All right. So, it is now 6:32 and we are going to call our work session um to order. And because it's a work session, we don't need to do all the attendance and roll calls because we won't be voting. Our first item is our individualized education performance report. So, we'll invite that team up to
present. >> Good evening board. Dr. Nancy Lamont, uh deputy superintendent and executive director for individualized education. Um, welcome to the board, Mr. Ryan. Um, reports from three of my departments, special education, gifted education, and
culturally and linguistically diverse education. The two slides are the slides I um always provide the board with this time of year. This comes from our October count, um, and shows the trajectory of our special populations along with our total enrollment. Um, one
thing I want to point out in this is over the past five years, um, gifted education, uh, identifications have increased to the point of where we've gone, um, increased by 90% over the last five years for the number of kids in the district that are identified as gifted.
And then the other uh, document is our um, scorecard that I wanted to share with you. um because of the um new department of student success and the uh variety or the breadth that they cover the two um items below at the very
bottom are also part of student success. So instead of having three key performance indicators um they are working with five per key performance indicators. So to start us off uh Ronda May, director of special education.
>> Good evening everybody. This is cozy. All right. Um, as Nancy said, I'm Ronda May, director of special education. Okay. And we will start off with um some data from our December count. Um, December count is our largest, most complex, probably most important state
report because it is directly tied to funding. Um, so this year for in our December count, we had about a 3% increase in our students um who are on an IEP and eligible for funding. So, we now have over 3,500 students within
special special education systemwide. Um, students on an IEP now make up just over 13% of our total population. That's up about a half percent from last year. Um, and very much in line with the state average. Another highlight uh from that report is that we have um an increase in
students who are receiving their services in our least restrictive possible placement. um and that is spending more than 80 80% or more of their time in a regular education setting. Um it is our goal to ser to serve our students in whatever setting they need, right? To provide the
services in accordance with whatever their needs are. It is not explicitly our goal to serve all students in the least restrictive um setting available, right? Not all students can do that. However, it is something to celebrate that we have more students spending more time in that setting. um that means that
they are benefiting from that regular education um instruction at their grade level and to the extent that they can access that um they are much more likely to make good academic progress. So something to celebrate there. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um my key
performance indicators. So um as you can see we're doing well on these things that we're measuring. the timely completion of our quarterly progress reports, um IEP goal attainment, and timely completion of initial and annual IEPs. All of those fell this year within
the exceeds um sort of category. Um I think this might be my least interesting slide. So, let's move to our most interesting slide. Um as we know, right, we have a shortage of special education providers. We are not immune. Um it continues statewide, nationwide. Um and
so that is the boat we are in. However, I really wanted to highlight the progress that we have made since the 2324 hiring season. Um, so the data on this slide compares the hiring season for 2324 to the hiring season for the current school year 2526.
Um, and the reason I chose 2324 as the comparison year is because in my tenure in D49, um, 2324 really was the high water mark of our spending on contracted services. Um so just real briefly if we have a vacancy that we are not able to fill within special education we often
rely on contracted providers to make sure that we don't have gaps in services. Um this slide represents our hiring not uh mostly not of special education teachers. So these are mostly our itinerant service providers, our speech language pathologists,
occupational therapists, physical therapists, some teachers, right? So teachers of the visually impaired, um teachers of the deaf, our assistant technology team and so on. Okay, so since the 2324 hiring season, we have had nearly an 80% decrease in spending on contracted staff. Now, lest you think
that we have 80% fewer staff, that is not what that means. Um, we have 53% fewer positions being filled by contractors now than we did in the 232 24 year. Um, we have had in the hiring season leading up to 2526, we had 56%
fewer resignations of district staff than we did leading into 23 24. Those are huge things to celebrate. Um, we our fill rate um has increased from 47% to 180%. Um, now that does not mean I'm hiring two people for every open
position. um as if there were two people for every open position. Uh what that means is every hiring season we post both the positions that have been resigned by a by a staff member and positions that had been filled by contractors in that school year in an
attempt to replace them with direct hires. So that's what that 180% fill rate um represents. This is, as I said, my favorite slide. I'm really proud of the data on this slide. Um I can't take credit for it though uh entirely. So,
uh, the vast murder, >> what's that? You >> take a lot of credit for it. You are attracted to leadership and stability. >> Thank you, Peter. But I will say that the vast majority of this hiring um is done by my fantastic special education coordinators. And so, I really want to give them the credit for the work they
put in to vet, recruit, and fill positions with really quality folks. Um, I also want to shout out to our team leads for the various teams here. They work very hard to support people once they're in the position. um onboard them, make sure that they have what they need, um integrate them into the family
so that they don't want to leave us. So, it's really important to know that this is not just my work. This is the work of a whole lot of folks that brought us to this point. >> Can I ask a quick question just at one statistic? >> Yeah. So, I know most of the statistics out there are about the um specialized
services, those pieces, but when you're talking about the district staff one, that 56%, does that also includes the special education teaching staff or does that also only refer to the um to the to the special service providers?
>> All of this data refers to the itinerant providers. So, there are some teachers and then the special service providers. It does not refer to the building level staff. I just didn't pull that data. >> Okay. >> Yeah, >> that was my only question. I didn't know if that number included that piece, too. >> Yeah. No, it doesn't.
>> So, since we're pausing you on this slide anyway, I wanted to talk about the the um 79% decrease in spending for a 53% reduction on positions. So that extrapolates out
to me that we spend more when we're getting >> paying contracted services than when we have our own staff. Correct. >> That is absolutely correct. >> So that is a huge win. >> Yes, it is. Um and a big driver behind our um you know our push to fill those positions with district staff. It's
better for the system, right? They integrate with us. They become part of the family. Um but spending wise >> and better too. >> Yes. >> I guess my question is how many uh special service providers you have or roughly like what does their case load
look like? Like how many schools do they service? >> It varies significantly by position. So um for example, we have uh 23ish um SLPs and we have two physical
therapists and so it depends greatly on the position. Okay. All right. Um, so last year when I stood before you to give my report, I spoke about the facilitated assessment process
that we went through. Um, super quick reminder, the facilitated assessment process is part of CDE's monitoring of special education, one of the many ways in which special education is monitored. Um, it's a four-year cycle that consists of the assessment itself, which we did last year, a four-year plan, and then
starts back over with another assessment. Um, last year we went through the assessment. It was two days. one day focused on policies and procedures, one day focused on an educational benefit review. So, an update on that. Um, from that process came an action plan. It is a
four-year action plan. Um, it had 13 areas of focus. 10 of those uh areas had activities that were planned in the first year. Four of those activities, so four of those 10 are already complete for the first year. Um, and so we will move on
to our plans for year two for those. We have made significant progress on five of the six other areas um within that 10. Um I do want to say that uh this is good progress. This is a four-year plan. It is meant to live and breathe over those four years. Um it is meant to
respond to all of the things that happen within a school system for four years. Um I am regularly in touch with the person um that I'm working with on CDE to monitor this. Um and and we are making good progress. So no concerns there. Um, there are 13 areas. That's a
lot. So, I'm not going to go over them all, but I did want to highlight um our big focus this year on a review process for IEP content. Um, for as long as I've been here and for a while before that, we had um we've always had a review process for the procedural compliance
component. So, that's signatures and paperwork and timelines and kind of those they are important, right? those those components of special ed. Um we really knew we needed and the facilitated assessment really highlighted the need for a review process to look at the substantive
components of compliance and that really is that educational benefit. So um as you can imagine this is daunting with over 3,500 students on an IEP. That's 3,500 meetings each um at least right every year. Um, however, uh, the work is
challenging, right? It, but it's necessary. It's really helping us pinpoint what PD we need, um, what coaching we need, how teams are implementing our policies and procedures, and how students are benefiting. That's all I have for you. >> Thank you.
>> Get through the maze of chairs. Um, hello, I'm Diane Nef. Um, I'm the coordinator of gifted education. I know most of you. I've met you today, which is great. Um, how you guys all doing? >> Good. >> And I just Sorry.
>> Okay. Um, first of all, we're going to go over um the KPIs. Um, our first my the first KPI for gifted was identifications. We had an um we broke it up into academic and talent areas. We've talked before about there are 14
areas of identification and we have really been trying to focus a lot more on the talent areas. We have a ton of data for those academic areas but we've been trying to get into the leadership. We've been trying to get into creativity um the art the visual arts and all that
kind of stuff. So we had um our goal for the academic areas was to um ID 175 students. We actually um IDed 490. So a lot more. Um the talent areas we um our
goal was to ID 16 to 20. We actually IDed 83 including 10 students in leadership was great. That was with Mr. Hilt's help over here. Um we also IDed 69 new high school students which is amazing. And as
Dr. Lemon said at the beginning of um her presentation, it has been a 90% increase in five years. We now have almost 2,500 students in gifted education. Um the parent satisfaction se um survey was our next KPI. Uh we do a
semesterly survey survey. The first one went out in the middle of the year. We're going to be sending out another one here in a couple weeks. Um the goal was an average of 8 to nine. We got 7.67. However, we only had 145 parents respond,
which in our realm, that's actually pretty good because that means they really didn't have a lot to complain about. So, usually when there's more to complain about, we have more parents respond. We're hoping to have more parents respond this next time. Um, and
there might with some of the other stuff that we're going to talk about in just a second. But, you know, I mean, it's still close to eight. I wanted to still get up to that at 8, but we actually had more teachers respond this time than parents, which is amazing because we usually hardly have any teachers respond
and this time we had about twice as many teachers respond. So, um, our AP exam results. So, um, last year we had AP seminar. So, the results for that, we had 90% of our students pass. That's part of our pathway. Um, which we you
got, you all voted on. I almost said it again. You all voted on that um two years ago and it went into effect last year. So this was the last year. The very first year we had it, we only had AP seminar as far as the adv um AP
classes and 9% of those students passed. We're hoping to have the same for this year. However, this year we do have research also AP research. Um so if you remember a the pathway freshman is freshman um orientation sophomore is
gifted leadership and then AP seminar and AP research for juniors and seniors. I had the privilege of watching the AP research um presentations this morning at Falcon High School. They were amazing. I mean it just made it really
makes you teareyed. They um the kids were all very well read. They knew exactly what they wanted to say. They did all the research. They knew how to explain the research. Um, one of them, Isaac Domer, went into
data that I have never even heard of. He talked about R squared and this, you know, I mean, it was amazing and it was all things that they wanted to learn about. So, um, what he he studied, um, his study was on how sleep affects
gifted students. Another student talked about the difference between K-pop and, you know, traditional um American music. Another student talked about, you know, um some of the violence that's been going on in schools. But they all dug
deep. They did a whole bunch of research. When I talked to them, they said that it's so different than any class they've ever taken. They feel like they're really ready to get into college now. and that you know I mean even the
ones who didn't have the um the outcome that they wanted they still were saying that this was such a great learning experience and that I can take this when I go off to college. So it was it was amazing. Um, like I said, ne, um, we did
have seminar and research next year. This year, next year at Falcon High School, just amazing. 27 kids signed up for AP seminar. Five kids signed up for AP research. I mean, this year they had three, so it keeps going up. Um, and
45 students are coming from Falcon Middle School and seven students are coming from Pipsil. And that hardly ever happens. a lot of times those students leave. So, this is really helping those kids stay in our district, which was part of our goal was to keep high school
students, gifted high school students here. So, yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. Um, okay. So, next slide. Did you guys have a question or did you >> Okay. Oh, arrow. Sorry. Okay. So, like um Rhonda May was talking about last
year, we also had our gifted education monitoring. Um we have a four-year cycle as well. This is part of our second year. We already implemented our first year and I discussed that at the last um board meeting. So we are truly
implementing classroom teacher training this year. That's our huge um focus because we did have as you guys know we had you as you know we had um a lot of cuts in our department and um the good
thing is I'm going to tell you the positive of this is when I went to the state director's meeting we're actually still in a pretty good place. So that really helps me a lot because there's a lot of districts out there that have a lot less um support for our gifted students. So
um we but in order to help especially with some of the zones who did get cut completely in half we felt like the classroom teacher training was really necessary. So we are sending three student or three teachers to the gifted education institute in Spokane this year. We are um sending three students
to the 2e training twice exceptional training which is special education and gifted. They're going to Longmont. There's the Andy McNair Genius Hour that we will be um July 27th we will we will be hosting for the entire district. So we're hoping to get more that out there
to have more people come. Um we also have um 12 people going to Kagati. Last year we had 30 going to Kaggi. So we did cut it back um because of budget and stuff like that. But we still have 12.
And the majority of those teachers this year are going to be classroom teachers. And then this is the most exciting, we actually have five people right now getting their gifted endorsement through CSU PBLO. Um, four of those are getting scholarship funds through the 3150
grant. So, um, it's going to be great. The most amazing thing about this is that every single classroom teacher who is doing this is so excited about it and they're they want to do it. they're, you know, they're they know that they have to support the gifted facilitator at
their school and they just can't wait to they can't wait to get it going. So, that's an exciting part of this. Um, okay. So, also because of the less time that they're having with their facilitator, we will also be having a lot more um district le opportunities. I
misspelled lead and I put lead. I apologize for that. Um, but the students, very exciting. We have 10 students this summer going to the fine arts center for a week of camp. Um helping with that creativity and their talents. Um and that those are
scholarships that are being paid for by the 3150 funds. We have more students going to camp. We are opening it up to 100 students and this summer it's going to be our K through 10. We already have it our K through kindergarten through second grade. We have it already set up.
So that's amazing. Um, we also have a lot of um after school enrichment opportunities going on. We've even reached out to classroom teachers for that. We have an art class going on for um from classroom teachers. We have chess club. We have all sorts of stuff going on. For the parents, we had a parent onboarding in spring for new
gifted teachers, I mean new parents to gifted. We found through the surveys that a lot of parents had no idea what to expect. And so we found that um when we went to um one of our conferences, they did talk about onboarding for
parents. And we did that. We had about 40 parents show up. It was amazing. They got to know a little bit more about what to expect both at all three levels, elementary, junior high, and high school. And um we learned how to make our next one better. So we had a lot of
learning on that, but it was still great for the parents. And it's actually also helped our COGS meeting which is our parent advisory committee. So we had um 20 parents at our last parent advisory council meeting. They were all excited to be there. They had a ton of
questions. So we're growing and it's really nice. We are also been offering like overexitabilities and sensitivities courses through Nisha P um Pavilin. We had PEGs which is the Pikes Peak gifted association. They had a family institute that we sent a parent a bunch of parents
to. And then as I mentioned before, we have our COGS meetings which are we do quarterly. Okay. So this is what I need from you. Um I am seeking board approval. We have two students that have made it through the
pathway the pathway this year. And so I'm hoping that we would be able to add that seal that is right there to um for the gifted innovation pathway to the students transcripts who have completed this pathway. Um so it's similar to the
seal of biiteracy that CLLDE does and as I said we already have two students who've completed. So if we can get that voted on in May if you have consensus that would be amazing. So if there's consistence with the board, I would like to put it on the May 7th
meeting for approval. >> So yes, >> yes. >> Can you add that as a as an action item for our May? >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Sorry. Um, you know, I have a passion
for the topic, right? So I I'm gonna have questions and uh comments for you. First of all, I love that you guys are doing parent training, especially for over excitabilities and sensitivities, because I think a lot of parents have no idea what's going on with their kids and
learning that that's all associated with their um students cognition is um is very important for them. Um so I heard about that Andy McNair thing that we're going to be hosting here. >> Okay. So,
>> if a board member wanted to attend and there's no cost associated with that or anything? >> Nope. It's completely paid for by the gifted 3150 grant funds. >> Could you send an invitation, please? >> Yeah. >> It's July 27th, I believe it's here, but if it gets to
be too many for the um excellence lab, then we'll be we'll move it someplace else. But yeah, I will send an invitation to you. So, it'll be great. She's amazing. >> And you seged right into my other question. What are 3150 bunds? >> That is what the gifted department is
paid for by the state. We have two different grants. We have the USQP which is universal screening and qualified personnel and that pays for um next year it will be ENGAT for our second and sixth graders and then it pays for half of my salary. And then the 3150 grant um
funds are everything else that goes towards gifted. So that's a So that's a state grant >> and uh the 3150 does that come from a name of a bill or >> that authorized it? >> This is the grant code. >> Yeah, it's just a grant code and they
it's just the 3150 and yeah, so they pay for that's where we pay for all the teacher training, all the um yeah, unfortunately there's not it's it's not a lot. So, we can't pay for um personnel other than the other half of my salary.
But, but there's still >> Just to clarify, some of those are federal dollars that are granted through the state. >> Oh, wow. >> Is that accurate? >> I think it's all from the state. >> 100% state. >> I think it's 100% state. Yeah. >> They're both CDE. So, >> yeah.
>> And based upon total enrollment. So unlike unlike special ed that bases it on number of students that are identified under the idea and have an IEP gift if the dead is based upon total student enrollment. >> And the reason that is is because they
know that there's more students out there. So they know that there's students that we haven't found. So part of those funds are to help us find those students to pay for assessments and um send them to TIPS and all. THIPS is the talent pool search for um the Pikes Peak
region. So all of those funds go towards that stuff too. So >> yeah, good. Thank you so much. >> Right to Wang Shangha and Dorier. Uh good evening board members. Mr.
Hilts. My name is Grant Guys. I'm the cultural linguistic diverse education coordinator. That was Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Ukrainian. Our top languages other than English in District 49. At last count, we had two other languages add added. So, we have 80 languages in district 49, which is
quite impressive. I'm here to talk to you today about cultural, linguistic, diverse education. Many of those 80 languages represented there in our graphic. and some of the pictures from some of the fun events and things that we're doing throughout the year, including our family literacy night where we had students that earned the
sale by literacy volunteering uh to encourage literacy in both English and the native language of students and families. We have our cultural fair or multicultural fair which had over uh 400 individuals which was quite uh impressive and enjoyable uh and I know
Miss Thompson quite well and some of our other uh members. and then uh our professional development that we hold uh throughout the district encouraging teachers to adopt uh languagerich strategies that support all students. Uh for our key performance indicators uh
I have four KPIs that uh we utilize within the department. The first is our language performance and our growth in in language. And so our goal is to get 10 points or more growth on TEL uh for English language proficiency. tell is an assessment that has a strong correlation
to access and by the middle of the year 64% of our students were on track for that goal with many of them exceeding the uh 10point goal and making more than one year's growth. >> Great. >> What's access? >> Access is the annual English language proficiency test that is done. Uh it's
federally required and it tests students in English uh for reading, writing, speaking and listening for our students. The second goal that we made this year, which was a new one, is to provide tier 2 and three interventions in language acquisition. This is exciting because we
do it really well in reading in district 49, but we don't have as many resources when it comes to language. Um, this goal, our teachers have taken a lot of um support on that. I did remove kind of the recordkeeping portion of that so that they could focus on giving high
quality instruction and interventions. But one of the things that we're going to pilot this year out of a competitive Title 3 grant is a multilingual learner literacy camp. And so what we're doing right now is taking those students that are not making what we would expect for growth in reading uh for grades four
through 11 and we're identifying those students and providing them explicit instruction in literacy because some of our students who are newcomers may have never received that. So uh we're going through that process of screening them now. I'm doing some ORF passage readings. Kids are a little nervous and
scared, but they're doing great. And uh we're excited to pro uh pilot that this summer uh for two weeks. In addition to that, we are doing family engagement. We have a 96% satisfaction with our events. Oh, I skipped one. Excuse me. Professional learning. We have a 92% satisfaction on the offerings that we
provide in district 49 through our department. Uh providing educators with the tools and the learning that they need to support multilingual learners in their classrooms. In addition to that, our family engagement. We have 96% satisfaction with our events and activities that support family
engagement. Uh many of our uh I'm I'm very impressed with uh Dian's uh turnout for surveys. Our families don't do his surveys quite as well as they do. Uh but we did have a listening forum where uh over a hundred individuals came and provided feedback uh and in a very
authentic manner uh with our liaison and our interpreters as they support. So we got some some great feedback from that as well. highlights in the district. District 49 continues to exceed the state on CDE's access on track to proficiency metric.
If I could go into the weeds a bit and explain that on track to proficiency is seeing our students making the annual progress towards language proficiency that we've come to expect out of research. So essentially students have five to seven years to make uh a 4.0
overall and a 4.0 in literacy. When students start at the bottom stage of language acquisition, they are sponges and they quickly make one year's growth in one year's time and then it starts to slow down by that time with a going from a level two to three takes anywhere from
two to three years and from a level three to a level four student takes about three to four years. Uh so again the the states created that metric for it. I love it a lot and we continue to uh exceed in that expectation. Our
elementary schools, uh, 64.9% of our students were on track to English proficiency. That's, uh, 5% above the state. Our middle schools, uh, were 36% uh, on proficiency. Again, that's 7.9 above the state. We recognize that 39%
is not great, and we want to do better for those students, but we also recognize that when students come to us at middle school levels, it's harder to provide them that literacy instruction like you talked about. So hence the tier 2 tier three interventions and then our high school 16.4% of our students are on
track to proficiency which is slightly below the state. However, when we remove goal uh from that high school data we actually rise up to 42% which is 19% above the state. Goal plays an outsiders role in our numbers but we love them. I work real closely with that uh that
team. uh and we continue to collaborate to find ways to increase their participation and performance on access. Uh other highlights is that we continue to s support with interpretation translation which is um the the rights
the parents limited English proficient parents have to access the services in district 49 and communicate meaningfully with one another. We have a 94% satisfaction rate among our staff who use that service. And then amongst professional development, um we've uh
really targeted on newcomers. We continue to provide professional development around newcomers. And again, we'll be putting that into our title three plan to support that because that continues to be a growing subop. Uh in addition to that, languagerich classrooms to support language
acquisition. We have great partnerships with the power zone. We've been doing some more with the falcon zone as well. and we've cross-trained almost all of our district staff at one point or another in my tenure uh in this role. And then gifted and talented with multilingual learners. We've increased
our collaboration with the gifted department to find students who are gifted in world languages and give them uh that honor of being found gifted in world languages. So uh working with Diane Nef and CDE, we had some presentations towards that end. and our dually identified students, finding
students that are both um special education students and culturally and linguistically diverse and finding the best services to support them. Uh as well, those continue to be areas of focus for uh the on ongoing years. I should note to that, let me go back to
that. Um with uh the CL by literacy, I'm pleased to report that we have 58 students that we have reviewed and are giving the CL by literacy to. We have the district 49 seal by literacy and the Colorado state seal of biiteracy. They're both equal in my uh viewpoint,
but the D49 seal of literacy is a bit more accessible for our students that are multilingual learners. Uh so just wanted to highlight that we're giving some awards out even today at Vistridge. Uh we're going to continue to provide leadership in professional learning to support multilingual learners. We're
going to continue to focus on best practices that support multilingual learners in all of our subcategories. And we're going to continue to support the academic growth and academic achievement amongst multilingual learners on both our district performance framework and our school performance framework.
And that uh ends my presentation. Thank you. >> Oh yeah. >> Question. >> Sure. >> Oh. >> Anyway, um so with the explicit instruction, are you finding that is that just high intensity repetition just so they can
begin to flow more when you say you're using explicit instruction with that. >> Yeah. So, some of our students just really never receive phonics instruction, right? If I have a student who is entering us with high school um our high schools are are not as well
equipped with uh literacy. We're great at McBth and Beaowolf, right? We struggle with, you know, was this letter sound make and going over blending. Uh so, we're finding that our students, you know, they are struggling with both speed and accuracy. when I'm doing the screening amongst our middle school and
high school students. That's an area of of of growth that we need to continue to work on. Uh we do purchase Lexia accounts for all of our students in district 49 CLLD program and that focuses on explicit instruction and then uh teachers pull lessons and can provide
some uh additional support. >> Yeah, it's it's a it's a community process and I have a great team. >> Okay. Does a great job flagging them for you. get through the stuff that they get >> and then if they keep freezing on it, it
highlights it. It >> sends them, hey, this is an area this kid's still living. So the teacher knows which pieces the kid can work on independently and which pieces they can't because we've used that with our English primary students, right? >> For primary for assistance with literacy
instruction for a really long time. >> Yeah. No, we we've found a lot of benefit with it. Uh in in fact uh uh later next week uh we set a goal for our middle school uh students to make 170 units gain from December to now and
almost all of those students hit that goal. So they're going to be doing a fun field trip for that. >> They're excited. So, I just wanted to share with the board too something that I heard um last night because Karen Bixler came to visit us at the DAC and she talked about um reallocation grants
and I understand that the summer camp that you were talking about for uh funded by title three Yes. >> was um paid for through some of these reallocation grants. So what that is is essentially there was grant money for title I think it was two, three and four
that was available um it was um basically not used by school districts uh and so it was left over and so they make it available for reallocation. So you apply for it and um they identify
you know high need districts first and so we are not among those and so it was thought that we would probably not many any of them, but uh you know, go ahead and write the grant anyway. Well, we did get some reductions in our original ask,
but Karen Vixler and her team were able to secure grants for all three of them. >> Yeah, great collaboration amongst that. We're going to be um I know the Power Zone wrote a grant to help with some instructional coaching around multilingual learners. We'll do the literacy camp as well. and we we think
it'll be highly successful and district 49 does a great job of spending our title three funds. So, we weren't part of that. Hey, that money goes back to the state. We always do a good job on that one. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Are there any other questions that weren't asked during
>> Yeah. Any questions on any part of the presentation at this point? So, any of the other subsections if anyone wanted to bring anyone back? >> Sure. I'll ask because I I asked Peter the same question. So, it's an easy one. Um but what would you say is the biggest
contributing factor to why we have more >> um students with disabilities enrolling >> or like the the number the very first the half a percent increase >> because a half a percent in one year is is is very significant and even over
time it's been very significant. >> Hey you already answered. >> I want to hear what they >> are you talking about this. Yes. >> Okay. >> I think there's probably not one factor. So there uh there's a there's probably both an increase in students enrolling
who are already identified. Um I know that we in particular have a very good reputation um sort of in the region for our vision services. Um our our stu our population of students with vision impairments has really exploded. Um and so you know word spreads right in those
pockets in those communities. Um there's probably also an increase in students identified once they arrive here um if they previously weren't. And that is down to evaluation practices. Um we talk about MTSS and referral practices and how to know um when you suspect a
disability. So I I think it's probably not just one factor, it's a combination. I just wanted to get you on record so that when people listen to this, they're like, "Oh, that sounds great because I think my kid might have, you know, need to be evaluated and they're ignoring me
over here." You're welcome. >> That for socials. >> Well, yeah. Well, I I think there's also a component possibly of so this area is identified as an area that can provide
for families, military connected families who have children who are identified as having exceptional family members. Colorado Springs is one of the places that their families can be based. And given that we are also um that we have liaison to the bases that emphasize
how military friendly we are um I have a suspicion that military families when they choose here are also looking at some of those pieces. And so when you combine that component of well this is an area that families with exceptional family members can get assigned and we
do a great job supporting mil military families. We're probably also seeing a piece of that component as well. >> Yeah, we do hear regularly from families who are PCSing to the area and are looking to um understand our system better. They've heard of us um and they have questions. So, it's also true that
we have a large number of foster homes >> uh in our community. We now have four group homes >> um that I know of. I just I found one that I did not know was there before. And so, that also draws students with disabilities to our district. Well, and I have heard people who tried to
integrate their student with neighboring districts that I won't mention and the reception they received there versus the reception they lived they received here was really vast. So two years ago there was a military family coming here with a blended family of foster kids and
biological kids and she told me how incredible the treatment was here and that goes back to you guys. >> Yes. And I have an incredible team. >> Yeah. So, I had a question about the December count because of course we all hear about the October count because
that's tied to funding. So, um is the December count also tied to to spent sped funding? >> Yes. >> And let me guess, it's set later in the year so that we've had an opportunity to, you know, evaluate, assess, and and and produce an IEP, right? I you know
what I don't know exactly why it's set when it is but um yes it does give us some time right for new students to come in for us to get a handle on whether or not they may have some needs and to do some evaluation although sped funding is in a rears isn't it aren't we always behind
>> so October count is actual count that affects this year's pay >> December count although it's money that they're these are the kids we're serving this year that's the sp money we get next year >> um so we're always a year behind behind on the money that we're reimbured. So
sped kind of works under this weird reimbursement system. >> So that also means that if we are >> the second tier piece of it at least I think. >> So that also means that if we are increasing that we are underfunded for this year. >> We're always underfunded. >> Yes, >> that's correct. Our funding has lagged
chronically. Isn't it also in December because that's when we do our staffing report and then we we do a reconciliation of those two as >> Yes, there is year. Yes, there is a component where the staff side is woven together with the student side. >> Yeah. >> And the staff report, the HR report is a is a December report.
>> And that all gets to that wonderful like tracking of maintenance of effort and all these other components that they do that is um a technical component that makes sure you don't mess over your special education population during budget crisis. >> This the the commissioner of education
gave all the superintendents a little gentle finger wag today about maintenance of effort. I know times are tough. Maintain effort. >> Yes. Warning, warning. Learn from learn from people who didn't >> standby resolution to fully fund special education. Doesn't mean anybody listens
to it, but we always have the standing resolution there >> someday. Someday. Although I do think it's had the impact though because the the level of state funding has increased >> um in part because of that resolution that um I actually was the one who
advocated for and got at the state level way back in the day when I was the the representative that that did the legislative assemblies. Um but we convinced all of the districts that it was worth emphasizing. It took a lot of work to help educate other boards as
well as ours has been educated about how it works because they were convinced if we advocated for that we were taken away from and so it took a couple of cycles I think before we got them to understand that standing up there explaining but um but that result because we got all of
the school boards in the state to agree that it was important to advocate for that advocacy eventually has led to increases um in understanding that that funing is um in increasing that funding gradually. I don't think it would have happened without that. So, we might not
be able to get it fully funded. >> They don't have to argue about the resolution. It's just automatically passed. >> Yep. Exactly. It stays there now. Everybody's gotten why how it can help them in the end. >> And this is so much bigger than state funding, too, because the idea legislation says that the Congress can
appropriate up to 40% of the um overall spend on uh sped. They have never topped 20%. Um they are sign they are declining now and uh I believe the number I got from Rebecca was somewhere in around 7%
for this year. So the federal government needs to hold up their end. This is a this is a mandate. >> Yes. >> Yes. Whether or not it's funded is >> Yeah. But I don't know if it's ever been >> it's a mandate that has never been fully funded.
>> No. and they're going to find ways to mess it over and all kinds of Does anyone else have anything else for me? Yes, >> okay. So, um I'm going to kind of uh pivot this to CLLDE. So,
in regards to the one moment, the uh access proficiency metric, you uh you acknowledged that 36% like you made the acknowledgement that that that's relatively low >> and correct me if I'm wrong. You made a you said that you would continue to
support u the students like who are working towards that proficiency metric. Can you just kind of run me through what that support would look like? Mhm. Yeah. They get direct instruction from a highly qualified teacher in culture, linguistic, diverse education. That's a a course that they're provided. So we
have two roles the as a CLLD teacher. One is to provide English language acquisition and the second is the access the core content. So sometimes our teachers are focusing on language, sometimes they're helping them with their their content and their homework and making that accessible. And it's
just really a cognitive load issue when it comes down to it is that uh the less I have of a a language and I'm hearing high level vocabulary I'm having reading comprehension that is at grade level uh that can be challenging. So we always uh encourage our teachers to reduce that
cognitive load chunk material make it linguistically accessible um really uh leverage the native language of students through transl languaging. it's not taking the test and putting it in Google and saying here you go because some students haven't received instruction in
chemistry or biology in their native language. So saying what that word is in your native language is just as hard as osmosis is to me in English, right? Uh so that that direct instruction, explicit vocabulary instruction, and really just giving that time and effort.
A lot of our teachers also do tutoring after school and provide their time and and it's it's uh it's a family, right? Right. So, uh, students also support each other. We're, uh, putting just like gifted education, we received cuts. Uh, one of the things that we're going to
focus in on that we found really successful, uh, this past year in the past few years was high school CLLD students going over to the middle school and providing peer uh, tutoring and mentorship. Uh, and that's always really cool because those are the coolest kids in the school. uh and they always walk
in and teachers can be as cool as they want, but man, a high school student coming and telling you to do something because they found success with it is uh much more convincing than uh anything that I would say. >> Well, and when I pull that slide back up to kind of two pieces, one is we just
know at least experientially in our brains that our ability our the ease of getting a new language gets harder as our brain gets older, right? because the way the circuits are working where we've shut down some of those circuits even as early as mid-ele.
>> So we see much higher acquisition rates the younger the brain is and you see that in our percentages too. But the other thing that I think is interesting and a huge compliment to your staff is although our percentages are going down, which we would expect based on that part
of it, um, but our our gap between us and the state increases at each of those levels. So, we're 5% higher than state at the elementary level, but almost 8% higher
at middle school and 19% higher than at high school, which means we're making much better progress than average in those pieces. Um, so to me that means we're doing pretty amazing
job too because that that that state average is your benchmark of what is typically a what what do we see as typical progress? Wow, we're doing significantly better than typical. And so that's kudos to the students who are working incredibly hard at it and the people who are helping them to do it.
>> Well, and I appreciate you splitting goal up because you're right, the people at goal are incredible, but we have to really show a true reflection of what the district operated schools are doing versus the statewide statewide alternative campuses are doing. So, I'm
glad you broke that up because a lot of people like to intentionally smudge those together, but um so I appreciate that. Thank you. I want to include when you look at goal, you're probably talking about kids far a far greater percentage who are in the twice
exceptional category who also have so um >> Yeah. And just their size because uh um it gets their their population increases as you go up in grade level because they'll have some, you know, multi-year seniors and stuff like that. But just to
give you a perspective, go high school accounts for 70% of the high school seniors registered in D49. So yeah, they they skew our numbers significantly. >> Any other questions
or comments? Thank you all very much for all your work. Thank you SO MUCH. AND NOW WE ARE ON TO student D's. Everyone's least favorite thing to look at at the beginning of the school year that we need to go down ahead of time.
>> Good evening board. I'm Heather Diaz, director of finance and welcome to the board. Uh tonight I bring you a lot of information. Um over the last month and a half we have met with every operated school in all three zones and we have sat with
each group from every school and evaluated and discussed every fee that is in this packet tonight. Um this year I took some time before meeting with everyone to kind of change some things a little bit. Uh the first sheet that you have here tonight is I wanted to take
some work off of the schools and we did a district-wide sheet. Um, most schools do an ID replacement except your elementary level. So, we put it on a district-wide sheet and didn't put it on the schools to present this. Um, technology replacement is now
district-wide. Um, uniform replacement. We have very expensive ROC uniforms that sometimes do not come back. So, that will be a part of this whole replacement piece. Uh, textbook replacements, they get lost.
And um general repairs when things happen at the buildings um it happens and yearbooks are districtwide. Um most of the time kids pay the yearbook companies directly but some of our schools do have the the kids come in and pay the schools. So we did a
district-wide sheet and then it as sheets go on you'll see the falcon zone, San Creek zone and the vis uh power zone. And what I did differently this year is I had the schools bring to the table every fee that they're planning to charge. In previous years, it's only
been any fee that was free and reduced reimburseable to bring to you. What I wanted to do is make transparent every fee that we're deciding to to charge. And you're going to see as you go through these little less than 300 pages that some of the
fees had a variable rate on it. And we I made them look at variable rates when it was uh wrestling state tournaments or any type of state function for for an athletic program. You never know what the costs are going to be. Uh hotel uh
meals, transportation, entry fees or how many tournaments there's going to be. So, we did a variable rate knowing that the fee is going to come, but we just don't know quite how much it's going to be. Another piece we worked with the athletic directors on all middle and high school was we streamlined all
athletic fees. So all middle school and all high schools now share the same cost. The only variable is cheer. Cheer at every high school is a little different. Very expensive. So every high school had their own they
built their own cheer costs. Um, you will see if you compare last year's is this uh to this year's, we took a lot of fees off. Um, we asked them if you're really going to charge a $5 fee, do you need it? Um, we were trying to take the hardship off the parents. So, a lot of
the high schools took a lot of their fees off. Um, what else did we change? Um, I think that's about the biggest changes we did. Um, and throughout everything, it has historical data for the free and reduced. We use historical numbers. You
never know what's coming forward. Um, so any questions? >> No, I was hoping because Marie always does such a good job with this explaining why it's so important to apply for the free and reduced program even though we have the free lunch
program. Um, if you don't apply, you can't get a waiver, >> correct? >> On some of these fees. And uh, I also noticed a big decrease in some like the Vista Art fees. >> Yes. um and ask some questions before the meeting. Um but uh even with some of
the reduced fees, they still cost more money than they are charging >> for some of these activities. >> Yes, this this is a small window into what it costs to run certain programs. And just like our athletics, transportation, we all know the cost of
gas right now. So, our athletic fees and club fees went up a minimal amount, but it's never going to cost the it's never going to be the total amount of what >> it costs to transport and our officials. Officials are not cheap anymore, >> right? And and that those costs are not
including coaches there. No, there Well, they're a subset of when some teams were choosing to have extra coaches. Some of that got incorporated into fees. I think for some football teams at one point um when there were some optional that they wanted to do. But coaches and staffing
is paid out of the district-wide budget. That is not part of DE structure budget. The fee structure or all of the kind of other things that they have to pay. >> And every sheet details what their fee is going through. >> Um, which for our community is significantly more detailed than any
other district anywhere. We have worked incredibly hard over I think the last 12 years of work going into detailing exactly how each of those fees is spent. So you can pull up a detailed report and see well this is the money goes for this
this this and this. Um and one thing I do want to put out there is that as a district um when you when a student qualifies for free and reduce that just covers nutrition services and transportation. We as a district do it as a courtesy to parents that if you do
qualify for free and reduce, we honor that through this fee program as well. >> So, I just want to point out that um this is one of the least popular topics for our families and I thank you for stepping into the fire line. Um I'm sure
Miss Brooks has a very good reason why she's not here tonight. >> I I was there. I drove here. I asked the question because for female cheerleaders and most of them it's 1,500. For the male cheerleaders varsity it's 900 >> but it wasn't the infamous pink tax that
a brilliant sixth grader brought up the other day. It was really I was really glad that she brought that up. It was uniforms because they are individually tailored >> and you guys we can get you small, medium, large and slacks and it's done. But uh for the varsity cheerleaders,
they're individually made. >> And you know what they pay for hair bows? >> I know. >> It's on a sheet. It's a lot >> hair bows. >> It's ridiculous. >> So just lose your hair early. >> Is that why you did it? >> And and I know that some of the some of
the high schools they did look at um trying to pull back some of the costs by uh keeping the uniforms. So they're not specifically tailored anymore to make it so it's not so I mean they could go up to as five as much as $5,000 a student. >> And it depends on what level they're
choosing to compete at as well. So some of our cheer programs >> end up competing at the national level and if you're choosing to compete at those levels >> there >> yeah there's certain things that that they will be scored down on and it will impact their ability at that level of
competition. Um, but you're choosing that if you're choosing to be on the varsity team versus the JB team versus That's why there's also different versions of cheer at this point at the school. >> Um, and co-ed competes differently than >> all female team.
>> When I used to have my daughter dance, every different competition, they had to change the shoes and the outfits. >> I thought it was rigged because it didn't matter if you had the shoes and the outfit from the last one. the next one would have a different color of shoe and a different outfit.
>> As much as this is a painful topic for our families, I really appreciate that we're doing this because for so many families there in other schools, they're not even going to know what that fee is, what those expenses are going to be until their child starts inquiring into
participating in it. They may have already joined and then the parent is like, "Oh, now I have to pay that." And that might be a problem for them. So, we've at least created an opportunity to get out in front of that. >> Yeah. And they worked very hard to scale it back.
>> How is it in your home when you say, "Hey, I need these fees covered." >> Um, you know, I try my best not to bring it up all that often. Um, I >> hear what
especially for choir fees. >> Yeah. requires. >> It's expensive as well. >> I want my pink cord. It's like $1,000. >> And just to defend Rebecca, the CFO, she is on the Caswell board. So, it was
>> she has to stay. >> She doesn't have a choice. >> Yeah, we took it for the team tonight. >> So, any other questions? And just know there will be fees over the next few months that schools will think of that they did not bring to us. So we'll bring you a second round in October of
anything that they did forget. >> Now the second round will just be the new ones then. It won't be merging back into this document. >> No, I will just bring you No, this is big enough. >> But I also noticed reductions. I noticed other ones where they just dropped $1 per >> Yes. And I like the sidebyside
comparison of last year versus this year. That was really help. big thing I did do with the elementary schools is that you never know now what field trip you're going to take next year. Things change, costs go up. So what we did is I asked them to create a field trip bucket. What do you think the max is you
will spend for the year? So that's what you see on all elementary schools. They have a field trip bucket. That's what that means. So the parents will know somewhere in the year they they will not exceed $20 for example. >> So okay. >> All right. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Very. This is a strength. >> Yep. Throw Spencer forward so he can >> Now our third mega smile to calm the ravage. >> Vette offered to be here. I asked her not to come. I said specifically the
team will represent. >> Spencer loves to present. I just know >> the wrong one. Yes. >> Uh hello board. Spencer McCabe, the budget manager, filling in for Rebecca
Burks, our chief financial officer. These are our third quarter financials. So this is our revenue expenses for January through March. see the numbers. Um so our
general fund revenues we are about 80% uh have collected 80% of expected which makes sense because our the biggest bulk of our revenues are our state share payments from the state and um they are frontloaded for the first nine months of
the year and then we don't get any for the last three and then those three months it's just uh local property tax revenue. So that number makes sense to us. Um and so it's just broken down there. Um if you have any questions, just let me
know. This is our general fund. So specifically fund numbers, this is 10 and 12. Um 10 is our general fund and then 12 is our state grants. So like the 3150 that uh Diane was talking about,
those numbers are included in here. Um, so this represents the 75% mark of the school of the school year. So all these percentages down this line are somewhere around 75% with the total being at 73. So that's good to see is that we're on
track. Uh, that was all salaries. And then this is our non-s salary expenses. Um, and again those come out to just under 71%. So, we're on track of what we expected.
Uh, and then these are all just of our our revenue transfers. Um, the the bulk of it is our char schools that happens once a month. Um, that's another reason why our revenue may look a little higher because although we get
we get their money as well. So, we get their money on a nine-month schedule, but we give it out on a 12-month schedule. uh unless they specifically ask they want the nine months. And then the rest of these pages um is going to be the each individual funds.
Um the biggest thing to note is if you were to take this and compare it to the second quarter, there's going to be some big changes because this now accounts for the amended budget that we did in January. Um so fund 10 looks normal. uh fund 12, our
state grants, it's at uh almost 82%, but we're not too worried about it because it's in line with our revenues and so we get monthly reimbursements uh for those grants. So, we're not too worried about that. Fund 13, uh it's moving to zero because we're we're
merging it with fund 10. Uh that's one of the things we talked about, the amended budget. Uh, I'm just going to kind of go to the things that uh kind of like raise my eyebrows. Um, and then if you have any further questions,
feel free to ask. Fun 18. Uh, same thing as fund 13. We're moving it into fund 10. Um, so that's why that one looks a little different. And then I think the next one is fund 25. Uh the salaries are tracking a
little high but transportation fund 25 is our transportation service fund. It is split in fund 10 and 25 and the transportation salaries in fund 10 are tracking under. So I'm hoping those will just kind of wash out in the end.
>> I'm going to interrupt because there's an important clarification here. Um related to something we saw earlier for about 10 years maybe even more. we had what we called the vacancy dividend. >> What that meant was when we weren't able to fill a position, if we had 200 in
many years, 200 open positions, every month that goes by and we didn't issue a payroll, we captured that savings. So earlier you saw that we were having much more success retaining and attracting in the area of special service providers and special ed, but that's true across
most employee segments. And so the better we are at attracting and especially retaining employees the less vacancy dividend and and that's why we see um really over the last three years we have we have really seen that
resource fade away which we want we want to be fully we want but it has a financial implication and so I wanted to connect it with this information you got earlier u there is a cost to being really good at holding your workforce but it's cost to be patient
because it's better. It's better. And I I I don't know if this is true, so please inform me. When we do contracted services in special ed, does that come off the salary line or does that come out of the Right. So, it's a it's a shift from a different it we're saving
money, but we're also accounting for it in a different place. >> It shows up in a different line. Um but the other component of that is that's why um Rebecca is now when we do our budget projections she's using a different percentage um when we're projecting expense to
revenue on that budget projection and budget planning we used to do something like 98% or something or 97% right and now we're doing it at 99 or >> that is that is also correct >> um because we're doing a better job retaining people >> much kudos to Heather and Spencer because I had to be 10 years old in the
district before I really understood this is we did not used to talk about this >> and now we >> so if if you overspend in transportation 25 can you shift the money around to cover that portion >> yeah so fund 25 is an interesting one
because fund 10 already subsidizes it so um we start with a projection I think right now we have a million dollars to move from fund 10 to five and then typically it's more than that and at the end of the year we just kind of align
everything up. Um so and one of the changes we're actually going to make to next year is just move all of transportation to 25 so that's in one place. Um and that way so there's not >> um so it's not so much shuffling things
around it's just that one subsidy entry that we do and making that true up to it. Another question. So, is there a time where you have to spend all the money or do you is this the year fiscal year money and at the end of the year you got to spend it or you lose it type
of thing? >> No, that's good. >> No, it's um so transportation it every year it has a balance of zero. Um, so
technically it because the um the cost of it is more than the money they bring in. So it's not self-sustaining. So they're going to run over budget every year and so every year they just reset. Um, and so it's very linked to fund 10
in our general fund. Um, one way we could save money in a general fund is by making cuts in fund 25 in transportation and then that would reduce that subsidy amount. >> I did want to clarify for you though that you know like fund 10 is our is our
biggest fund, right? And um we can do this in most but not necessarily all funds. Um if we have leftover funds we carry those over for into the next year. So that's we call that fund balance. >> Yeah. >> Well, so and fund 25. Is that the
combination of the fee we charge for transportation and that little bit of money we get from the state for mileage or is it only the fee? >> It's it's both. Yeah. So, um especially in recent years, the reimbursement from the state has been pretty pretty big. It's about a million dollars and then
the fees bring in uh I believe over a million dollars as well. >> Put my hand down because I I remembered a different >> is it? It has it has jumped the last few years.
>> The frame reduced really >> has gone down. >> Yeah. Like a few years ago it was probably like 500,000. >> Yeah. Have we been saving money with all of the services we now provide at that transportation center as far as maintenance and some of the other things
because they have pull downs for oil change and fluids and everything. So I didn't know if that ended up being somewhat of a savings. >> I I have not looked that deep into it. >> We haven't analyzed that. >> Yeah, >> it it isn't primarily a financial
savings play. It's been primarily a workforce support play. And there are lots of people working in that building that worked in other districts transportation centers and specifically came here because they knew it was a newer facility and >> well and it's groovy >> and and someday one one of our close
competitors will build a nicer newer one and then we may see some >> the I would say the biggest benefit to that is just efficiency and repairing vehicles because they also service our um white fleet which is like all of our grounds and maintenance crew and so there's less of those vehicles just
sitting because they need to be repaired and they're waiting and there's no space. Now, it's a lot easier to get those in fixed. >> I would anticipate that any um possible savings from the upgraded facility are more than offset by increases in costs for fuel and parts and those sorts of
things. >> I think it's Yeah, I would say I think it's the >> I don't think you save money on any of the maintenance work because I think we were already doing all our work. >> What you're getting is less town time on buses. buses stay in service, which then
means things like >> you need both an available driver and an available bus for the district to provide transportation for things like athletics after school, um field trips, those types of things. So, you end up
maybe not having to pay for an outside company to bus a team somewhere. Um, or you have the ability for classes to actually do the field trip they want because we now have a bus available and a driver available where if you even if you had a driver willing to take the
trip if there wasn't a bus that they could then use for that trip, you were still stuck. Or another example that would never show up on the bottom line is because our fleet is increased in its service availability, we have less of a
need to purchase additional buses. But so yeah, I don't know that you're going to see as a direct people will just be happier with the transportation services at the building level. We actually see that in our survey data from the transportation team.
>> Yeah. >> Here are the the rest of the funds. Um and that's all. So are there any other >> any other questions on any of this? >> Anything else that stuck out to you? >> I'll just throw this out there and you can say we don't know um at this point.
Um it's fair. It's just it was a question that was asked to me in the back and you guys were going to be here tonight. um with the uh funding for next year, I think there was something like a $483 um increase to per pupil revenue. Um how
how does that affect um I know you guys already had previous projections. Um is that uh better or worse than than we're planning for next year? >> Um so I guess it it really depends. Um
>> you can p is well so I believe >> hear about it next month. >> I don't know the exact dollar amount. I think that's about on par with what we were expecting. Um a lot of other like CFOs around the around the state are
advising to just project flat revenue. >> So right now I kind of have two scenarios. one what the the state is giving us which is around that $483 number and then another where it's this year's PPR >> just reapplied with a new student
>> and we have to keep that 483 number um you know take it with a grain of salt too because that's the draft and it still change >> not only is the draft but remember there were discussions at the legislative level that because politically it looks bad for them to make the cut now that
they could always rec they could always do a recision which means They tell you you're getting this in July and then in December, January they say, "Oh, sorry. We're taking back x number of dollars per student." Um, which has historically happened in
Colorado. That was I believe it was a several million. I think it was around $1 million recision for D1 for D49 before I was on >> 20101. >> Yeah, it was what led to a whole bunch. That was what led to the whole transportation cuts and fees for services. That was one of the things
that board had to do that year. Um, so planning ahead for the fact that it lets them have a little bit of a legislative copout. Um, and save face right now and not have to make the decision until after the November elections. >> Although I did um going to be touching
education, but we'll see. >> I I'm in a meeting every Friday afternoon with uh it's the legislative committee of the Colorado Association School Executives case. Um I I typically am reviewing that with Rebecca. She's joined some of those meetings and
our the kind of the center of our projection is the flat is flat funding. Um and then I listen to other superintendents. There is one district and this is public. Whitefield 3 passed an MLO. They are going to be able to grant actual raises to their salary schedule. Every other superintendent I
heard from is expecting to just do steps and lines. no raise to schedule, just the normal uh longevity, right, accumulation for for credits earned and and time and service. And so the statewide picture um this the center of
consensus right now is flat funding. Um, and there's very it's it's highly unlikely that there'll be a a budget stabilization factor or the imposition of specific ownership tax uh adjustments based on what we get. And
those are the two big looming. There is still some discussion about homeschool particularly homeschool enrichment parttime PPR programs. Um, but there it's not going to be enough. There's not enough money there >> for for the state to really to really
recoup. Um, so what it really comes down to is are you more pessimistic or optimistic about Colorado's economy? And we we pay the finance team to be the professional pessimists. >> For sure. >> And and I'm a little more optimistic
than Rebecca, but I respect her reasonable and informed caution. That's why her being in Caswell is really important. she she's talking to somebody right now um and and processing things she heard today and and she and I have been texting even during this meeting
about some things that we're we're we're talking to CD about. So we have we have a really really sharp and and thoughtful team and I respect their their prediction. I just I think that the political damage of cutting education is higher
than the political damage of deficit spending or taking back tabor. That's why you've heard the governor talk about well we we over refunded by $350 million. So we're Isn't it Isn't it an amazing coincidence that the amount of of overpayment we've discovered matches
the gap? >> Phenomenal how that works. almost >> is incredible. >> And so I think the political damage of underfunding K12 is high and the political damage from what look like >> accounting calculations or manipulations
is low. So that's part of where my optimism comes from is more as a politician. >> You'll see now that it's it's statewide like Jeff is cutting $48 million, right? So everybody was just led it. >> We let the
the outburst of everything and then now everyone's following and we look I have to say much better. >> Yeah. >> Fewer employees. >> Yes. >> Yes. A large cut. >> At no point have I hired my wife as the director of HR
>> or any other Yeah. Or if you hired any other relative. In fact, we have explicit policy that doesn't let educators in your family who are highly qualified and amazing work here. um million on top of their 159.
>> Yeah. Well, and and quite frankly, I would say every single one of those districts knew they were going to have to do it. The difference is we were upfront early enough that everyone who works we respected everyone who works with us enough to let them know early enough that they can plan for their
families ahead of time and hopefully not have it financially impact their families because they have time to find things. >> And our cost team is now and cupcakes for assistance that they brought in tonight. So,
but anyway, so I appreciate all the work that everybody did on that and hopefully that as our community watches all the fallout, including things that are just quietly happening where districts aren't necessarily announcing it, but they're walking out plenty of people that they're letting go. Um, and
consolidating schools, but somehow that's not being reported. And, um, you know, there's lots and lots of changes in surrounding areas that are just quietly happening but are really for the same reasons. Um, >> and while
>> we were just upfront, honest, and transparent about it. >> And while we're talking about that too, it were it merits pointing out that, you know, it was the the license staff component of it that really drew a lot of attention. We lost a lot of really strong and
valuable administrators, but we capped that um at 8 million worth of um of budget impact. When we approved the resolution terminating contracts, there were only 10 names and we know darn well
our teachers are not averaging 180k. So we >> we really mitigated >> and some of them have had the opportunity since then to apply for positions that have been vacated by retirements
>> um people moving those types of things. So again because we were able to give notice early people need to apply. >> So >> we did a very hard thing I would say we did a hard thing the right way. >> Yeah. It is still a very hard thing >> and it still is and it still hurts.
>> It still hurt. But anyway, any other questions or comments on this item, folks? >> Just going to say what he just said. I have always referred to it as the best worst case scenario. >> That's kind of what it was. >> Yeah. >> Thank you.
>> Thanks. >> So now our very last item is our policy and procedure review. We only have one and So, as a reminder to all in our community, policies that come under this are always technical changes either
because there's uh been a change in the law. So, we need something legally adjusted or in this case um making sure we have the correct custodian listed on the policy. So, there are minor changes indicated there. Or sometimes you'll see that it just says review, no
recommendation for change. That's because under board policy, all policies are reviewed within a three-year process. That ensures that the staff member responsible for maintaining that policy makes sure that what we have in policy and what we're doing in practice actually match. And the best way to do
that is to have them on a schedule review process. If there's other changes that are required in a policy or recommended, those would always come as a separate policy discussion um than this. This would be our first read on that minor change which is just updating the custodian and um making a more
generous time frame for bereavement >> um which was also based because we have our voice of um our workforce. >> Yeah. May May I speak to that with Paul's permission and preview? This was the first year that we offered bereavement leave and so as I often refer to the first year of implement
implementation as year zero. There's things you don't know. There's things you figure out. And we've had the the last number that that I discussed with Mr. Anderson was 36 individuals who had applied for bereavement leave. um we were able to grant majority of those requests, but there were some cases and
it generally had to do with um a kind of modern reality that sometimes there's a longer period of time between when an individual is deceased and when the family and friends gather to honor that individual. It used to be that was
pretty short cycle and in some cases now it's it's six months to a year depending on when can people get together and when. Right. So, um, we we we wanted to acknowledge that and we didn't we didn't push out six months because that's really an outlier, but we we extended
that directly in response to our analysis in the current year. And we actually I'm just kind of my my authority there. We we were we were generous in the year zero as well, but we want to get that back in policy. And then we obviously need to update who is
in charge of that policy. But this is a really good example of making a correction in real time based on feedback from the voice of the workforce. This didn't come out on the survey or the valing tour or at the BCT until we brought it to the VCT. But our
we are so habituated to listening to each other's voices that we have a better climate where people can say, "Hey, this this didn't feel right." Um, and it actually it actually came from somebody that I supervise as well as some other people in the district that said if the purpose here is to show
compassion, this doesn't. So, we we move quickly. Kudos to >> weeks to three months. >> Yeah. Kudos to Paul and his team. Stacy led the presentation of this to the BCT. Um, this is a this is a great first adjustment, but it is substantive a
little bit more than our kind of typical more kind of things. This this one actually will significantly improve the policy. >> Oh, definitely. And when I walked through all of these things with Jack, so he had an idea of the first time going through and I brought up that that
two week time frame just having um friends um who have had family members killed in action. Two weeks is way too tight because you may not even have the remains yet um depending on where they were lost. Um so you know, there there's
a whole other subset of that being in a high military connected community awareness-wise or like in my family if you know, my husband's retired, but um because we retired here, we didn't retire near any family. So, um when we
plan when my family has to plan things for anything like this, we're looking at a longer time frame because we're we have to have people travel from multiple places in the country to be able to be there. Um we eventually have to deal with this. I know when we lost my niece, it was a month out um before we were
able to to have her memorial service because of that. >> Yeah. I service at Arlington and you don't stay alive within two weeks, >> right? And and and yet it's just as meaningful and just as significant
>> in a military backing community. I appreciate the sensitivity. >> So now are we um are we okay with moving this forward for action in this consensus. Say yes. >> Yes. >> We'll put that move that forward for action.
>> And that is all we have for our session tonight folks. >> Thank you all.