployment might be incarcerated um there might be um you know animosity there and one has um you know decision- making power and so I think as long as one parent is aware that this change has been asked for um and is required and they sign off on it I I don't I I think two is excessive I would absolutely put two names Blanks on the form and you know allow families to um you know have both parents Express their support um but I would not make it required the Third change that I request is uh the religious exemption so uh when I look at the statute reference um I don't find any that allow for um uh religious ex exemptions for anti-discrimination law um I'd like to have my fellow directors review policy 8 IH religion in the curriculum it basically says when religious topics come up during instruction the material and instructor should quote neither promote nor disparage any religion and that's regardless of their deeply beliefs so that is already an example of how we do place a limitation on the teachers um free expression within their professional realm only um so when a teacher refuses to acknowledge a chosen name then that is essentially imposing their religion on the student and I think that's putting it exactly backwards but we also have have to think about parental rights so at the end of this process we have a parent or parents who have directed the school to use a chosen name for their child so recognizing that um parents have a right to direct the upbringing uh and education of their children to refuse that is to violate their parental rights so I also argue that it would violate all four of the central uh ring items in our cultural compass and uh so we we just in Civil Society ask te ask each other not to practice religious agreement not to p uh practice religious acceptance but religious tolerance you can you're free to disagree with that person but we're just asking for simple respect to use the name that they have asked to use just like we do for absolutely everybody else so I I I do not want to see that religious exemption respect those both ways excuse me for just a moment here um I would imagine I I want to Pivot one thing to U superintendent hilts because there have been cases within the district where you could have parents who have a different opinion and I think there's usually a workaround that is used for I don't know if you have two different parents who have a different point of view whether it be an IEP a 504 or differences of opinions how is that handled if you have two different parents with two different viewpoints because I'm I'm not in favor of favoring one parent over another unless that their their rights have been limited by the courts so if there is a circumstance that isn't covered by Statute and the the parents cannot agree um then whatever is the status quo stays in place so because the status quo for example if a father wants to uh shift students enrollment from Remington over to Springs Ranch and the mother wants to stay at Springs Ranch If the child is already enrolled at Remington then the status quo prevails because we don't have consensus between the the the co-parents to make a change but that's when statute doesn't govern in this case statute does govern and we've we've talked about this in in other settings the statute grants this civil right to the to the student not to the parents we are creating out of respect for Parental Authority a notification requirement and we are anticipating there is a chance that a student might challenge us if we don't Grant a non-legal name change whether the parent parents approve of it or not and so part of your decision is how provocative do you want to be uh my understanding of the issue of the religious accommodation is really the better term um Tim and I talked about this briefly um it does not Empower an adult or or a teacher in particular to use an offensive name to use a name that has but it it allows them to use a non individualized name name now the question is whether doing that for only one student would be also discriminatory the answer is probably so and so there might be a teacher who accommodates both the statute and their own conviction by referring to students by their last name or by referring to them as Scholars as as happens in some locations and so that's what the religious accommodation portion of this policy would permit us to do but I predict strongly that all these nuances are going to to get ironed out in in case law as people bring actions against school districts and then courts start to settle it out and haven't we already had a policy in place or a training in place before this became before this was passed through the legislature that required parental notification and parental consent didn't we have that existing training that was applied here we have required parental notification uh my stand standard Mantra has been we're not keeping secrets from parents um this is Meaningful it's going to go into records they have an absolute Federal right to see what's in their child's records but they do there are some places where students have rights that are independent of their parents rights for example as they turn 14 they gain some rights in their IEP process if they have an IEP and so um we have not always required consent we have always required and continue to require parental notice and notification and the statute is silent on the issue it doesn't prohibit us nor does it require us so we're doing that because we believe in Parental notification director L wri is there anything else in our entire District where we absolutely require both parents to sign because I'm pretty sure my husband has never ever ever in his life signed a school document and certainly during his 11 deployments he wouldn't have been able to in fact I have POA for him for most things I don't even think he signed a tax return very frequently because I file him and I have the boa I just want Mike to know I didn't ask that question um but I think the answer is the answer is that yes there are some things that that require because they might have a um they might have a medical there are some places where we are looking for dual signatures but it's it's by far the minority practice typically we consider that either of the parents speaks for both of the parents director devola yeah um along those lines um when it's a non-legal name change it is actually kind of acting as a legal name change so in that instance I believe that it's very important that you would have both parents signing off on that because that is the name of their child um and so I think that's very important that we have both parents um unless by law they are not a guardian and I wanted to um ask two questions of Mr farmer number one um have you seen some case law which I don't expect you to know all of it where they have made a reasonable accommodation uh yeah there's there is one case in the seventh circuit right now um that is almost directly on point to this issue uh where a school district made an accommodation where the teacher was allowed to use student last names uh instead of first names that was the accommodation uh it originally went up to the seventh circuit um and what happened was the the teacher wanted to use the student last names uh the the district denied that request and so the teacher resigned and filed a lawsuit uh originally seven circuit said that the district was allowed to do that um the Supreme Court since that case uh has revised the standard for which religious accommodations create an undue burden on the employer uh and in light of that change the seventh circuit has now sent it back to the district court for additional fact finding and so we'll see how it plays out my second question is you mentioned that it might be appropriate to have an executive session to kind of discuss some of these nuances and so what I would like to propose is that we schedule an executive session to review what we have to discuss you know any changes before moving actually like to finish what my concerns were I would like to finish that I had a question but then I also wanted to say what I agreed with and then if we also then want to do a longer executive discussion that's fine but I'm going to go look because I actually legally changed my daughter's name um and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who signed the court document to do that um but I think there was required that I had to demon straight notification um my husband didn't oppose it anyway but we we changed four months after we adopted her we changed her name again um so I'm going to go look that up though because it's interesting to me but I also um have a problem with the religious exemption component we have talked over and over and over and over and over again about the Paramount role of parent rights and how that trumps all other things in terms when we put any other situation in place it's been parent right over what happens with their child how their child all of aspects of their child's education including something like a name and now we're saying unless of course you disagree with the family um because of what you perceive from your own individual Faith parents rights are parents rights are parents rights are parents rights and if that parent is saying this is how I want my child addressed whether or not you agree with the decision of that family and that parent it is that parent's right and that parents right over how their child should be addressed should be the top right if you're and we do have situations right now where um by rule the teachers are required or they supposed to be required to call them by their last name ROTC is an example in the cadet handbook they're supposed to be addressed by Cadet and their last name that's not always followed by some of our instructors but but are prior instructors but there are places where that's used um but I think it really hits me wrong when we've talked over and over and over and over again about how the parent is the person who ultimately makes these decisions to give people an out to not follow what the parent is expressly saying they want done um it it's it reads more like unless of course we disagree with what your decision is appar parent is and I don't think that's the role we should be in um I personally have a really hard time um had a very hard time for a while and had to learn how to get around the name Jesus because I was raised that you never said Jesus without bowing your head and Crossing yourself and in my white Anglo World in my faith that was not something you named someone or a word you use that way and I had to learn to say but that's not really what this culture is and I don't see this as any different um it's what the parent has decided their child should be called and that was what should be respected that's I am as one person well just to clarify as a there there are black Catholics but anyway um besides I know that the people who name their child Jesus are often Catholic that's how I ran into the problem as I was teaching in a Catholic school and the another reason why I think it should go into an executive session because we're talking about parental rights and at the same time we're talking about if there is a division giving one parent priority over another parent and so I think if we're going to discuss parental rights we have to look at so then do we create an unequal right for those parents to guide and direct the upbringing of their kids so that's why I think it's something that we could look into an executive session director Schmidt I'd like to know what the parental right are of the classmates if they don't agree with the name change I think that's something that can be discussed too because we want to make sure that if a student inadvertently calls someone and that's different from intentionally using a different name that that would have to be discussed and we also have to look into in my opinion the issue of compelled speech um the opposite of free speech is compelled speech where you say Hey you must do this you must do that and so that's why I think we could definitely use some more clarity via an executive session yeah if if I may just on this topic and I'm comfortable saying this sort of in the public session I do think Mr hiltz alluded to it I I think it's better to refer to it as a religious accommodation because that's what we're legally required to do um and the reality is is every policy that the school district has already is subject to modification based on a religious accommodation whether it's written in there or not um and you do have scenarios where uh accommodations Collide so I'll just use um an example with you what do you do if you have a classroom where there's a blind student uh who uh gets around with a seeing eye dog that's how they maneuver around and also in that classroom there's a student that has a dog allergy what do you do does one accommodation Trump the other accommodation the law would say you accommodate both how do you do that well we're going to have to sit down and figure it out we're going to have to do an interactive process we're going to have to figure out how we accommodate both of these people uh I see this the same way right there's accommodations that may have to be owed to both people and we might not be able to prescribe exactly what that accommodation is in a policy but we're going to sit down with all the parties and we're going to try and come up with an accommodation plan that respects the rights of everybody in involved so I really think accommodation is better than exemption exemption makes it sound like you don't have to accommodate the other person's civil rights when you actually do but you also don't have to violate your own civil rights in doing so director DEA I actually really like what he what you just said um so I would propose that we change it from exemption to accommodation um because it's very important to note that you everyone has a right of conscience and we cannot compel speech so that's extremely important to to keep that in mind as well um even a a teacher who who has that belief is not forcing their belief on someone by doing something that um by choosing not to do something that would violate their conscience so you can't force someone to do something that violates their conscience and their um that's called compell speech so I just wanted to clarify that um and so having that accommodation of using the student last name is a is an excellent example of how we can accommodate both sides director H and so just to clarify I wasn't talking before about preferring one parent over the other but just as Marie was talking about we typically assume that one parent speaks for both and there are a number of situations in which it would be extraordinarily difficult to get approval from the second parent again they may be on deployment they may be awall um etc etc so I I think that we should just assume that parents um are in agreement if they not extent available what's that clarify to the extent available in other words if you can't reach a parent or if there's some type of exent circumstance I I can see where that could be flexibility I I I don't see the urgency in making sure that both parents are on board for essentially just calling a child a name we haven't altered them in any way but um the other thing I wanted to bring up is regarding the compelled speech we actually do compelled speech with regarding addressing of people all the time so for example our students have compelled speech that they are not to call their teachers by their first names or by you know casual names they are you know Mr or Miz last name um you we you compelled speech in Roc they they call their um instructor sir ma'am um the the these are normal things um we're just asking about you know a word you use to describe a person we're we're we're not altering them in any way director devola yeah that with this issue there is actually been cases of parents disagreeing on the gender identity of their student and so this gets into not just a simple let's go on a field trip signature or uh let's um have them play football okay so it's a it's a little bit different in this area um and they're has been known cases of one parent and another parent not agreeing on the gender identity of that of that child and so it's very important that both parents are involved so I'm I'm holding fast to having both parents now if we want to say we are going to um maybe we can play something in there that says we are going to inform parents and make sure that we have um contacted both parents and if there's any issue with it that we would have them sign both parents or something along those lines president may I respond to this this line of reasoning the lawyer's job is to tell you what you may and may not do legally my job is to be a little more tactical if your purpose was to have more student challenges of our policy then creting more barriers makes that more likely and two two parents is a bigger barrier than one parent there are plenty of students that are that are smart enough to figure out I can't get both my parents to sign this because my parents disagree I'm going to submit it without a signature at all and force the issue and I'm just going to be very plain if a student forces the issue we will lose and we will lose in a way that probably harms other students and harms parents rights into the bargain and so I would just invite the board to consider what is the tradeoff between there there is there's a concept of overplaying a hand I helped draft all of our parental rights and notifications um I would predict that that the two parent requirement is more likely how much more likely I don't know we're speculating but I would predict that it is more likely that a student challenge would then come forward than if we allowed a single parent to speak for the family system um I also predict bluntly that we're just going to have students that request non-legal name changes and never even consider whether it's notification or or permission from their parents because the law allows them to do that and I guarantee you that there are student Communications flying around the state and around our schools that say you don't they can tell you to get the signature the law doesn't require that just just go for it there's already students that are doing that in other areas where they're perhaps purchasing things or going places where we might say hey let me see your ID or there are plenty of 16 to 20 year olds that are smart enough to know that that we're frankly we're bluffing and they'll call our Bluff I understand why we're doing it I I agree with doing it I recommend that we require parental notification and consent um I also predict that if a student pushes us on us pushes us on it uh our lawyer will tell us what I've reported to you other lawyers have told me um the doesn't attach to the parents it attaches to the student and so I would encourage the board to consider that because we want to be as steadfast as we want to be acknowledging what that might create down the road I can give you details of that but I would prefer to do that in an executive session because I would want to talk about individual students and I think it's it's a good idea to to obtain more information in executive session to come up with something where we can reach a consensus and move forward there's there's a lot of options with this new requirement one option was to do nothing and the problem with the option of doing nothing then it becomes kind of the wild west where everybody interprets it the way they see fit and that could create a lot of issues for the district so my my goal is to come up with something um that would honor families that would respect students and so I think that we'll look at the schedules and we'll schedule an executive session where we can compile different questions and answers and see what we can come up with thank you Mr farmer all right and so if there's no objections we're going to move that to a Tob scheduled executive session and for clarity please um that means that we won't bring this for forward for action until after we've scheduled an executive session correct right so we'll Carrie and I will make sure we communicate that till okay and the rest are information items so we are going to adjourn at 8:57 p.m.