LA VERE WRIGHT: Good evening everyone. It is now 632 and we are going to begin our meeting. May I have a roll call, please? FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Here FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Here FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Here FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Here FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Here LA VERE WRIGHT: Welcome, everyone. Please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. ALL: I pledge allegiance To the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic For which it stands One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. LA VERE WRIGHT: We are now on item 3.1, approval of agenda. May I have a motion, please? THOMPSON: I move to approve the agenda as presented. WITHERS: Second. LA VERE WRIGHT: It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. A vote, please. FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Ay FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Ay FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Ay FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Ay FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Ay LA VERE WRIGHT: That motion carries. We are on to item four public comment. We welcome comments from stakeholders during district 49 Open Forum. Please stay seated until your name is called
and then approach the podium to introduce yourself. Speak clearly into the microphone and keep your remarks respectful and orderly. Personal complaints against individuals connected with the district, except for board members of the superintendent, are prohibited. Each speaker is limited to two minutes during the first open forum, you may only speak to items that are on the agenda. If you veer off of that, we will ask you one time to stay on topic. After that, your time will be ended. You may claim the remainder of that time during second open forum. The board will not respond during the forum, but may assign follow up action to the superintendent if needed.
We also encourage you to use our stakeholder grievance process, if appropriate, for resolving concerns involving policy violations, which may culminate in a formal appeal to the Board of Education. Thank you for participating. And our first speaker signed up is Mr. Graham. GRAHAM: I've got to be first. LA VERE WRIGHT: You were signed up first, sir. GRAHAM: Okay. Wow, look at that. John Graham, I'm a former district 49. Board of Education director and president. I'm also a former ERBOCES
director for 7 or 8, maybe even nine years. I'm a little surprised that there's going to be a presentation for ERBOCES. And no one asked me any questions when I've represented district 49 for not quite a decade, ending in February of this last year. I think that presentation that I reviewed has, a lot of information wrong and I will tell you that it makes me concerned that we're rolling back into the tactics of what this board did to Marie,
what this board did to me and Lori and even Mike Heil at one point. Different players on the board were doing that, but now you're using the same tactics of of smearing and and besmirching, you know, a certain employee of ERBOCES, ERBOCES provides almost 10,000 students choice in education. This board has resolutions and even policies that basically state
that parents have the right and responsibility to direct the upbringing and education of their students. They have those choices. This board has always been a proponent of those choices, and it really is disturbing to me that we're looking to disassociate with ERBOCES. I'm no longer on the board of BOCES, as of February, but the choice that that organization gives to many, many people
is phenomenal. You're talking about people that are being able to graduate, not quite at the capacity of GOAL Academy, which is phenomenal as well, but throughout the state. And now they're being attacked by politicians who have agendas supporting basically groups, in my opinion, that are not for parent rights or public education. Thank you. Have a great day. LA VERE WRIGHT: Kim Beckworth is our next speaker. BECKWORTH: Good evening.
My name is Kim Beckworth. I'm a D49 taxpayer, community member, SAC and DAC representative. I'm concerned with recent news reports and public information regarding ERBOCES and whether its priorities are aligned with the needs of district 49 students and families. My understanding is that BOCES organizations traditionally support districts through shared services, specialized programs, professional development and, excuse me, expanded student opportunities. However, ERBOCES appears to have devoted significant attention
and resources to litigation related efforts. As a taxpayer, I question whether these activities provide meaningful value to district 49 students and whether these agendas will continue at ERBOCES. At the same time, our district continues to face challenges and areas such as special education, gifted education and elsewhere. While I recognize the financial constraints the district has faced, I would appreciate a clear understanding of the benefits District 49 receives through the participation in ERBOCES.
Specifically, what services and programs does ERBOCES currently provide to district 49? How do those services directly benefit students and educators? What value does ERBOCES provide in providing, excuse me, and approving programs that could otherwise be approved by our elected school board? What measurable return does district 49 receive for its financial contributions to ERBOCES? And how does the district ensure that ERBOCES priorities remain aligned with district 49’s mission to learn, work and lead?
I thank you for helping the community better understand the purpose, value and accountability of this partnership. Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: Thank you. Our next speaker is, Deborah Bagley. BAGLEY: Hi, I'm Deborah Bagley. Dear esteemed D49 board members, thank you for caring for our children. D 49 is providing amazing arrangement and programs to the D49 homeschool community. D49 is a pillar for other districts around the state and country. My children have been in a few different programs through the years Rocky
Mountain Classical Academy, homeschool, Falcon, Arrow Lab, Kilroy workshop. These are quite different programs providing exceptional academic opportunities. RMCA provides a more traditional classroom, including animal dissections twice a year. My 14 year old learn to operate and fly a glider through Falcon Arrow Lab. He helps to learn airline mechanics and get his private pilot's license through Air Lab in the coming years, and become a commercial pilot. Both my boys have taken computer aided design classes, blacksmithing and welding from Kilroy Workshop. These are real life skills that enhance what we are learning at home.
The incredible thing is, children in these programs are earning certificates and licenses to these one day a week programs. The people creating and teaching in these programs are highly educated and trained individuals interested in academics and character development. I'm a former elementary and middle school teacher and I'm current D 49 resident. I'm working hard to prepare my children for college or technical trades as we see fit. I volunteer as a substitute teacher in the RMCA homeschool program, and I've met the children and the families. The kids are eager to learn, respectful and kind,
and the parents are highly invested in the academic success of their children. You should be proud of the decision you have made to fund these exceptional programs. I encourage you to take this opportunity to promote this kind of learning in the state and the nation. These are amazing. So thank you for supporting these. You are shaping the future. And let's do this together with outstanding public schools and enrichment programs. Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: Thank you. Our next speaker is John Blankenship. BLANKENSHIP: Good afternoon or good evening.
I, just learned about, quite a bit of this stuff in the last two weeks about how we're going to reevaluate or that board is going to reevaluate. I truly feel that, the ERBOCES system is a great system, not only for Colorado, but across the nation and what they provide. I'm looking forward to next year enrolling my son and, Falcon Air Lab, as well as some other, school enrichment programs, because I don't feel that my son is, and he is not looked at. He will actually go to actual college.
So he wants to do high school. He wants to do high, trades skills. And I think that he can, better use those, abilities that he'll learn from having the possibility how the your, your boss is. And I think a lot of the questions, can possibly, be learned about can be a the gentleman at first spoke. Because he worked for the program for so many years. So a lot of questions. Could be answered there. I'm sure that every one on the board has already done some research on that.
So, all I can say is I hope that the decision will be made on point, 9.8 and that you guys will continue to, support, the your bosses. Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: Thank you. Our next person is Sarah Park. PARK: Good evening. I'm Sarah Park. I'm a former teacher and principal, and I was called to finance and funding, so I've been consulting for many years. I sent an email to a few of you, and I wanted to come and introduce myself personally. First, I want to congratulate you on the budget
that's on the agenda for tonight. You all have designed and supported an excellent budget in a very challenging context for D 49 and in the state. I own a local branch of school in Mitchell, which is the largest cost reduction consulting firm in North America. And we specialize in the only budget lever that remains for School District 49, which has recurring vendor costs across more than 20 categories, including telecom, I.T..
Supplies, waste utilities. Copiers, and management. A whole list of things that vendors provide. We averaged 28% savings to school districts, and these are savings that are typically discovered, actualized and accounted for after the budget is approved. So after analyzing your budget, I wanted to make sure to connect you all with it. There are three reasons why we find savings that even excellent financial teams can't. The first is that we have a very particular set of skills. There are over 180 analysts in our head office that do only this.
The second is that we have access to information that no one else does. Schooley Mitchell has been doing this for more than 25 years and 33,000 clients. So we have a private database of over 30,000 deals that the vendors don't publish and no one else would know about. We also bring bandwidth to your financial team that they simply can't have. You run as a lean central administrative team as you should. We just saved another Colorado district over $1 million in their first category. So that's why I'm paying attention to other districts that I think can use our services.
And I wanted to come and introduce myself. LA VERE WRIGHT: Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Kim Goldman. Just checking quickly, because that person may not have had a chance to check and I don't have him checked off. Kim Goldman. Then it looks like we are done with open forum. We are now on to our consent agenda. Does anyone have anything they'd like pulled from the consent agenda? Hearing none. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items?
THOMPSON: I move to approve all consent agenda items as presented. WITHERS: Second. LA VERE WRIGHT: May I have a vote, please? FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Ay FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Ay FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Ay FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Ay FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Ay LA VERE WRIGHT: And that motion carries. We are now on to our updates. And first is Mr. Hilts. HILTS: Good evening. It is always, really a a both a relief and a kind of a joy to get to to June. And I appreciate all of you for attending a variety of different graduations. They were all spectacular in their way.
Reflected the the personalities of their different schools. And some of us got a chance to be there at GOAL. I always report on the parents that bring their children across stage. I think this year we had seven moms and four dads that carried a baby across that stage. I think that is, just one of the profoundly best things that we can see supporting these young parents and giving them an option, that really sets them and their child up for success. Last year, one of those one of those young moms had a thing, a thing that said, I'm doing this so that you can never say you couldn't do this.
That she was bringing her baby across. So the graduation season was was heartwarming and inspirational, and it went super well. This is a kind of a little bit inside baseball in the weeds, observation. But I am really excited that the entire cabinet is returning next year and that, all of our principals, save one retirement, are also returning for next year. And when you when you think about how stressful both of those positions are and how many opportunities are excellent leaders
have, it's a great testament to, not only the camaraderie that we developed because you stay for your team, but it also speaks to the supervision that our cabinet members provide to principals and that our executive directors provide to the people that they lead. We had incredibly high retention across the leadership core this year. That speaks to you, that speaks to me, that really speaks to the leadership of the cabinet and creating an environment where people want to be and more importantly, where people want to stay.
And given how hard this year was, I think that's a tremendous kudo to the enterprise, that that things are going really, really well. We are moving along on a couple of major projects that you're already aware of. We're here because we're we're moving on the Creekside project. Doctor Nancy Lemmond has been our point person for all things construction at Creekside. This is a huge logistical challenge because several of the functions that operate out of the creekside building are entering their most busy season of the year.
So whether that's, central enrollment, our registration function, whether that is a lot of the, the early childhood education and the and the, the preschool child. Find it notification that happens through special education. That's a busy place over the summer. So that they are that they are sustaining and maintaining excellent service is really remarkable. We are also, deep, deep down the road of the transition to co-locate Falcon Elementary with Bennett Ranch or at Bennett Ranch Elementary.
So those two school communities will cooperate and co-locate, at the Firebird Nation campus. And I am I am incredibly proud of the way that those two schools and their staff have made a determination that they are going to make the best out of a a challenging set of circumstances. It allows us to then backfill what has been the the ancestral home of Falcon Elementary with our PEAK program, with our transitions program, with early childhood programing? That is itself a huge logistical challenge because you've not only got the
the relocation, but then you've got the backfill work that is happening. There's a little bit of remodeling associated with that. So both of those projects are on time and on schedule. And Doctor Lemmond assures me that the construction leaders have assured her that our August regular meeting will be in the new Peakview Hall. So we will plan on that. We will hold work session. I'm sorry that the August work session will be in Peakview Hall. That is, of course, what Doctor Lemmond assured me was the August work session.
I am, I am over my head lights and hoping the regular meeting will be there. But we are looking at a late July, initial occupancy for for most of that project. So good things going on on both of those fronts. As I, as I have mentioned to you, I am in the middle of of learning and exploring the possibility of, a ballot measure. We got some key information on that last, late last week. And so Miss Brooks and I are analyzing what that possibly might look like, so that we can do some preliminary polling and bring you an informed,
consideration, and you'll you'll give us some leadership from there. So, very good things going on. Great people here. And staying here. The right kinds of programs in the right kinds of places. And we are despite a very tough year. We are set up to recharge over the summer. I will be on a plane in about six hours to Anchorage with my sister and our parents. Take them back to their home for, for a visit. And so I'll be a little bit out of pocket. For the next 4 or 5 days, but then I'll be back on it.
Available to you as we get to the, the work session later in June. But thank you for supporting that and making that happen. And I yield back any time that I left. So now, board members. Holly, do you have anything you'd like to share? Sure. So I guess the only thing really, different is that last week of school, I was able to visit every single, school in the POWER Zone. I did a I made a whole day of it. With zone Leader Ritz and I met all the principals.
I met several teachers who told me about, you know, programs, especially at Vista Ridge. Just things that they were really looking forward to offering. I got to see a little bit about what they were doing with the littles, like the elementary schoolers, because I know they had fun in the sun planned, but it was raining for like the first two weeks of, you know, summer vacation because of all of that. So I just kind of got to see how they pivot and still make the best of a jury situation. And how well-behaved and awesome all the kids were being.
They didn't even have. The, like, pre summer jitters. Like you thought they would. I attended the graduations at Liberty Tree Academy. The one. For Sand Creek. And Falcon and Vista Ridge. And then I also, my bonus son graduated from Rampart, and so I attended way too many graduations. I was socially depleted. And if you know me, you know, that's super weird. But other than that, and I just want to acknowledge
the large quantity of emails that we have received today. And I've gotten through a lot of them. And I just wanted you guys to know, like, I hear you. I'm reading. Them. I feel you. Yes. Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: Lori. THOMPSON: Graduation season is always interesting because it always corresponds with one of the busier times for my day job. And so it has been a bit like juggling wet cats.
I attended the graduations for Spring Studio, Patriot High School, Banning Lewis Preparatory, then Vista Ridge, Sand Creek. Falcon and I went to the goal graduation, and I got to witness Marie giving her son the most awesome fist bump routine that I have seen in a while. So I want to commend our illustrious president on her fist pumping skills. Also, I wanted to thank, Holly Withers because I had signed up to also do the LTA because I really like it as much as possible for a board member to attend
every one of our regular graduations, as well as our charter schools. Mr. Ryan also took over a graduation when one was at three and one was at four, so we did a little arm wrestling and picked one. But, the day I was supposed to go to Liberty Tree, they were holding a celebration of life for my one of my high school boyfriends. And, I reached out to Holly and she stepped up and covered it, and I really appreciated that. So I could hang out at a bar eating chicken wings and swapping stories
because that's where he would have wanted his celebration of life. So it was really great that when something came up, somebody on this board would step in. So I really appreciated that. And I also have been reading emails today, and we have gotten a lot of them. So I want to thank everyone who reached out, and I will speak more on those a little bit later. Right now they are running 44 in favor of our Boces and I think five against. And the people who are in favor are either parents or they run the program
or a teacher. But the overwhelming majority are parents, with kids in our Boces. So I also speaking of which, attended their meeting on Tuesday night because I am the D 49 liaison for ERBOCES and that is a program that I fully support. Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: Jack. RYAN: Good evening everyone. I appreciate you all coming out tonight. Excuse me. LA VERE WRIGHT: Grab some more water. RYAN: So we started off the summer.
Since it's been my first couple of months with this, organization, with the school board. Did some graduations, got to meet the team here a little bit more. Converse with everybody. But the most. The best part that I found in the community. I've been out and about in the streets, and people were come up to me and started asking me about being on the school board, congratulating me. So I appreciate that. But one of the finest moments I had this past couple of months is, I'm a coach on High Plains Little League, and one of my, baseball players came up to me and says, I seen your picture. I said, well, where did you see my picture at?
He said, it was on a on a TV in school. He said, so what do you do? And I said, well, so we got into this whole discussion. But that was exciting because I'm not only am I talking to teachers, I'm talking to parents, but I'm also talking to kids. And that's what the enjoyment is about, right? Coaching, training and mentoring those kids on the baseball field, being there for them. And I was really super excited that they even recognized who I was with my baseball cap on. Other than that, thank you all very much for your support. And yes, all the emails have come out and I've been watching them, reading
them coming. So I'm excited about tonight. Thank you. THOMPSON: Can I have your autograph. LA VERE WRIGHT: Mike? HEIL: So, the last since the last time, we all met, I, attended the final, DAC meeting of the year. The saddest moment was when our beloved Lauren Stuart notified us that she will not be serving us at the DAC anymore. She's been great, and we will miss her tremendously. She's not going anywhere. She's still going to be with the district. She's just not going to help us out of DAC anymore.
And I'd like to put out a plug. We can certainly use more parent representatives on the DAC. So if you are, you know, interested in what we do as a district, that is an opportunity to you come in and you get to speak directly to, top level administrators. You get to speak directly to me. That committee exists to give advice to this board. So you really get to learn a lot about the inner functions. And then again, give your feedback. So please, we'd love to see more people, volunteer.
June's incredibly or May is incredibly busy. And so, so many times I just had everything packed into one day. So I took a double booking, the night of the employee of the year celebration. Which is always a wonderful event. And they are getting better at putting that thing on every year. But, it was it was also the same night that they were holding the gifted fair here at Sand Creek High School. And, you haven't lived until you've walked around to those booths and you've talked to those students. The little ones, the big ones, they're all fantastic.
And, let them talk to you about their projects. So I was not going to pass up that opportunity. And then I attended all six of the operated high school graduation, so that was two very long, but very enjoyable, days. And I want to thank, Peck and Sand Creek High School for, allowing me to, you know, accept the graduating classes and be a part of their celebrations. Two things that, came up with regard to the the home school enrichment feedback that we've been getting.
A lot of it has been, you know, parents talking about, hey, my kids are in these programs and they are real benefit. And I absolutely do not question that. And one thing to know about me is my daughter was homeschooled for an entire year. And so I would have loved to have these programs available. And I would have loved to, to take advantage of them at the time. The real question is just about whether there is are appropriate expenses in a time when, resources are scarce for schools all around the, the state.
And we'll have that conversation later. But I just want to let you know, even if we did decide tonight, let's say which it's not going to happen. But if we decided tonight, that's not the end for these homeschooling, enrichment programs, they can reach out to their local school districts. And since they are already in operation, the process for getting a charter should be pretty smooth. AUDIENCE: DAC? So what? LA VERE WRIHT: So DAC stands for the District Advisory Accountability Committee, sir. But in the future, please don't yell out.
Not a problem. But, yes, using those abbreviations is hard for our community because unless you work in education, education speaks. It's as bad as the military to educators can have a conversation using a bunch of acronyms and be the only two in the room that understand it. And those of us who have military connections know we can sit and do the exact same thing. When I go through Dfas and the entire pay system with another spouse. Absolutely no one else even knows we're talking about pay based on all the different designations we're using as we speak about it.
So thank you for that reminder. I went to quite a few graduations as well, and my baby did graduate from GOAL on the 28th, and we did learn a fancy handshake. And the photographer did drop his jaw and tell me it was fire, which was probably the best thing that. Yeah. So, only our friends in Facebook are allowed to see it, though. I don't allow my kids to have their videos everywhere, so it won't go viral, but, I was very proud of him and very relieved. That's all I have to say on that.
But, I'm proud of all of our students who graduated. This year was particularly fun for me because having had my kids have, all been in D 49 since preschool and so many of the kids and they've gone in multiple zones. I'm a parent who chose different places at different times for different kids. And so at every graduation, almost in the district that I attended, there were kids walking across that stage that I remember attending school with mine. So that was there were all kinds of times when I wanted to do I was like, no, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to, I'm not going to. And just kind of sat. But at pick at Spring Studio, there were a couple of it at Sand Creek. There were quite a few at Vista because my son did elementary school at Vista and plenty in the Falcons zone from his time at Bennett Ranch. So it was fun for me to kind of see where they were all going and see them finally getting there as well. It's always a wonderful celebration for our whole community to remember. One interesting fact I heard from goal was that state
there were about 440 at the Colorado Springs graduation. They are graduating just about 2000 across the state this year. So two things with that statistic. One, remember, that's 2000 and seniors at go only as a district we run a little over 1000. So when you look at our graduation data and post workforce readiness data, remember two thirds of that data, if you look at the district as a whole, is based on students in an AEC.
So it's not reflective of what our coordinated schools are achieving. And sometimes that gets lost in some of those data discussions from people who don't understand, what we do in D 49. But 2000 is a pretty amazing achievement, given where gold grew from and when they talked about it first just being about 100 kids to now 2000 graduating and seeing moms and dads, and that seeing dads bring their children across the stage also to me was very special.
Because of the importance of dads staying in their kids lives. And often that doesn't happen in this age, age range. And so seeing those connections being celebrated was really a cool thing as well. I have one board business piece to bring up as an administrative update, and that is that the past several years there has not been, there's been a July regular meeting scheduled, and then, the board has then not held a July meeting, depending on what we needed to complete as a board, administratively,
there is nothing that Ed administration sees at this point in time that given we will have the, June work session will be a special meeting. So anything that needs action from this meeting will be able to be voted on at that point. And most of our education staff, this is their time to refresh the folks who have the busy season. Our budget folks who somehow got their budget done. I think it'll be the first time I've ever voted on a budget at the regular June meeting instead. So, Rebekah, I am bowing to your entire team.
It's the very first time I haven't had to do it at a special meeting. Which is amazing, given the time they have with the legislature. But they start their audit July 1st for. Because that begins our new year. So they're preparing for the audit immediately. So this is our super busy season for finance. Super busy for facility folks. And our educators are the ones who are recharging and refreshing and just starting to come back in July. And so they're with nothing pressing there. My inclination is to say that we will not have a July regular meeting
unless there is a board member who has an objection for something. So consider the July regular meeting canceled. Yes, I know there's no reason to make everyone else show up when we don't have something of import personally. Also, I don't like to do if there's business that isn't doesn't have to be done in July. I think it's better for our community if we wait until August when everybody's back from their vacations as well. So at this point, we're now on to our action items. As a reminder, action items have been discussed at length at prior
meetings, either at a prior regular or work session. So in general, we don't hold significant discussion on them. We move through them fairly quickly because all of our questions have already been answered and board members have already formed where they stand on those issues. So with that, we'll call First Action item 7.1. May I have a motion, please? THOMPSON: I move to approve the new course proposal. Freshman human geography WITHERS: Second. LA VERE WRIGHT: It's been moved and seconded. Any comment?
Hearing none. Vote. FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Ay FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Ay FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Ay FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Ay FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Ay LA VERE WRIGHT: That motion passes. We're on to item 7.2. New job description advised, applied and Advanced Learning Advisor. May I get a motion, please? THOMPSON: I moved to approve the new job description. Applied Advanced Learning advisor. WITHERS: Second. LA VERE WRIGHT: Any comment? WITHERS: I have HEIL: She can go first LA VERE WRIGHT: Go ahead Mike HEIL: So, I just wanted to, address, a concern that was emailed to the group that,
this position is essentially, covering 95% of the existing, role of a position that was just, ended as part of the, reductions we had to go through for the agency. I checked that out. And it turns out that. Yeah, that that that's not true. The previous role was more of a, central office type manager of, of the counselors, whereas this position here is much more to use. Corporate speak, customer facing this is direct support of students.
So, there's very little overlap. WITHERS: Hi. I was just going to kind of piggyback off of that because I had asked, Mr. Norman a bunch of different questions in that regard. So I just wanted to give him a shout out and thank you for, you know, dealing with the five emails that I sent to him. And that's well, let's go forward. LA VERE WRIGHT: Any further comment? Then we'll have the vote, please. FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Ay FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Ay FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Ay FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Ay FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Ay
LA VERE WRIGHT: Motion carries. We're on to 7.3 the performance content contract. May I get a motion? THOMPSON: I move to approve the performance contract with Schneider Electric. WITHERS: Second. LA VERE WRIGHT: It's been moved and seconded. Any comment? Hearing none a vote, please. FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Ay FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Ay FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Ay FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Ay FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Ay LA VERE WRIGHT: That motion carries. We're item to item 7.4 the 25-26 supplemental budget. THOMPSON: I move to approve. I've got 25-26 supplemental budget presentation.
WITHERS: Second. LA VERE WRIGHT: It's been moved and seconded. Any comment? Hearing none a vote, please. FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Ay FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Ay FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Ay FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Ay FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Ay LA VERE WRIGHT: That motion carries. We're on to item 7.5 the 26-27 adopted budget. May I get a motion, please? THOMPSON: I move to approve the 2026-27 adopted budget. WITHERS: Second. LA VERE WRIGHT: It's been moved and seconded.
Any comment? Hearing none of. Oh, Peter. HILTS: Yeah. If I may comment from the administrative side. All of us understand this is a really tough year, and the years ahead look like they will continue to be pretty constrained. And, sometimes a little bit unpredictable. And so I want to add my compliments not just for the budget office team, but really to set us up for sustainability. Took leadership at every level. It took leadership 100 people deep into the district. So that means cabinet members,
executive directors, principals, directors, coordinators, consolidation of positions, reduction in programing in some cases, some painful elimination of programing and personnel. This was a enterprise wide effort to get us to the point where we could present to you a budget that we have high confidence in. And to do it in this time frame is remarkable. So thank you for your advocacy. It does not I don't think a day goes by literally, that I don't see another district of this that is starting to have discussions
about budget cuts that they're going to need to make for next year. 2.5 million here, 800,000 there. But this is a statewide phenomenon because enrollment is down statewide and enrollment is what drives revenue. And so thank you for being receptive. Back when we started this discussion in December, it was because we started in December that we're able to bring you a stable, sustainable budget going forward. And I, I think this is a tremendous example of of the team that is D 49.
I always say in calm weather, every crew is a great crew. If you want to know if you've got a great crew, you've got to be in a storm. And we've been in a storm and we've got a great crew. So there's my endorsement of this. I hope that you will approve it and get us set up for next year. LA VERE WRIGHT: Any further comment? Then a vote, please. FREDERICKS: Heil? HEIL: Ay FREDERICKS: La Vere Wright? LA VERE WRIGHT: Ay FREDERICKS: Ryan? RYAN: Ay FREDERICKS: Thompson? THOMPSON: Ay FREDERICKS: Withers? WITHERS: Ay LA VERE WRIGHT: that motion carries information. Items are just information for the board to review. So we're now on to our discussion items.
And our first one is a new job description, from Doctor Nancy Lemmond. LEMMOND: Good evening. Board doctor Nancy Lemmond, deputy superintendent and executive director for individualized education here with Stacey Powell, the director of early childhood education. This is a little bit of a, not quite accurate. It's not a new job description. We have a job description for child find coordinator. That's an obligation we have under the Ida for our child find obligations. What we are asking is to, enhance this job description,
to provide some administrative and support and relief for, Stacey Powell, I believe I outlined it in the cover page. So if there are any questions, either myself or Stacey can answer, let me know. LA VERE WRIGHT: Questions from anyone? I think a very, very long time ago there was someone with an administrative role in ECEA and then it shifted. And so this is kind of shifting back from when I served on the preschool council when my kids were in preschool, which, you know, my youngest is just graduated high school.
So that's a very long time ago. But I think it's also gotten way more complex when we've added in UPK as well, and much bigger. And so I appreciate you taking this opportunity with the retirement to relook at the structure and say, okay, take advantage of take advantage of that opportunity to redefine what will serve the organization moving forward. And so thank you for doing that, because it would have been really easy to just say, oh, shoot, this person's leaving. Let's post the job because this is a needed position.
And you have a very short timeline to fill it rather than also looking at what those needs are. So thank you for doing that, Lori. THOMPSON: I was just going to say to reading the job description and early identification, I saw the time frame of 3 to 5 years old, and I think the earlier those types of issues, are identified, the more resources hopefully can help them to get off on a good path before they enter into elementary school. And so I just wanted to say that I appreciate this position and what it does for our kids.
LEMMOND: Just as a bit of, info, Childline actually starts at six weeks and goes all the way through the age of 21. THOMPSON: Just curious the kind of testing at six weeks? LEMMOND: And that's why we have an outside agency do that for us. LA VERE WRIGHT: Yeah, well, that it's when it's. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Some of us who have children with special needs, who could be identified very early can tell you some of those things are identified at birth. But Mike, did you have a comment as well? HEIL: Yeah. I just wanted to, mention, in part of the rationale here.
You talk about, the director of early childhood education, evaluates 28 staff, which is beyond the accepted span of control for a supervisor, which is absolutely correct. I mean, you could spend like, half of the year just doing evals, right? The reason I bring that up is because frequently when people talk to me about, problems with, the way that the, the school, budget is run, a frequent complaint is the zone superintendent model, and that is, that falls exactly into this.
If we didn't have zone superintendents, if all of our principals fell under the superintendent, he would also exceed 28 direct reports because we have about 30 operated schools ish, plus all of the cabinet members. And that would just be excessive. And one person cannot manage all those directly. Therefore, assistant superintendents have always been a feature of every district, and we use them wisely. So I just wanted to thank you for giving me a platform to opine on that. LA VERE WRIGHT: Okay. So are we good with moving this forward?
Yes. Yeah. Everybody has to speak it so it doesn't look like I'm the only one saying yes. WITHERS: Yes THOMPSON: Yes HEIL: Yes LA VERE WRIGHT: Thank you. So we'll move this forward for action. Which means you'll also be able to post it tomorrow morning. Thank you. And so we are now on to item 9.2. And that will be move forward to the special meeting at the end of June, Keri. The Falcon High School athletic training curriculum with Brian and Seann. SMITH: Good evening. Members of the board. Brian Smith Falcons on superintendent. And I am here with Sean O'Connor, principal at the Falcon High School.
To propose to you an update to curriculum. We have been working in the zone to update curriculum over the past few years, and Mr. O'Connor and his team have identified another course that has been in need of some updates. And so he's going to share a little bit about that with you so that we can get that one done as well. O’CONNOR: Good evening board. Quick overview this course, return to our curriculum, offerings just this past school year. And in doing so, we discovered that the current curriculum available was was outdated and didn't align with with some of
the things that we were working on. Some of our programs, including Hosa and, NHS and CHSE standards. That's just a quick overview. I can answer more questions about the curriculum. It's just more update and aligns. LA VERE WRIGHT: And I was at the PTA meeting where he let us know the SAC had also looked at it and all of those pieces in the building. So the parents had also already agreed that it was the appropriate direction to go. Are we all good with moving this forward? RYAN: Yes LA VERE WRIGHT: Yes.
THOMPSON: Yes WITHERS: Yes. HEIL: Yes LA VERE WRIGHT: All right. Thank you very much. And enjoy your little bit of summer break. SMITH: Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: And so that will also be moved forward to the, the June special meeting. We are on to 9.3. The director district, with Doctor Lou Fletcher. And as he's coming up, this is necessary for us to do at this time because the county redid their precincts. And when the county retreat does their precincts, it messes up our maps.
And so we're looking at it now in preparation for recognizing that we will have to run, a board of directors election in 2027. And by doing it now, we're addressing it in an appropriate and timely manner. Given when the when the county changed their maps. And so with that, I'll turn it over to you. Doctor. HILTS: Miss La Vere Wright, I may speak in preamble as well before Doctor Fletcher and and Miss Galane-Phillips this is an incredibly complex, complicated and technical analysis. And we have spent at least four hours in indirect analysis.
I'm talking about changing formulas and spreadsheet cells and looking at precinct maps. This is why we we have subject matter experts. And so I just wanted to preface that when we talk about running a lean district, we do try to run a lean district. But this is the kind of thing for which there is no, no substitute for expertise and connections with the county. So what you're about to see is a highly, not not oversimplified, appropriately simplified presentation of an incredibly complex background.
So thank you, doctor Lou. Take us away. FLETCHER: Doctor Lou Fletcher executive, joint operations, joined by Evelyn Galane-Phillips, she's our community facility planning manager. And I might direct some of you who, remember, have a long memory of the last time we did director districts. It was very exciting. It came out of, Covid. And I remember we had two of three, chief officers leave. And then also in this. Here's what you got to do. So we got a little bit behind on that one. So one of my goals for directors districts this time was to make it boring.
Now, how do you make something boring? You get somebody who's very exciting and dynamic and very smart to boil it down for you, so that Peter and I can go back and forth among the things that are going on. But Evelyn did the heavy lifting on this. She showed us models. She looks at precincts so any, gratitude. You have any grace, any, things? She did the heavy lifting right here. So without further ado, I'll bring Evelyn up and I'll help her out as I can. You hit. GALANE-PHILLIPS: Thank you very much.
So, as indicated in 2015, the district 49 moved from a At-Large District to Director District portfolio. So we have had three elections, I believe, since that time back in from 2015. FLETCHER: Now that's what I'm here for. This is a with the executive. Glad to be of service. GALANE-PHILLIPS: So basically everything I do is is grounded in law. The Colorado Revised Statutes indicates the timelines,
what the specifications required for the district directors and when the changes occur and how they how they can. So in 2015. There was a nearly equal population of 3.2%. 2017 jump to 2120 2023 down to 5.07. And today, if we left it the way it is today, we would be at 11.4%. While 10% is our standard kind of expectation
of when we need to be looking at. Things or giving other. Different qualifications, such as the, precinct splits. This is what kind of moves us forward in the direction. So today this is. How the district was split in 2023. The the precincts. And then it moves it forward to the 2025. Which brings us from the 5% to 11%, roughly. After running many, many plans, we decided to post our top seven plans.
All of the remaining ones are in the appendix. Some of you may remember that we, ran these things and people were making all kinds of accusations like gerrymander and all that kind of thing. So we said we had we had a kind of a game show, so to speak. Can you make a better map? So what we did is we kind of preempted that. And our strategy for boring is that we made all 15 maps. And as you can see that our first seven maps are almost as good as our one that we adopted. So if you look at one through six, they're all under 5%.
So a lot of work went into it. And if you don't believe that we have all of those maps there in the back up slides, if you want to get on to, diligent. So this is what the 1.93% map would look like. FLETCHER: And I would say one of the things right there, just as a point of, art and also in the interest of, it's this summertime, 1.3, 1.93% is what we would recommend is the tightest, it has the least deviation in that kind of thing. But we we welcome you to look at any of the rest of them because I think our standard is under 10%, the tightest.
That way we don't have the controversy because our job here is simply to present maps and allow the board to look at it. So if you want to stop here, this would be sufficient. But we can go on and show you all of the maps. HILTS: May I may interject as well. As you look at this map, you'll notice that there are a couple of, just little protuberances that look strange and somebody might say, well, that's not compact, but that's where the precincts were drawn. So that little rhinoceros horn or the little bump up or the peninsula down, those are all artifacts from the way they drew the precincts.
We have to follow those boundaries. We have no choice. So the only way those aren't visible is if those neighboring precincts happen to be in the same directory district. And so they would look more compact, but then they would be less compliant. And so that's why you see those little kind of kind of, visual, visual glitches, if you will. It's just the way, the way the voters where the voters live in the district. LA VERE WRIGHT: And so, that would be the first question.
Personally, I'm okay with just showing this one because we've all had it for five days in our packet and looked through them, and we can discuss it as a board. As one board member, my preference is to go with the one that has the smallest percentage deviance, because we know they're continuing to build, continuing to grow. So two things trigger us having to redo this. The county redrawing their precincts, which is what happened this time. Right. And so then it was no longer compliant because we had precincts
that were split and we're not allowed to have split precincts. So we had to do it, or when we do the next population study. Right. So when the next census comes out in 2030, if we've picked one that is as tight as possible, then the changes that may have to be done in 20 30th May not be very large. The larger current variance we pick, the more likely that variance is going to get too big for us to stay consistent. And the longer we can keep our director districts, the same, the better
it is for our district. Like longer term, when we're no longer the center of growth for El Paso County, it will stabilize. We're not quite there yet. Eventually it that is happening further east of us now. I can see it from my house. But, that to me as one board member picking the one that has the tightest compliance percentage wise for deviance and population seems to be the one that would make the longer term strategy smarter, because it may give us one that we can keep for a few cycles,
or won't have to be adjusted very much in the near future, maybe even not much at the next census. But what are other folks opinions? Lori? THOMPSON: This will be the second time I've been through this, and last time it was really interesting because of some of the odd shapes, shapes, and it has to be complete precincts. They have to be contiguous, they have to touch. The only thing we can never do in district 49 is compact. The third. See, because as you can see, if you adjust by populations, you have areas
that are more densely populated and some that are further apart. So the last time we had two way with this issue, which that's when John Graham was at the helm, it was really tough because the most compliant plan meant that two board members would be ineligible to run again, and one of them was a really good board member, Rick Van Waring. I'd like to give a shout out to him. So there were accusations of gerrymandering and all kinds of false information on social media. There's a lot of false information on social media, by the way.
But I the second most compliant plan would have allowed us to keep Rick and everything in my being wanted to go for the second one, but that would have been for selfish reasons, not for compliant reasons. It still would have been compliant. But I knew what my motives were, so I ended up then moving forward in the one we chose was the most compliant. Then Peter and his team even put together an interactive map where we could work as individual board members to see if we could come up with any other.
FLETCHER: That was too much fun. THOMPSON: Yeah. And, I think, director Jamie Lynn D’Avola tried it, and it turned out she had one piece that was off. So I appreciate the fact that they gave us that opportunity. You don't have to do it this time because you've done the hard work. But we either have to balance after a population study or with this precinct change. So I just want to say thank you for doing this. This has no impact on anyone who's currently serving. It will impact the next election.
And so I appreciate what, President Livia Wright said the most compliant one will last the longest because district 49 we have land. We are where a lot of the new housing is going in. We will have a population shift. And so thank you for all of your hard work. FLETCHER: Yeah, I want to say you folks are very productive or you're inviting people to live in a district. We grew so much this last time and on the predictions from our demographer that we're going to grow so much going into 2030 and beyond.
So get ready for new neighbors. So let's move forward to here. So ultimately, what we're asking here, if the board, has finished, we don't want to rush through anything like that. But this is the action that we would like to ask our superintendent to do for us. HEIL: Yeah, I came into this with the full expectation that I would support the most, compliant one, the one with the smallest amount of variance, getting that under 2%. That is a real accomplishment. Well done. And again, in six of the models you did better this time around than you did last time.
So you've absolutely scaled up. And that speaks well to the expertise point that, Peter made earlier. And has to do with the county realigning theirs first, because that changed the way in which populations were. I think they did an amazing job both times. They did the best they could with the precincts. They had. So I would I would absolutely not even consider, growth in trying to figure out which one to adopt because it's so unpredictable. Right. So projects get delayed, projects get halted, projects go on line. But, you know, houses don't sell.
New projects come online, in other places that you weren't anticipating. So it really just makes most sense to, number one, comply with the law, which says that that's the one we're supposed to choose. And then also that's the one that's going to be the most resilient to change as we grow forward. So I, oh, no, I got to say though, you are making this boring because there was a very real chance that I was going to, end up in, Lori's district. Our our precincts are not that far apart.
And I was looking forward to this moment where I would be able to, you know, play the martyr and say, no, I'm going to do the right thing, even though it hurts me because this is how grown ups do it. And and you've, you've absolutely you've absolutely cost me that opportunity to grandstand. And, I'm, I'm disappointed in you, though. FLETCHER: And I know you understand service from your service in the Navy. And you know about stop loss, too, right? So when a person tries to get out. But, we need them for some more time to consider yourself. Stop. Lost.
LA VERE WRIGHT: I'm not commenting on that part. I'm giving you a dirty look on that line. For my own reasons. All right, so it sounds to me like we have a consensus to go with the most compliant one at 1.93%. Peter, is it reasonable for that to be on the June meeting, or would you rather do it at the August regular? So we're adopting it at a regular meeting. HILTS: For the reasons that you mentioned earlier of transparency, I'd recommend that we adopt, at the August regular meeting. And so I would encourage you to direct me to have the team draft
a resolution adopting the first proposal, for adoption. And that would take effect for the 2027. These are hot tonight for the 2027, school board election. Should we have one? LA VERE WRIGHT: Consider yourself so directed. FLETCHER: Thank you. And just for, going out, the rest of the boring part is that this is in line with statute that requires us to give it to the county clerk and recorder by December 31st of 2026. So August is perfectly acceptable. Thank you for doing that. LA VERE WRIGHT: Like being compliant. Thank you.
And I love that we have the people who do the real work, right. That that's not our role. Our role is to let the experts do their job and respect that expertise. So now we are on to item 9.4, the right of way for 24 at Patriot applied Learning. And I'm just going to preface this by saying thank you, God. At some point, I'll eventually be able to drive out a Falcon in less than 35 minutes. FLETCHER: Yes you will. We're the same people as last time, but that's Doctor Lou and Evelyn.
So this show goes on. What I want to preface this with is that 9.4 and 9.5 are parallel. So if we kind of talk about them together, it helps us to, not give you redundant conversation on the next item. Is right of way, CDOT wants us to use right of way because they said we didn't want to say eminent domain anymore because it's like we don't have a choice in eminent domain. Then I said, what do we have a choice and right of way. They said, no, you don't have a choice. So this is this is more politically correct. We were talking about right of way. So Evelyn is going to talk about the first one and what we're going to do through these two is we're asking you to review them
and vote them tonight. Because the ultimate goal for this is that once we have your signature on a resolution, we can go to escrow, and then the district can collect over almost $450,000 from the state. You have the right to spread it out. But, you know, if you vote on both tonight, we were able to get the $450,000. So we started doing the work associated with this, but without even explaining. LA VERE WRIGHT: Yeah, that requires an entire amendment. Like we needed that when we were setting the agenda because this is a discussion item and not listed as an action item. So,
but why don't we present the items and make sure we get through the material? You need to get us through, and then we'll discuss it. GALANE-PHILLIPS: Approximately a year ago, CDOT had reached out regarding eminent for right of way acquisition. Land acquisition for on the Patriot High school site, for the US 24 widening project. And we have been back and forth with appraisals. Both teed up with CDOT, did an appraisal. District 49 conducted an appraisal.
When we compared and contrasted all of the differences and, and reconciled both of those together. So throughout this, the information provided, there's going to be a permanent easement. So they would be able to so CDOT would be able to, work on the drainage section on within the property. But there is a, a portion, the district had voted or we had gotten confirmation of building a sound wall. So CDOT will build a sound wall for extra security protection for the kids,
because the US 24 will be coming up. So, so far upwards, onto the property. So there will be a sound wall there that will help with noise reduction. And, you know, we we considered a safety factor. FLETCHER: And one of the things on this is that it facilitates a few things. It's going to lose about half the parking lot on the back side of Patriot. And right in that easement is just so happens we have a pod there, and the easement went straight through the middle of the, pod. So one of the things we have to do as a function of this is we have to relocate
that student capacity, from that easement to somewhere on, Patriot’s campus. So that's another one of the major things that we need. And that's why we want to get the money sooner so we can start doing that in advance of them doing their work. And if you if you permit it, we can start talking about the other one, and then we can clean it up at the end. So go ahead and talk about the yeah. GALANE-PHILLIPS: Okay. So the Eastonville is on the backside of Falcon High School. And that one is El Paso County Public Works. And they will be doing a roundabout
at that corner of I want to say it's Stetson. Yeah. Yes. So they've been holding public meetings I think the last one was held at Patriot High School. That that one is very little. It's just the back corner is not going to be a huge impact for the district. But it is part of the process. FLETCHER: And is a secondary story. If, Brian Smith can get a Kickstarter started up there, he like to put a falcon in the middle of the circle. So that's a separate process that won't pay for it.
But if you see a Falcon in the circle, Brian has been successful. So with that, what will we see? It asks for both of these things. And like I said, I apologize for the irregularity, but we're trying to go for a public good. The sooner that we can get the funds and go, because we do. Just like a house closing, we have your resolution with that which they require. We will go to a closing. The money for the district is currently in escrow. Once we finish with that closing, they will release all those funds to the district, and then we'll use that to, to fund the projects to be able to, do work, under, actually, they're going to pay for the underground work for CDOT.
She's done an amazing job of, negotiating because a lot of stuff that we would have to pay for, we negotiated with CDOT, and we got the underground stuff because it's usually $1 million underground. You can't see. But they're moving at all for us. And the money that we get from here will be to start to discontinue the use of the pot and hopefully get a new pot to to be able to facilitate those students being in school. So we want to make it as seamless as possible. And that's the reason why we're asking for a variance. GALANE-PHILLIPS: So okay. Are there any questions. LA VERE WRIGHT: Mike you have a question.
HEIL: Yeah I have a couple of questions for you, mostly around the work at Patriot. So, one is that, the the new easement would essentially take away some, parking space, and you're talking about taking away the pod, but then replacing it with a new pod. So how constrained are we at, for parking right now at that facility? And, what what plans do we have to address that, if any? GALANE-PHILLIPS: So until which time we close phase one and release the funding? I cannot hire an architect or an engineer to do that.
Studies, but quick overview parking. Depending on where the pod goes, we have one of two spaces in which students committed to placing it. And that would depend on the infrastructure underground and what we need to do. So after we get this park closed and finalized, we'll enter into phase two negotiations and discussions. Part of a phase one funding is for like the relocation of the sign, because that will be part of the easement. So we'll need to move it back, and then it'll just be hand in hand
coordination with them throughout the process. FLETCHER: So the more work that we can actually do before CDOT starts their work, we'll make less disruption to the students. And like I said, she she gave the perfect answer. It will be unqualified for us to tell you exactly how many parking spaces. But we can tell you, as an estimate is that those spaces, half of the spaces that are on the other, where the entrance of the school is currently, will be gone and a retaining wall will be there. GALANE-PHILLIPS: However, we can reconfigure the parking, but that's going to take the engineer work. We do. We will meet the capacity.
Per land development codes, there are requirements. So we will ensure that the requirements are met, whether it be in the front or the back. I'm sorry. HEIL: Okay. And that essentially answers the second question I had two is, I was, curious about whether the we thought that the money we were going to be able to get would, cover the, the work that has to be done. But it sounds like that's way too preliminary and we have no idea. GALANE-PHILLIPS: Correct. FLETCHER: Yeah. We can say hypothetically, rough order of magnitude. We should be somewhere in the ballpark. But with escalating prices and that kind of thing, for us
to tell you anything definite would be line. LA VERE WRIGHT: Lori, did you have another question? THOMPSON: It's more of a comment which I think will tie in with those plans, because once you do the retaining wall and when you're looking at parking lot surfaces, which is more impervious to rain water and flow and drainage, and I think we ran into some of those issues. If I remember correctly, with the transportation center. So we may have to work out a shared agreement with the transportation center for parking. GALANE-PHILLIPS: So that we do have opportunities which is great. LA VERE WRIGHT:
Okay. Peter, did you want to talk to the that component in terms of because I know when we talked about this previously, we were going to do it as a approval at the special, given that this is a land sale. And so obviously very public facing to our community as well. If we're talking about a there isn't a net dollar difference, but can we still begin the project knowing if the board says, yes, we're moving this forward, can they begin the project with existing general fund funds and then get reimbursed from it so that it doesn't impact their timeline?
HILTS: So yes, we can begin the project, but if it involves purchasing a pod, that's a big ticket. Enough item that we'll need to have the reimbursement either in hand or guaranteed. And that won't happen until we've done the transfer. Rebecca will walk down and give us some additional we we are. It would have been helpful if we had gotten this requirement two months before. But we didn't. And so we have to do things right away and we have to do them and we have to do them on a regular sequence.
So that's why we're not asking for an emergency action. It it may make us really tight for a semester. At the, at the campus, we know how to deal with time. We'll deal with it again. On the financial side, it will it will be less about tight and more about timing. And Rebekah can explain that. LA VERE WRIGHT: Go on ahead. BROOKS: Thank you. So as far as, us being able to proceed with certain things like surveys and, and things of that nature, we can move forward. With those without the this being approved necessarily this evening.
It just makes it a little cleaner because then we can receive monies in this fiscal year, where it might be a little tighter for turnaround. In the if if it's postponed, it's not necessarily a deal breaker if you push it to the next meeting from a financial perspective. But it is just a little cleaner. And the differences between the years and the just for clarification, the pod, it will be phase two. So we wouldn't be pre purchasing that either way. So that's not a necessarily a factor at this point okay.
So essentially it's just impacts a little bit on the accounting. Because my is from Rebekah's perspective. My perspective, I don't know how much more that would affect. On Evelyn's side. But from financial it's really accounting wise. HILTS: And may I jump back in those. We we did talk about this because we, we didn't want it to be an action item tonight. That's why it's in the discussion part of the agenda. We had to reschedule the closing because we need the board to have voted to approve it before we can conclude it's contract.
Right. And so you have to have the entity that governs the district has to approve that. And so we're doing the right thing sequentially. It isn't optimal in terms of being able to have the funds to purchase a pod. We'll deal with the Non-optimal so that we do it the right way. LA VERE WRIGHT: So your recommendation as well is that we proceed it as we have it currently on the agenda discussion tonight. Approval at, the June special meeting. And so and that and as Rebecca said, they're not ordering the pod now anyway because that's phase two.
So yes, that's longer down the road. HILTS: And if you all go on record and say yes, you want to move this forward, typically we infer that that means you want to move this forward to approve it. And so we move forward in good faith. If we misread you and we were wrong, or if you or if new information comes to light, you change your mind. We adjust. But we're doing this the right way. LA VERE WRIGHT: Okay. FLETCHER: And this is still very helpful because what we'll be able to do with the meeting, this coming up, we'll be able to talk to CDOT and say, are you comfortable at least scheduling the understanding that we went through a process, that it should be approved on that date,
and then maybe we can get a closing date sometime in July? LA VERE WRIGHT: It was. Yeah, they could even say, look, we'll have the paperwork for you can close it on the 25th because they're going to vote the 24th. You'll have the signed resolution before Lori and I leave that meeting. But okay. So are we comfortable moving this forward for approval? HEIL: Yes. LA VERE WRIGHT: I'm a yes. RYAN: Yes. THOMPSON: Yes. LA VERE WRIGHT: So we'll move that to the, June special meeting. And that's both of these items. And I'm looking forward to that Eastonville intersection being safer as well.
You take your life into your hands, driving through some of those spots, and if they do any road improvement there at all, then it's going to get worse, not better, at that corner. So thank you very much. So now we're on to, where am I? That's the policy. That's still that resolution. I ran to 9.6 now. Right. We know the policy and procedure review. There was just one policy in there. And I think the only change on that, and again,
when we have a policy and procedure review that are those are policies where administration is bringing forward forward in recommended administrative changes that are either related to something, that has changed in district structure. So in this case, who the reporting person is, because the job title changed or a, change that is required because of a change in statute in this case, I believe it's just the only change that's coming forward is one that was that the title of the custodian? Does anyone have any questions on that?
Lori? THOMPSON: I was just going to say that Linette does a good job of bringing these up for review and going through them. And speaking of which, I don't know if you spotted that she popped in earlier and she gave us two thumbs up. So she has been caught up in a court case and two thumbs up. LA VERE WRIGHT: She'll come back and speak to it. THOMPSON: Okay, great. That I'll go ahead and stop speaking about that. But anyway, just does a great job of doing the policy and procedure review. LA VERE WRIGHT: Okay. So are we all good with moving that forward? HEIL: Yes LA VERE WRIGHT: I'm a yes.
RYAN: Yes. THOMPSON: Yes. WITHERS: Yes LA VERE WRIGHT: All right. So then we are on to 9.7 appointment of the board representative for the CASB Delegate Assembly. And so every year the CASB has a delegate assembly where they determine a part of what the legislative priorities will be, for CASB as an entity. And each district appoints a delegate that can participate in that process. And we need to appoint them now, because that information needs to be turned in in August.
And as we're not having a July meeting, we'd make the recommendation. We'll have an actual resolution. Then at the special meeting. We discussed this already at our annual planning session, and I believe, Mike, you were the person who had said you'd be willing to do it, correct? HEIL: Yeah. So, Deb Schmidt was, the the backup, for the previous board. And so she expressed an interest in doing it. And so, she got the primary role. I expressed an interest as well. And, so I was assigned the, backup.
And so with Deb's, resignation, the position would have devolved onto me. It's something that I am still interested in. And in fact, after, well at CASB, I was encouraged to apply for an open area rep position. And I apparently made the selection, difficult, but I was not selected, and I was encouraged to stay active with them. So, it's something I'm interested in, but I also want to add that I am, you know, an empty nester. And so I have a lot of time to give to the board, where I know
most of you have, significant family obligations. But I also don't want to be the guy at that guy who's just, like, bow guarding everything. So I'm on the DAC, and that is really appropriate for my role as board treasurer. I also have SEAC, and I have, now, the, CASB delegate assembly. And so, if somebody has interest in one of those two positions, I'm definitely open to talking about it. LA VERE WRIGHT: So but you're right, now we're focused on this. The delegate assembly is September 11th and 12th.
And so you're willing to serve on that. So what we'll do then is have this move forward as an action item at the 24th special, where we name Mike as the delegate assembly, unless there's someone who has a position to that, I don't see a reason. Lori. THOMPSON: I have attended a couple of the, meetings. Glenwood Springs, Pueblo. I've been to other CASB, areas, and I've also watched when they have their discussions. I think I've hit 4 or 5 of those, including the ones at the Broadmoor.
So if we need to back up, I'm willing to go into a backup position on that. RYAN: I'll go to backup as well. LA VERE WRIGHT: Okay. So we can, you know, we can talk through the backup, but yeah, okay. THOMPSON: No, it's something we could definitely discuss because also there's some travel involved too. So just depends on your family scenario and whether or not you'd like to go camping. Yeah. Yeah. So but you can also take them with you and have the kids go with your wife to the pool during the time that's happening. LA VERE WRIGHT: So so at this point, we only thing we have to have
is the person appointing that can actually attend that weekend. And at that point, at this point, that's Mike. And we have to have that resolution to CASB. So we'll do that now and then. We'll do that at that next meeting. Then if we want to look at, other components of it or who else would like to attend, we can have other people attend who aren't the designated delegate so they can see how the process works. And I'll have Lanette look into, what attendance for that conference is. It is another fee, but, I was the delegate for a very long time,
which is why I'm not raising my hand, because I did. I love it, I am very good at that type of debate. Some of the things that are permanent standing resolutions are there because of years of work on my part, during my prior board service. But I am perfectly happy to let other people have that experience now. So but I'll have Linette look into that because we won't have who else is attending. Doesn't have to be at CASB right away. Only who our, delegate is Lori. THOMPSON: Just to note, too, that the board makes a vote on which ones
we support and which ones we don't, so it's not a case of somebody shows up and advocates for a position that's different than what the board approved. And so that was just a point I wanted to make. LA VERE WRIGHT: Mike. HEIL: And just as far as, sending, as far as the, the backup, previous boards have sent both the primary and the backup just so that the backup can be there learning about the process. And, so that if you ever have to, step up, for whatever reason, that you've had that training in that exposure, I kind of skipped past that.
And it would have been nice if I'd have been able to attend once as a backup. But, you know, that's what it is. LA VERE WRIGHT: Like I said, I think you can actually have more than just one. I think you can have more than to attend because they do other aspects. So, but I'll have Linette verify that and then that part we don't have to worry about until August. So at this point, I think we have that item taken care of and we can, move on to the last item on our agenda, which Mike is presenting. HEIL: And if it's okay, I'd like to stay where I'm at.
And if I can get somebody to help me out with, the slides. NANCARROW: You can just tell me when to advance. HEIL: All right. Great. All right, so, this has been a fast evolving topic. So just two nights ago, the very nature of this conversation changed. Next slide please. So, when this was first put on the calendar,
it was essentially just a discussion about whether D 49 will continue to participate in this organization. But two nights ago, Elizabeth School District had a vote on this same topic. They elected to leave. That leaves ERBOCES with one institution of higher learning, Pikes Peak State and US and a Boces cannot exist without two members, one of which must be a school district. So this conversation, is existential for the Boces unless they find a
another partner district before, we, bring this to a vote. So with that said, let's start from the beginning because I know we have new members and, a lot of community members who have never heard this topic before. So what is a BOCES? It's an acronym that stands for Board of Cooperative Education Services. You see here the, the law that establishes it and the purpose statement that was encoded into the law. I don't find that definition to be too helpful. So next slide please.
So I pulled this off of the Colorado BOCES Association site. And this one is very much more explanatory. BOCES exists to supply educational services to two or more districts that alone cannot afford the service, or find it advantageous and cost effective to cooperate with other districts. So essentially, it gives school districts the opportunity to, do business, taking advantage of economies of scale, especially for our rural districts or for a place like El Paso County,
where we are so fragmented, there can be some significant benefits. Next slide please. So also from there, the BOCES Association say these are some examples of programs and services that they include. I see here that D 49 is currently a member of two. But just slight clarification. We are an associate of Pikes Peak Boces and that makes sense. Because they have nine full members, which means they have nine voting board members. It's pretty cluttered.
And then another ten associate. So we get to take advantage of their services, as we need them. But, we don't have to send a board member to wrangle one out of nine votes. And then, of course, we are a member of education re-envision BOCES or ERBOCES. And next slide please. So what is ERBOCES. So they were founded in 2013 as Colorado Digital Boces and then renamed in 2018 because their original focus was on online schools. And they have they have changed over the years.
This is how they describe themselves on their website, on their, on their home page. And I want to bring special attention to the first and the third bullet points. So they say they authorize and oversee brick and mortar schools, online schools and home school enrichment programs. And ensure accountability by monitoring compliance data and performance standards for students and schools. If that sounds familiar, that's because that describes our relationship with our charter schools. And the Charter School Act vests chartering authority
in only two types of organizations local school boards and the statewide authorizer charter school Institute. And so they are acting very much like a charter school authorizer, except they call them contract schools. Well, what do we do when we enter into a charter and relationship with a school? The very next step is we start negotiating the contract. So as an individual, I don't see any functional difference between the two. And it's questionable that they even have this authority.
Next slide please. So their relationship to D 49 I keep encountering this over and over and over again. And so I need to emphasize it. We they are not a charter school. It looks a lot like one because of some of the services that we provide for them. They show up in our budget just like our charter schools do. But we are a member of the BOCES. We do not have any direct supervisory, role. We only put one member at a five on their board
and that is as much supervision as we have. They they are their own entity. They have their own district code. And so their students are not considered by CDE to be D49 students. So what we do, though, that's different from an ordinary member, is that we are also their fiscal sponsor. So as a BCOES, they do not have a conduit to report data to CDE and receive funds. So we basically provide that conduit. So we collect from ERBOCES their student
count data, their performance data, and we pass that on to CDE. And in exchange CDE sends funds which we then pass right through to to here Boces. Now the second sentence on the second bullet point is correct but incomplete. So we are not directly compensated for this relationship. We do receive some Schoology seat licenses valued at about $90,000 a year. But since publishing this, I did learn that there is an indirect financial benefit to the district, and that is that their students count
as D 49 students to the Department of Education for title one eligibility purposes, and that that relationship, increases our title one fund funding by about 2 to $2.4 million a year. In speaking with Rebekah, she estimates that, even with the state law changes, your Boces will retain about 80% of those students. So we're looking at a potential 1.6 ish million dollar benefit to our budget next year.
So that additional information, knowing where we are with our budget situation makes this a more difficult conversation. But that's the job. Next slide please. All right. So, in recent years, ERBOCES has been, involving itself in several controversies. And so I've kind of classified them here. So one of them is overtly challenging the law. And so when I talked about before about
who has charter school authorization authority and that they're using, you know, the contract schools sort of the language, and they've been allowed to, to, get away with that for, for a little while. But they were also planting programs in different school districts that were not members. And so our neighbors at D11 took ERBOCES to court and this Supreme Court decision in 2024, they won that over
or an academy or an academy has now been rolled into, D11. They've entered into a direct charter relationship with them. But D11 won that lawsuit in er voces going forward was required to get permission to plant a program in a non member district. And then of course we talked about it at the beginning and it happened in our boardroom, back in October. Can we it came before us to announce publicly that they were opening the first Christian public Christian school. And that was done on purpose
to bring a court before the Supreme Court. So next slide, please. So in order to open up Riverstone, they needed to have the permission of the D 70 board. Because that that was where it was going to be, planted. So, on June 4th, Brad Miller acting as the counsel for both D 70s board and ERBCOES at the time, sent the board president an email that detailed that this is the purpose, why we want to,
open this, academy for the purposes of, getting before the Supreme Court. That email is in the public domain. And, the president agreed within, like five minutes, five days later, she accepted an employment offer from e r Boces. So now she's representing D 70 and hired by ERBOCES. The very next night, they had their first discussion item. No disclosure about the conflict of interest. June 24th. Again. They took the vote.
No conflict of interest. So that I mean, at the very least, that's sketchy behavior on the part of ERBOCES. The very least they could if they really wanted her, they could have waited until after this had been done. Next slide. Yeah. So there's also since people have been paying attention to Riverstone, noticing that they haven't been acting as a responsible authorizer. So the the biggest one, of course, that was reported at length. Riverstone Academy was closed immediately or shortly after opening
because they didn't follow zoning, they didn't follow building codes, they didn't follow health codes. They essentially plopped it into office space in the middle of an industrial high traffic area for a K through five. And, so the local officials, objected and ordered them to close until things could be righted. So they went in front of their board in June and opened in August for comparison's sake, right about the same time that, Riverstone was in front of the D 70 board, this board was talking to Marzano Academy.
They won't even open until, the year after next. Now they have to do building. If they didn't have to construct a new building, they might have been able to open this year. But it's been a full year, and that's typical because there are important steps that you have to follow. So another example then of irresponsibility. ERBOCES filed an application on behalf of Colorado Virtual Tech Academy with the State Board of Education because this is a multi district online school and the state board rejected it.
Nine oh, and if anybody knows anything about our state board, you know that there are there are some partizan divides there and there's people pretty far on either end. So for it to be a 9-0 vote is very significant. And in part because parts of the, parts of the application, we're speaking to an audience, it was not Colorado who one example that was called out by, by a state board member. Is it their application was talking about child find. We had a child find topic on our agenda tonight,
and we learned that it's a program for ages 3 to 5. This was a six through 12 online school. Why are they talking about child find. So that's ERBOCES files. The the application year Boces has a responsibility to review the application. And it doesn't seem like they did their due diligence. So this is just one example of, you know yeah. We we see very little of how the sausage is being made. But now that we're seeing it, there are some significant problems coming forward. Next slide please. So now
because so much attention has been brought on Riverstone, people have been doing a deep dive into everything ERBOCES is doing. So they're they're limited to what's available publicly. So there have been core requests and then, you know, people are checking the check register, say, okay, what are the and checking their audits and say, what are the programs now? What is that program? Let me find what is available publicly for information on that specific program.
So because there is so much limited information on, so much limitation on what's available publicly, we have to say that this is an emerging picture is incomplete and a full CDE audit would be required to validate it. There is growing support at the legislature to make that happen, and I would be surprised if it doesn't start within the next few months. Next slide please. So these are some of the allegations that are coming forward. And by the way, this isn't this this I'm not manufacturing this this. You see links in these and this is coming from
publicly available reporting. So one of the the patterns of use of public money, that is probably the problematic is subsidizing private schools in partnership with homeschool families. So the evidence suggests that what they're doing actually it says it even says they they can do this on one of their application forms that I saw. They will reach out for homeschool families and they'll say, you can form this, this program and we can reach out to private schools.
And how is it there? And once it's housed there, the public or the private school students can access it, which very much looks like a direct or indirect subsidy for the private school, which is not allowed by Colorado law. Another pattern that has emerged is providing recreational activities that all other families expect to pay for out of pocket. So examples given were ski lessons, horseback lessons, jitsu, clubs, sports, private music lessons.
These are things that all of our other, families just expect that if they're going to have them for their child, they're going to have to pay for them out of pocket. And this is public money that is going to those. And then the third pattern that's been emerging is that some of this money is just untraceable. You find a program name, go out there looking for it and there's nothing. Or you find a program name, and then you find out that it's a company that, that is subcontracting.
And at that point, there's no way to tell where CDE dollars have gone. So next slide, please. And then another significant finding. We address this in our annual planning summit when we appointed Lori. Is that they have they have almost never had I as far as we can look back in the records, in their audits, they've never had a fully compliant board structure. The eligibility for serving on the board is established in this, in this law. And it's very clear if you have,
just the configuration we have right now, you can have, there's an elected board member of PPSC or their CEO and that's it. And then for D 49, we could have elected board member in the current configuration. We should have two. Or the superintendent can, occupy one of those seats. That's it. So patterns of, of problems that have happened was members, that were elected board members but continued serving past their
elected board service. The statute is very clear that your eligibility ends when you were elected. Term ends. Administrators below the superintendent or CEO level. Administrators serving when no longer employed by their member districts. And then we've had At-Large appointees residing outside their member districts. So CDE, in their response to the original lawsuit for Riverstone, one of their arguments was that because only one out of four
out of five board members were even eligible to serve when the Riverstone contract was executed, they had an invalid contract. And next slide. So the state legislature and the State Board of Education have been hearing this information, and they have responded. So late in the session, there were two, amendments that were added to the School Finance Act that directly address BOCES behavior.
And these are the these are some of the changes. It's worth saying that this is just high level, because there's a lot of rulemaking that needs to to happen yet, and there are some exceptions. But just as a quick summary, a BOCES can only operate a school within its member district boundaries. So no longer even just open one with, with permission, a limited home school enrichment offerings to those generally available to public schools. So trade schools D4 and I and offers CDE programs in our operated schools.
We also have a charter that is very trade oriented. So those kinds of home school enrichment programs would absolutely be, permitted. But also ski ski lessons, jujitsu now. And then finally it ends programs that are operated entirely by a third party private entity via contract. This makes the ER the BOCES more responsible for direct oversight. Based on both the first and the third bullet point, Riverstone is no longer allowed to operate, and so it has already announced its closure.
And that lawsuit has been, just, revoked. Whatever. Next slide please. So based on that, the questions that I think D49 should be asking ourselves, because ERBOCES can now only authorize programs within its member districts, and we are the only district, do we as a board, want to give up our local control, to a board where we only have at most two members?
And then other than that, with these questions of misuse of public funds, what is the reputational impact of continuing our relationship? I mean, when I talk to voters, about we need to, support our schools better. Sometimes the answer comes back to me that, you know, we're already we're already taxed enough, and you guys need to find the waste. Well, now, this is coming before us as a place that we need to be paying attention to. And so I think it behooves us it is our legal, moral
and ethical responsibility to respond. So, next slide please. I have given you a topic. Talk amongst yourselves. LA VERE WRIGHT: Laurie, as the rep for ERBOCES I'm going to give you the first opportunity to go through and speak and respond. THOMPSON: Bear with me. I will try to be succinct. Yeah. First of all, yes, I am the current ERBOCES rep, and it's not just a matter of appointment.
You also have to be voted on. And, director, how did not reach out to me? Did not email me. Did not call me to discuss any of these. So I reached out to ERBOCES and I asked them if he had contacted them to ask any of these questions, and the answer was no. Which to me is part of why we're seeing an incomplete and somewhat misleading picture. In addition to the title one, we also have the school, the Schoology seat, which I think is between 100 and $160,000.
I'm not sure. Excuse me. HEIL: So I mentioned that, and it was 90. THOMPSON: Oh, 90. Okay. Yeah. Also, there was a reference to an email that was released. Just so you know, that was actually a criminal act under CRS 241 804. We signed affidavits on executive sessions. And then we also have board member codes of conduct 22 Dash 32, Dash 108. So when someone releases either a privileged email or violates executive session, those are actually criminal.
Criminal problems, recreational activities. Yes. Some of the Boces programs do include P.E. and other activities, and a lot of our schools offer these same activities and there are no private music lessons. There are certain other BOCES approved programs that are music oriented. There's also STEM programs and STEAM programs. So to highlight jiu jitsu and skiing and ignore all of the other things they offer is incomplete. Originally, I had asked the president to put this under executive content
because some of this could be potentially litigious and some of the phrases used were problematic, like untraceable black hole. That was kind of a hyperbole, because they have to face the same reporting to the state that we do. By the way, they use the same auditing firm that district 49 uses. So if they are hiding all this public money, then we have hired the wrong auditing, firm. But. So I would like to see evidence of this untraceable
black hole once. Also, John did stay longer as the, ERBOCES rep and this board and, the previous board, including Director Hill, agreed to him staying on several Boces throughout the States. Do not have the proper configuration. And now everyone is starting to do the proper configuration. And if he had reached out to me, I could have told him that we have already replaced. We were planning to replace a member who lived in Pueblo, and now we'll have one other coming up to replace because of the situation with Elizabeth.
There's a comment in here about credible allegations, and that's kind of that phrase is kind of an oxymoron, because first, credible means that there's some merit to it. And an allegation is something done without evidence. So that's another problematic term. Then there were statements that were made to the press. And just as a note, teachers are their pay is set by the district. So it's not because ERBOCES gets money that our teachers have to. And this is a quote from KKTV.
So it would be beneficial if Director Heil shared whatever he did give to KKTV. Teachers are working two or even three jobs to make ends meet. They're spending their own money on basic class work supplies. And then it talks about money going to your Boces with credible allegations of supplementing private schools. You are allowed to contract for space and services. The other thing is if, as also quoted by the press, we have a legal and ethical obligation to look into it.
I think we have a legal and ethical obligation to do it correctly by contacting the people who are involved. Violations of the Colorado Constitution, I'm sure, means the Blaine Amendment. And that was passed. Can't remember if that was the 1800s. It was, Republican who was very anti-Catholic and also did not like Native American teaching. And now the Blaine Amendment is coming into question because of two different Supreme Court rulings which can impact this.
And I'll be happy to share the citations with the board. But some of the Blaine Amendments that are in different states across the nation are now in flux because of two recent Supreme Court rulings. So I'm almost done here. More than oughtn't, they've also turned over another charter school to someone else. Some of these programs will never be charter programs because they have ten students. Now, the emails we got today, the majority in favor of this were from parents who use these services.
They can be small and they can be large. Kilroy. We heard a lot from Kilroy. Did you know that right here in district 49, the sabers that the cadets used at the United States Air Force Academy, they are produced by Kilroy. There are so many different people who wrote to us about children who were autistic. And by the way, we also fund special education through ERBOCES. That's something else that needs to be known, and I'd be happy to share with the board how the grant funds are allocated between gifted and talented special education.
But when it comes to reporting, they are held to the same standard that we are. So to just throw a bunch of things that bothered me, and I thought it could have done a little bit more research to include reaching out to the Boces rep on our board that was chosen at the annual planning summit and reaching out to our Boces. So I do have just a couple more notes. By the way, their very first chief financial officer was Brett Ridgeway. Their second one was Annette Ridgeway, and I sent you the qualification
of their current chief financial officer, Amanda, who has a background and extensive background in school finance to include Cañon City. Pueblo. Another BOCES and now ERBOCES. Their audit was very clean. I also shared that with the Board of Education. There are public schools with programs that include one day ski instruction, welding, blacksmithing, etc.. The programs are not unique. They are located in public school facilities, private school
facilities, and churches. Leasing spaces is not subsidizing. So that's most of what I had. But there are no credible allegations of misuse of public funds. And if we're going to make a statement like that, we need to back it up. Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: Does anyone else want to comment next? I'm going to wait until we're going ahead. Holly. WITHERS: Sure. I will go. How much time do I get? Enough, enough. Okay.
So overall, what gives me, significant pause in general is the thought of students and their families suffering the consequences of poor mistakes made by the adults. And that is the leadership of the ERBOCES. That's the leadership of this board. As far as credible allegations, I hear what you're saying, but if the CDE didn't find some credibility in there, they wouldn't be auditing them, I guess is what I'm saying.
And like it has to be audited. Right. But the what's coming out or what's coming to light through news, articles and even like just your regular local news channels are just saying that there has been misappropriation of funds. Now, I one of these emails to, a mother said, you know, just because of a handful of them did did do something wrong. Please don't punish the rest of us. And that's what I mean. I, I understand that and she's absolutely correct,
because at the end of the day, innovation is super important for homeschoolers, for kids who learn differently. And school choice is important. But the actions of just what's been happening by with their leadership. And I will say to the, the quote in the KKTV from Mr. Witt, I had no idea when he, he said, that these things happen or school districts withdraw due to, political or leadership turnover.
And to me, it it didn't even dawn on me that this was political at all. Because like I said, these are these are kids at the mercy of the decisions made by adults, and that's not fair to them. But I didn't look at this as political. I looked at this as them deflecting from any kind of accountability or not apologizing to those those families and those students that they may have potentially disrupted. And, and even right now, they've put us in a situation
where we have to be the bad guy, even though it's CDE and ERBOCES, like, that's kind of between them. So I guess that's where I'm at right now. But like, just we have to acknowledge that we can't even get unbiased, like legal counsel regarding this, even because it's the same legal counsel. And so, you know, there's he's got a dog into fights. And so I don't know, maybe Mister Hilts
can answer to this, and maybe just kind of ease my mind. Sorry to put you on the spot, but, like, what are the educational benefits for the district in terms of the ERBOCES? Just hold on. I have it written, Like, I guess is what are the pros? What are the cons? Is there a legitimate need overall? LA VERE WRIGHT: I was I was going to say I can I have, a whole history and some of these pieces and some aspects of this that.
So, because I was around when we first formed it. And so there's a couple of different parts, that are moving parts to this. The first piece, when you look at the the statements about BOCES board configurations, the reality is that was true for many, many BOCES boards across the state had been very lax for a very long time. I think it's a good thing that all of them come into compliance. And so I think it's a good thing that that is a focus. But when we first began the BOCES,
a part of the focus was looking at multidistrict online schools. We were going to we were about to get flooded with many applying to be charters here. The reality is, supervising that plethora of programs would not have been healthy for us. We see. Goal is an amazing program and we all see how hard we have to fight in the community to continue to get people to understand why goal is important. K12 and CPA and some of the other Multidistrict online programs
that are authorized for the ERBOCES also serve people in our community. One of the examples for the CPA, specifically from early on in my service was stride is nationwide. So some of the families that we saw accessing it here from the very beginning were high mobility military families. So, specifically folks, I knew it, Nora, at Northcom for when my husband was serving there because many of the people who were there rotate through one nine month to one year assignments
because they're on the high promotion track and they rotate through commands here Washington, DC, Alabama, Europe over there, going all over the place and their children or education is impacted because they're moving sometimes multiple times a year. So that we've experienced as a district, when we have kids coming in and out, that those kids are experiencing education gaps because they're moving from one educational system to another. Being able to access an online program that they could still access when they left the state.
They no longer technically be a student at CPA, but they could find a K12 stride school in the state they were going to to then enroll in and not end up with that educational gap because they were really using the same the same platform and a school designed the same way that was using the exact same curriculum. So it served a subset of families who were looking and saying, look, I don't want to homeschool, but I feel like my only option in providing my kid a quality education is homeschooling, because my spouse's career trajectory is this one that's moving us so frequently.
So that was the first subset of families we saw. Authorizing those programs as a direct authorizer would have been really difficult for us. And at the same time, it was a needed and needed service in our area. And so being able to then look at them and say, instead of applying to be a charter with us, why don't you consider applying to the BOCES as a cut and see if they'll work with you as a contract? School was a wonderful solution for us. Initially. So that was a piece of where we initially began, then expanding and looking at.
Okay. We were operating allies. That was our very next step was at district 49. Had the allies program and which then grew into its own school, which serves a very specific population, which most districts don't want to replicate. Because although we've gotten it into performance, which is incredible, is a very difficult thing to consistently do, serving a population that has that that learning challenge and so although it's a very needed thing statewide, almost no one's willing to do it.
Doctor Pickering came and said, I'd love to try and run this as a program separate, because we're getting all these people trying to come into our school. We can't absorb every dyslexic kid in in Colorado Springs as a district. How can we operate this in some way? And he approached the er, Boces and at the time there was still and it was us, there was a northern district and Pikes Peak State has always been one of the partners. So at the time the, the regulation had not been clarified.
And when you said member who. Well, if you have an institute of higher learning, does your member does your boundaries of your Boces incorporate the boundaries of the Institute of Higher Learning as well? So the IHE was Pikes Peak State. Pikes Peak State has an explicit boundary of El Paso County. So the question posited was because Pikes Peak State or at the time Pikes Peak Community College is one of our members. Does that mean our boundaries are Pikes Peak boundaries? And we submitted the application for or an academy to the state
with the address within the boundaries of Pikes Peak. And the state granted us a code to open that school based on that application. We actually won in court at district court. So the initial interpretation by the original judge in the court was that the er, Boces interpretation of it was correct and we could operate. Warden. Okay. It went then through iterations of Appeal and Supreme Court which then found against your Boces at that point
the state legislature had already said, well you're right, that's vague. We're going to clarify that. And they clarified it to say that Boces could only operate schools within the K-12 members district. So the system works. First of all, it wasn't clear because if it had been clear, your Boces wouldn't have won the first time, they wouldn't have won in front of the district judge. They'd have lost the initial court case. Then the legislature then said, whoa, you're right, that's vague. Let us clarify it. So the system worked in that someone said, I read the statute this way.
We're going to operate it this way. Then the legislature said, you know what? We don't like that we're going to change the statute to fit what we want it to believe. That's the way our legislative, our whole process is built is there's a law. People follow the law as they believe it should be interpreted. If there's a disagreement on how that law is interpreted, either it's clarified in court or the legislature comes back and says, you know what, right? You're right. We were pretty vague. We're going to clarify. And that's really what you're seeing happen with the home school component.
Now, home school enrichment law was incredibly broad and incredibly vague. And that broadness and vagueness meant that if you were offering something as enrichment, it was valid. And in fact, initially, CDE was issuing program codes for home school enrichment programs. The very first one, they did that for Falcon Arrow Lab, which used to be a D 49 program. It was more beneficial to D49 for that program to continue to exist,
for it to be administered by the ERBOCES because of levels of supervisory pieces that are just difficult for our staff to provide. We run a very lean organization. The more disparate small programs were running, the more difficult and complex it is for our staff to do that. Being able to have the er, Boces do that with Kilroy and Falcon Arrow Lab and some of these other programs lets those programs exist for our students without us having to do the direct supervision, which has been helpful. But the process of saying, okay, here's home school enrichment, this is what the statute says.
This still should be able to qualify. Then this still should be able to qualify then. Well, when they went and applied for a code, I believe it was for Haven, which was a school that's home school enrichment that runs a lot like school in the woods. It's really kind of cool. It's out in Black Forest, but they, when we applied, when the er, Boces applied for home school enrichment code for that, they were told, oh, we were in error. We shouldn't be reviewing home school enrichment programs at that level. And we shouldn't be offering program codes, home school enrichment programs run as an attached program to an existing school.
So you need to create your umbrella school. And then all of them just under under that program code. We're not going to be reviewing individual home school enrichment programs in that way because we can't according to statute. That's the answer they got from CDE. So then they said, okay, then I guess this is so they set it up according to the direct instructions. According to CDE, and have been operating under that umbrella ever since. Now the legislature has looked and said, whoa, home school enrichment has become way broader than we wanted it to be.
So we need to clarify that. And that's what you're seeing happen at the state level. At the state level, they're saying we don't want it to be this broad. Here are the problems that we see. With it being that broad, we didn't imagine it would grow to this broadness. We need to regulate and legislate this better. And so the system is working in that. It's then adjusting. And the R Boces will then also have to adjust to saying, okay, now here's the new picture. Now that we know what that picture is, we have clarifying rules.
How do we adapt to those clarifying rules and still serve families? All that they did continuously was ask families, what do you need and what would be helpful to you and what support you? And what are you at? What? What choices are you looking for as home school parents and then acting on those? It's the legislature's job to then come back and clarify and which is what they are now doing. I don't think when they made the original home school enrichment law that they expected it to grow to the extent it did. And it may not have grown to the extent it did had Covid not happened, because quite frankly, everything in education changed when Covid did.
But that's the system working, whether we like it or not. In terms of how law is made and how the sausage is made and how things get clarified legally in terms of what is allowable or not allowable. That's how our legal system works legislatively and governmentally. And so what we're seeing is those adjustments. And in terms of it working, and so and I think that clarity is good and right. And, and so what you've seen them do now was come back with a clarity. And when they came back with a clarity, they not only they didn't say then everything ceases in justice now either.
They also recognized that it's everyone's responsibility that we have 9 or 10,000 families. This impacts although quite a few of those numbers, when you look at that very large number, there's a significant number of those students who are in the mdlz that impact on the multidistrict online programs that they authorize. And that's where a significant portion of the money that we benefit from comes from, is by those being able to operate separate from our district, offer services. And I know there are 49 families that use it because,
on, you know, in the Falcon area Facebook pages, when people say, hey, I need to put my kid into an online program, what do you recommend? I see several of families chiming in and recommending some of the ERBOCES and DOLs so I know there are families who live specifically in my neighborhood who are accessing those programs. I in fact, enrolled one of my kids for a short period, and one of them myself. When I knew that it was something he needed. So, I know there, you know, do we have the exact data on where all of those students reside? No, but I know there are at least some families
who would be impacted of those schools completely went away. I also know that bringing in programs that are very different clouds, the way in which people see our district data, in ways that isn't helpful for us being able to really present what we do in our coordinated schools. So from my perspective, having that ability to offer the programs that families need to be able to access without it directly impacting our district data, performance data is also a benefit, that that we have learned through through the continued work with Google
and how painful, how amazing that program is, how neat it is, and how I will always support it for all kinds of reasons. Even before I ever knew that I'd have a kid who would need it, I supported it wholeheartedly. But it comes at a cost and doing the right thing for kids. If we have a way to do the right thing for kids and families and also insulate the district from some of that, that, that risk, that's part of what ERBOCES can do for us. So I think a part of it is letting is seeing how that system adjusts. And even the legislature, which is overwhelmingly Democratic
with a Democratic governor. And so we have a, you know, overwhelmingly Democratic state government gave Boces a year to run everything as is before any changes go into effect. And that's because they recognize that they haven't been doing what they needed to do regulatory wise, and that they need to develop what those pieces are. And they don't want those families and kids to suffer or to lose what they need. Well, they allow these programs to work out what they need to work out, whether that is some of the programs
transferring to being district operated, programs where they exist, whether that that is existing, where we are, some, some of that is harder because like I said, if you have 15 small homeschool programs, each of which is doing something very unique that serves families, it's much, much harder for the district. Given how strapped districts are with their staff for supervisory purposes, it's much harder for a district to do those pieces and do them well. It's why most districts only run one general homeschool program and, you know, just like no one size fits all family.
When we look, you know, we we've embraced the portfolio of school models and recognize that no one school fits all families, no one educational model fits all families. And if we can offer, choices to offer, that will allow different families and different kids to find what serves them best, that's a better model. The same is true in the home school enrichment space and for homeschool kids, but offering those programs because they may be very small in scale, depending on who needs what, becomes really difficult for a monolith
of a district to do, in the way that the BOCES has. And so I think a huge piece of this is the educational system realizing, oh, I guess we should have decided that we should review and regulate homeschool. They were not. The state was purposefully not doing that. And in fact, CDE said we legally can't when they were trying to submit the programs initially, they said we made a mistake. When we issued the Arrow Lab a code, we weren't supposed to do that. It has to attach itself to a school. And,
and we shouldn't be approving individual homeschool programs. When I hear the the people will pull always pull out the extremes when they, they pick apart a program. And I think that some of what you've heard in those discussions, I'm personally not going to dig into those pieces. I think kids are going to come up with the CDE, and the legislature are going to come up with what those rules are going to be, and then they're going to have to apply them to the programs. But I can say that we approved as a district a rock climbing, P.E.
class, and we approved a lifeguard class. I voted on both of those, and so did Director Heil. And there was a boxing class being taught at Patriot. I'm only aware of that one because when we cut our budget, when they had to cut their budgets this fall, I sit on the Falcon Education Foundation board, and they applied to the Falcon Education Foundation board, saying they wanted to continue to offer this class, but because of budget cuts, they were going to be unable to. And we're hoping that we could help partially fund it.
So that tells me district funds were funding, boxing, which, you know, could be included in something. You know, it's not exactly the same as jujitsu, but it's a, a discipline that is a physical piece. There are also things that might not be offered as a full class, but that kids have done in rotation in PE classes. So they'll do a unit on archery, and they do a unit on different pieces. And what those units may be may be very different depending on what part of the state you live in.
I know my kids even were able to for free, I believe free or very, reduced cost. Take hunter safety as a part of, Falcon Middle Schools mini course program where we did, a a lot of very different interesting things, some of which were partially funded by the district and partially funded by parent fee, some of which were covered fully by the district, depending on what those specific pieces were. But they were there was a pretty, diverse offering of those pieces pre-COVID.
So I think it's. Easy to pick apart small parts. But ultimately, if we're looking at, you know, now, it's a much bigger deal because you'd be saying, well, if we leave because their funding flows through us too, that creates a structural problem for them. And you have a whole set of families that are depending on this who would immediately lose something. And if the state legislature is willing to give them at least a year at a minimum, it seems to me we owe them the same.
Yeah. THOMPSON: Just a clarification and also to minimize any thing that could come out of it. District 70 voted to enter into a memorandum of understanding and a vote was five zero. So if any had not been involved because it appears to be like an intentional or not a quid pro quo, it was not authorizing. It was a memorandum of understanding. And their health issues were identified before the school opened. They were already working on them. And if you read the chalk bead article that's linked in there, they say
specifically they were working on those issues. So just to be clear, especially since an individual was named, that was not an approval. That was a memorandum of understanding. HEIL: Did you want to? RYAN: Oh, yeah, that was great. Marie. Appreciate it man. Yeah. Thanks for the background. Because when I started doing this, research, since I am new. Right. I've been, researching it for about a week, and the first thing I did was I reached out to, parents, teachers. I actually talked to two teachers
from two different districts to get their opinion about it. ERBOCES And I felt that that was important to me to understand where it were, how important this program is. I also took the time to listen to all the news articles, watch the news programs. I'm excited to be here tonight because I wanted to hear Mike's perspective. I wanted to hear Lori’s perspective in the board members perspective as a whole. But one piece I was missing from this whole thing was the historical piece of it. I know district 49 has been part of this for 13 to 15 years.
I understand your both of you might have done some things or might have crossed the left or right limits, and now they're being pulled back a little bit. That's okay, because we want them to go out there and charge after, because what's most important for us is our kids. And they're providing a service to our kids that we don't provide. In district 49, there is also parent choice. I was in the military for many years, 24 years, and we chose this state not just because my wife was from this state, but parent choice. We get to pick where our kids go to in a district.
My concern is if this does if we do leave here, see, what does that look like for the legislature to do to the parent choice aspect of it? When I look at a larger scope of this whole problem that we're at, the other thing I look at is, how is it if we say we're done with our books after 13 years and they've supported us, what then? What policies and procedures do we have in place to cover our families, our kids, and their futures? So I think that's important when we continue to look at this.
And I do like that, that you said if the legislation gave them a year to to kind of figure this out, we should give them a year to figure it out. Not only will they figure it out, but I also challenged district 49 to go ahead and step back and figure out what does life look like without a year before we just pull it? I hear the funding's a big thing. We just went through a big funding what our teachers write. The other thing I found out was that a little bit of money we did receive, why can't we? What isn't your your ability to give us more money in that aspect?
I don't have the answer to that because I'm so new at this and trying to dig into this. But if there's some partnerships there that we can work with, because then my mind goes to, if we could receive more funds that will support our teachers and that could support the teachers in some aspects, depending on the color of the money that we are given. And that's where I am. I school up at this point, but that was a thought. That's all I have. LA VERE WRIGHT: Yep. HEIL: All right. So I need to address some of the things that have come and come out.
First to to some points that Lori mentioned, you talked about the, the financial audit performed by the same company that we do came back clean. The qualifications of the the CFO. I want to make it clear that nobody is alleging that the programs don't exist, and that the money isn't going to the programs and that the the money isn't being accounted for according to generally accepted accounting practices. The the concern is that those recipient programs may be using those funds in purposes that are contrary to law,
the intent of, of, of various regulations, et cetera, etc.. So, so when I say that there needs to be a seed audit, it's we're talking about audit the programs. What are those programs doing with educational dollars and how does that align with, statute and regulations? Regarding the appointment of John Graham in 2024, quite frankly, I was a brand new board member. I didn't know anything about, you know, the BOCES eligibility. It's not something I've read about.
And so we got, advice from our lawyer that said, John Graham is interested in continuing to serve, and he. And he is eligible to do so. So we accepted that advice and we went ahead and appointed him in the interim. My attention was brought to the, the legislation. I read it, I found that that advice was incorrect. And so at our next annual planning summit, I brought that up. And that's when we appointed, Lori, the definition of credible allegations was stretched pretty far.
So an allegation is very similar to an accusation. If it's credible, then that means that there is some information there. You can't prove it, but there is at least some information that gives you reason to believe that it may be correct. So when I talk about credible allegations, I'm talking about we find a program and then we go out there and we look and we identify the the program out in the wild. And then we start reading about who they are and what they do. And we find that there there are issues with what they are doing
with public money. So that is the credibility portion of it. But we are not CDE. And so CDE would have to be able to, validate it. And further, as far as a black hole, what I'm talking about there is the money has disappeared from a public perspective. We don't know where it went. And quite frankly, that is our public money. And we should know, we shouldn't have to guess. Regarding the concerns about the programs being,
you know, the statement that I made in the media about, you know, teachers are working two jobs, etc., etc., and here's money that's going to skew lessons. And you jitsu statewide funding is statewide. And so if anybody anywhere is using money in inappropriate purposes, that means that there's less to go around for appropriate purposes. But more importantly to me is that message gets out into the public and they start, see we we told you we can't trust them.
They're going to misuse our money. Right. And so the next time we ask for an mlo, the next time we ask for a bond, the next time we ask for support for a statewide initiative, we've lost our moral standing. And so that's why I'm saying we need to identify that this is an issue. And and take some action. So, as far as some of the points that Marie made, you made some very good points. One of them was that, you know, the, the the number of programs would be difficult
for the 49 staff to manage, and that's absolutely correct. My understanding, though, is that ERBOCES is proliferating these things fast. They just recently approved eight more. And they they have a small staff. So how are they being held accountable. How are they being managed. That seems like a problem. But also the this, this notion of the process is working the way it's supposed to. I look at some of these behaviors and I say
ERBOCES is very deliberately, challenging the law in so many areas, some of which I covered earlier, but also I covered with, but also like transparency. I challenge anybody to go to their website and figure out what they're doing. You will find an agenda and votes and that's it. There's no audio, there's no packets. You actually have to core a packet if you want a board packet. So there are many areas where they are just being really, really aggressive and testing the waters.
So giving them a year may be something that we should discuss. But the problem that I have with that is that I have no trust in current leadership. RYAN: So then I would say I took two notes, right. So how do we support and help them and put them on the right track with transparency? This board's done a wonderful job on doing transparency. Do we need to teach them something and lead them into some way? Right. It's a discussion.
How do we put policies in place so we can see certain things you're talking about and support them in that way? LA VERE WRIGHT: Lori THOMPSON: Marie can address this as well. Each program has their own requirements for transparency and reporting. And if you read especially the email we got from Kilroy, from Ronald, that lays it out. So each program is required to submit their finances and they must be in compliance with state regulations. And I would like to personally invite anyone who would like to attend
the ERBOCES meeting. You are welcome to attend. Every single meeting is recorded. So there is nothing that would prohibit anyone in this room from attending the next ERBOCES meeting. And I will also send an invitation to the entire board to attend the next meeting, because to make it sound like we're doing something under the cover of darkness is not true. So anyone can come. The last meeting, we had a parent there. We have reporters who come there. They are not held in the middle of the night.
They are held at 430 in Monument. I'll be happy to share the address. You can also find it on their website and their meeting schedule. So anyone is welcome to attend an ERBOCES meeting. LA VERE WRIGHT: The other component, so there are legal requirements for transparency. And there and there are the things that we as a district have chosen to do that go far beyond what those legal requirements are because of the importance of the transparent of
of the living relationship we have with our community. So legal requirements are you have an audio recording available for 90 days. That's the legal requirement for, for any meeting at which there is a vote taken. And you have to have an audio recording, that is held for 90 days. In fact, most legal people in districts will tell you after the 90 days expunge them that is generally the recommendation from anyone in education law because you're not required to keep it after 90 days. Why would you save something that could be evidence
that could be used for liability at some point in district 49, we not only audio record our meetings, we video record them and we post them on YouTube and they live forever. It's why the last time I left the board, they were able to pull shots up for me from the very beginning and tease me with them. Right. So but that is a commitment that we have with our D 49 community. That is not, that goes well beyond what the requirements legally are for any public entity. ERBOCES meets same thing with you are required to post your agenda.
You're not required within 24 I believe 24 hours before the meeting occurs. That's the only legal requirement. We go far beyond that. We not only post our agenda, we post our full packet, for all of our community to read because we recognize that our community is engaged in that's important to them. And we have continued that commitment. And we've all had situations where, you know, I've been told not to do, you know, been advised, hey, you know, it would be your life would be much easier if you just did what was required legally.
Okay. Including this presentation. Right? I only I kept it an executive set, in the executive section to make sure I reviewed it and that there that everything that was in it was able to be sourced from another outside source and was already referred to and actually had legal look at it and agree with me that it should be public. So that included Brad saying that it was also appropriate and then released it the very first workday that, Lynette was back to work. I don't ask her to do things for me on the weekend.
I ask her to do things during her work hours because that's fiscally responsible, and board members. But board members still had access so they could review it. There have been other times where, we've done things as a board, and it certainly would have been far easier for me to not post it until 24 hours before and to follow what is legally required for transparency. And because our community has grown to expect something very different from us, we do it very differently and we quite frankly
do it very differently than most other districts, even around us. But I would argue that's why we have the relationship with our community. We do. And I'm proud of that legacy that I helped to slowly build with Tammy way back in the day, and John Graham and the other folks that I served with. And I'm glad that our district continues that. But I think because our community is used to seeing that, we tend to try and hold other entities to beyond what they're legally required to do. And that's an unfair standard.
So and again, what the state has learned, I think boundary pushers are necessary in all organizations and in all entities. ERBOCES at some level serves as that boundary pusher. And there are boundary pushers on the conservative side, there are boundary pushers on the progressive side. The only way change occurs or that we learn where we what we really want as a community and as a society is by saying, where is the boundary? Are we okay? And then do we like where that boundary is?
Did we set it too far out or do we need to bring it back? That's a part of the give and take of of good governance in the long run. But also in terms of how our society functions as well. And we see that legislatively on all types of things happening, at the state and the national level, you'll see when the pendulum swings too far in one direction, you can guarantee it's going to swing and come back, right. And it gets pushed and all kinds of issues in all kinds of areas like that. Education is a very weird entity, though,
because everybody went to school someday at some point. So everybody expects school to look like it did when they went to school. That also means it's very hard to innovate in education, and it's why when you walk into a math class, it shouldn't look like it did. When I went to school, 40 years ago. But many math classrooms have right? Mission DNA has been about helping our math classrooms look differently to improve math instruction with what we know about the science of math and what we know about kids brains being different today than they were 40 years ago,
and needing to learn differently. But because education is a public entity with public dollars, there's a lot of fear built into doing anything different. And for innovation and education to occur, for us to be able to try new things and learn new things and develop new models, someone has to be willing to be the boundary pusher. Springs Studio and Pikes Peak would not exist if there hadn't been boundary pushers in D 49. Most of our community was opposed to it at the time. I would argue, in part because the board that was in charge at the time
didn't do a great job of building that relationship with the community and helping them understand. But when I was running for the board at the time, I was like, why are you paying $3 million for a virtual school site when you're cutting $11 million from the budget? Right. Yet that program is incredibly important. It is an example of hybrid education that has been held up statewide and nationally and does amazing things for kids. So but someone had to be willing to push the boundary to say, can we try this? Someone had to be willing
to take the risk and say, does this educational model serve anybody? Does. Can kids learn this way differently? And we need a space for that to happen. And places like the Boces where you have people willing to try and say, where is the boundary? What are we allowed to try to do? Allow that to happen too. So that's my other $0.02. But we at this point have to decide kind of what direction we want to go. So either the, the option that Mike
initially proposed is to leave the Boces. To leave the Boces would require a vote. So that requires an action item at the special meeting. If we want to extend for the next academic year or anything other than that, that doesn't require a vote because it doesn't require leaving the Boces, only leaving the choices requires a vote. So at this point, I need to know where everyone stands on at this point in time. Are you interested in leaving the BOCES or are you interested
in continuing a relationship for at least the next year? THOMPSON: I would like to remain with Boces. RYAN: I would like to continue a relationship with BOCES. WITHERS: I actually would like, another question answered real quick. I know the sorry. So being that we are the the conduit for the funding, let's say hypothetically, a CDE does do, like an audit as to whether or not Riverstone broke or violated, Constitution. Okay. So if they decide to take back their funding now,
does that leave us on the hook to resolve any financial discrepancies? LA VERE WRIGHT: Peter, why don't you do the technical? HILTS: So we actually have direct evidence of this because as we went through the audit that we talked about more last year, it was an audit about primarily around a bell schedules and, and contact hours. Some of the ERBOCES schools were subject to that same analysis. Some of their individual students didn't meet the requirements. So they created a liability, okay. Their programs and their schools and students created a liability.
They paid that liability directly. We didn't we didn't pay any of that. We paid our part. Some of our charter schools paid their part. And so I will say from an administrative point of view, the level of scrutiny both from the audit unit at CDE as well as our financial audit as well as the the public transfer of funds, I can say with great confidence we can track every single dollar. The only thing I would sharply disagree with in Mr. Heil’s presentation is the idea that there's untraceable money.
If there's untraceable money and a black hole, someone's committing a crime. And and I'll city state with great confidence that that money is traceable. It may not end up in buckets that we like, but we can trace it to where where it ends up. It may end up in the in the revenue of a for profit third party contractor. And the law explicitly allows that. So, my, my observation is that, the way the state manages revenues and refunds
insulates us from financial liability because it's the BOCES liability, not the district's liability. LA VERE WRIGHT: Okay, so where are you landing right now on this? WRIGHT: I am receptive and open to continuing. Like, as per the CDE and what they say as far as, like the, the next school year, because like I said, I hate absolutely hate the idea of displacing students.
I think that's awful thing to do. That being said, I think Director Heil said that given the situation that we are allotted two members. Right. I think that we need to do our due diligence with oversight, and I and that's the only way I will agree to, so lingering sort of. LA VERE RIGHT: Right now, you can't. So we need to give it we need to give it time to figure out what the configuration of the BOCES is.
Elizabeth just dropped out before Elizabeth dropped out. We were only entitled to one. You're entitled to two. Only when I believe it's one district and one AG. And the problem with that is that because the configuration is shifted, I've been on. I was on the board at times when we were the only district, and I've been on it when we've had as many as two other districts. And, what the configuration is of the board shifts each of those times. And so we need to give them a few months to figure out what their state, what their configuration is going to be in the next year.
Before we look at whether we're designating another member onto their board, because we can't do that until we know what their bylaws and configuration are going to be based on who their membership may be. And districts do in fact join and and join based on often more than the board composition who the superintendent has been because the workload often in terms of participating in the air bases fell on the superintendent. And so the superintendent in the district would be like,
this is something I'm passionate about, I want to be a part of it. And they would convince their board to join, and then that superintendent would move on and the board would be like, well, our new superintendent really doesn't want to have to sit on that board, and none of us want the extra commitment either. So we're going to step out. So more than political uproar, that was huge enough. Elizabeth has been different. There has been political uproar with Elizabeth. Right. That has been very public. But for the most, most of those times that there were those changes,
it was about that because it's an extra commitment, it's an extra obligation. And they'd say it's no longer worth it for us. Because the folks who were willing to give that time aren't part of our organization anymore. So that has been kind of what I've observed. But I think in terms of their board configuration, we have to wait for them to figure out what their configuration is going to be in the next year or so. Lori. THOMPSON: Just a quick note that there are other districts that are looking at potentially joining the BOCES and also any additional
board members that come on have to also be voted on by the BOCES board. So right now you're right, there is an upcoming potential change. And I think that will be determined in August. So one At-Large member has been replaced. And we're going to see what's going to happen in August. HILTS: May I may speak to the board with just a little bit of perspective because, I think something very critical is going to happen. And I appreciate Mike bringing this to this level of scrutiny now. And, and I'll explain my myself until in 2007, I had dinner with this nice guy, this charter school founder.
He had started a network of charter schools, primarily serving immigrants, ran in him. A few years later when he was a representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. And I was at a conference. We talked for a while. Then he became our governor. And he's been a strong supporter of school innovation, the charter school world. He's been a supporter of home school enrichment programs, including ERBOCES. He came down in person and visited that Haven program that he spoke about. And I say all of that because we probably have the most favorable the conditions for what the BOCES has done
as a disruptive entity, an innovative entity, a boundary pusher. Those conditions have probably already peaked. And whether we have, respectfully, I'm not a political prognosticator, but whether, wiser or Bennett is is governor, I think one of them is most likely. And the polls indicate that neither of them have demonstrated the same kind of commitment that our current governor has. And so it is entirely reasonable that the legislation that got
derailed this year is going to come back again. We had issues with homeschool, home school enrichment a year ago. We lobbied we had issues again this year. There were a couple of competing models that didn't come to fruition. And and we've talked about what did I think it is likely that there will be a return to a more aggressive, essentially an anti BOCES, particularly anti BOCES, maybe even anti home school enrichment. And so getting this level of scrutiny is perfectly appropriate.
We need to think about and I'm going to I'm going to request of you as a board to think about how you might commission your ERBOCES board delegate our member on that board to do things like increase transparency, to do things like, create criteria, don't wait for CDE or the legislature to create criteria for what constitutes an appropriate and high quality enrichment program. Lead create those so that you can hold those up to public scrutiny.
I was involved in a bunch of discussions this year about some criteria by which you could determine if a program was legitimate or not. Let the ERBOCES with our encouragement, lead that discussion. Absent that kind of leadership and forethought, we we could be having a very, very more difficult decision where we don't really have the option of retaining those funds or retaining these choices. And so we need to amend it. Or the legislation, legislature in particular, is going to end it.
LA VERE WRIGHT: Mike. HEIL: Yeah. And that is part of why I wanted to bring up the fact that we are now eligible for two, board members because as the only member currently, we have some leverage right now and we could vote to remain with stipulations. And one of those stipulations could be that the board being out of compliance in its current composure, needs to be reformed. And so we would then ask Pikes Peak State
to send a compliant member, the D 49 board would send two members and then that that and those three would then add the At-Large members who live in D 49. And now you've got a real opportunity for reform. And so now you can start to require transparency. You can start reviewing programs, etc.. So that's one way forward where D 49 can demonstrate that, you know, we understand that the
that there's a problem here and this is how we're going to address it. LA VERE WRIGHT: Lori. THOMPSON: Under the current configuration we cannot approve new programs. So there's not a matter of that. Matter of fact, Governor Polis came in, toured one of the ERBOCES, home school enrichment programs and was very supportive and lobbied on behalf of er Boces. So it sounds really good of we'll, we'll crack down the hammer. But just so you know, they're already working on the configuration issue. And so one At-Large member has been replaced.
We're going to see what's going to happen in August. And the state is the one who requires the financial transparency. So just to be clear, it's not a matter of us necessarily cracking a whip, but I am more than happy to carry anything from this board to the ERBOCES board. And I will reiterate again, please come attend one of their meetings. Thank you. LA VERE WRIGHT: I do think we have to wait to figure out what their membership is going to look like, because you're going to scare people in
and scare them off, and it's crazy and it's I believe one board member and the superintendent is usually when it's a two, it's a board member and an administrator who are on it, rather than two board members, if I remember correctly. So we would be essentially assigning Peter, an additional duty. So before we make him cancel his Alaska trip to go show up to a BOCES meeting, I think we should wait and see what their configuration is going to be. I think we, given especially what we know, and it is in the air,
but I will say that I have when I was on the board, I was trying to be cautionary tale quite frequently, actually. I was the person who would poke back and say, hey, have we thought about that was a part of my role. I was I was one of the annoying people, because I, I like pursuing innovation, but I'm also a rule follower. So those two pieces together, sometimes made me be the person who was at a in a clashing position. But I think that point of this being the wake up call to the BOCES as an entity of
how do we improve those things is important, and should be a part of the message of the fact that we're even having this discussion. And I think it merits saying maybe we come up, maybe we have a discussion once we see where this what the structure is looking like to say, what are the things that we need to then ask them about, because the legislature really has already basically put a brake on, there's a hard brake. They not only can't add any more programs, but I believe they can't increase number of students in any of the existing programs.
And so they're literally only going to be able to serve the students they have, or replace. Like if a student leaves, I think they can replace them because they can keep the same number of students in each program. It's pretty locked down. And in the meantime, that gives them time to start rebuilding and reflecting on what can this be to serve our community in the future. Peter. HILTS: I think the restrictions you just mentioned apply to homeschool enrichment programs, not to the Multidistrict online programs or the brick and mortar schools that they operate.
Although there are there are still some other answered questions about what happens to the schools that are currently operating that are based in, based outside currently of district 49. Those questions are not yet answered. LA VERE WRIGHT: But I anticipate they're going to be answered at volume. And it may depend on whether additional school districts join as members of the Boces. That that would dramatically change the conversation depending on where they are in. There are some real advantages to have other districts, in terms of long term
components of what the BOCES could be, and that would bring what that would make my heart joyful, because I had been advocating for that, since 2015. I think in terms of what what it could be. So I would love to see that. But I think that giving that time to wait. So but at this point, the decision point is are we staying a member or not? I'm of the we give them at least this year and Lori becomes a stronger voice for how do we build something that helps build relationship and community, especially recognizing what that new
political, reality is going to be. So it sounds like the consensus we have a majority consensus to continue membership at this time, which means we don't need an item added to the special meeting regarding this. Mike. HEIL: I just wanted to clarify that when I did the cover page, the suggestion was an action item going forward to either rescind or affirm our membership. So we could still do. But I, I leave that to the discretion of the president.
And I do want to point out that, you know, we have that window of opportunity to mend it because we've chosen not to end it. But, as we give them an opportunity to reconfigure their board and add new district members, even that opportunity to mend it, at least from this board's perspective, we've essentially given up that opportunity. So. LA VERE WRIGHT: Any other comment or question on this item? WITHERS: Like I said, I think, moving forward, it's fine, just as long as we do have those stipulations in place.
And, I'm, I'm hoping that any of the perceived shenanigans are behind and all these children can get to these programs that they've been raving about. Yeah. LA VERE WRIGHT: Okay, so I think we're then ready, for our second public comment. And we have one person who has been waiting patiently and excitedly. Lanette.
HEIL: I would have ended this a long time ago to hear from you. DEPAUL: Okay, board. Brace yourself. So. As you know, I'm not sitting up there because I've been in court most of the week and today we were successful in, in my defamation case. So I am here by clearing my name. I won the case this the second time now and I'm ready to celebrate. And I just want to say thank you to the board and District 49. For supporting me. It just shows.
You guys value me as an employee. Thank you. [applause] LA VERE WRIGHT: Great job. And Lanette, thank you for being willing to stand up and be a named person in that suit, because I think there were, many people who work for the district who were in a similar position,
and you were the one willing to step forward and say, enough is enough and let, the decision to sue on something like that is always difficult because it's also traumatic to go through, even though you know you were right and the other person, what the other person was doing was wrong and continues to be wrong, and getting the court decision is a vindication. But the pain of going through it for the last two years, over two years, with the continued public attacks, has been ridiculous. Yet it sends a message to everyone about how unwarranted those are
and hopefully sends a message to other staff members as well. And so thank you for being willing to be the face on that as well. So now, does anyone have anything for miscellaneous? Then we are adjourned at 9:22pm.