e e e e e e e e e e
e e are you doing well well pass my greetings please togy there you goad yeah yes yes let me know so yes did today your e
see you're doing a pi status for as much of next week as he's here because he's going back to New Orleans I think um my thought being that maybe we'll friend have to be my generation
autl St aut I got her aut a lot my my youngest daughter was her first trip she was she's 11 Yanke
I put I put a lot it thank you I'm just looking to see who all are you are okay were you looking for something no I was just looking we just moved into the district so oh okay I'm just see who's
ladies and gentlemen welcome to the September 12th 2024 Board of Education regular meeting the time is take a look 6:33 p.m. and I am calling this meeting to order can I get a roll
call toala here Hy here Schmidt here leier Wright here Thompson here can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance
unit States can I get a motion to approve the agenda I move to approve the agenda second any discussion can I get a vote dalala i h i Le right I Schmid I
Thompson I okay we are on to public comment we appreciate and welcome comments from our stakeholders as part of District 49's open Forum please remain in your seats until called to the podium by the Board
of Education chair once called upon please approach the podium state your name and relationship to the district before beginning please speak into the microphone written statement ments may be left in the basket yeah it is there
okay may be left in the basket we ask that you not address anyone in the audience and that your comments be made in a respectful and orderly manner to fulfill our values of trust and respect we declin to create a form for attacks or criticism against
specific staff members students or other stakeholders therefore with the exception of members of the Board of Education super or the superint attendant personal complaints against individuals connected with the school system are prohibited in this form
follow-up action items may be assigned to the superintendent in accordance with board policy bedh open foreign participation is limited to two minutes per person it is the practice of the Board of Education to withhold any
comment or direction to the superintendant until after all who have signed up for open Forum have had a chance to speak I would also like to make you aware of our stakeholder grievance process this process can be initiated by anyone in our d49 community
and guides the stakeholder through the correct people in process to help resolve their concern including as a final step the opportunity to formally appeal to the Board of Education we encourage you to utilize this process if
warranted as many have successfully resolved their concerns this way thank you for participating in our our open Forum the views and opinions expressed in public forum are those of the commentators and do not necessarily represent official policy or positions
of District 49 or the Board of Education and since we have four people signed up you can go ahead and sit in these seats and then come up in this order um destiny toi an Easton Larry
Langston and Timothy what's the last name Weber and so if Destiny toi could come to the podium good evening thank you for a brief moment to speak here this evening as a resident of District 20 and a
homeschool family that is also able to use programs offered in d49 I just just wanted to take a moment to thank you as a board I understand that you are welcoming of charter schools as well as those families like mine who choose to homeschool their children and
participate in enrichment curriculum that is offered by d49 programs like Falcon AOL laab and Patriot High Schools culinary arts have benefited our two children two of our four um these are opportunities they would not have had otherwise our
daughter graduated this spring and spent all four years Learning to Fly she flew before she could drive and has found what she loves and um a solid career path and 18 years old she will have her private pilot's license before the end
of this year 2024 our son is a sophomore and has started training in education under chef lustig at Patriot High School and is loving every minute of it and is his sight set on running his own business one day d49 and this board have shown themselves to be supportive of
families in our community through avenues like these I appreciate uh that you have worked to maintain local control of charter schools and enrichment programs recognizing what is best in our own backyard raising children is harder than
ever every family and every child is different so I just want to thank you for encouraging and supporting a variety of avenues for parents to provide the education that works best for their family and child being less agenda driven than many school districts of
across Colorado and instead operating in support of parents and families thank you um Anna Easton hi my name is an Easton and I'm a former special education teacher in d49 you know this is an amazing world world we live in with many unexpected
twists and turns on Tuesday I attended a funeral uh one of my dear friends husband died on September 3rd he just died and it was shocking and now she's fighting to rebuild her life I brought this up because when these things happen you take stock of the things in your world and you want to take care as many
as you can earlier this month I learned that d49 school beard members two schoolb members sent a letter to the city council about a position that was open and a person known to them had applied that person was not selected as leaders in our community they spoke up against the sit about the situation that
concerned them and they took the time to share their concerns with the appropriate people I'm here to thank you uh for stepping up to support our community at large I personally believe we all have to get involved in all aspects of our community to get through these crazy
times as you probably know diversity equity and inclusion and social emotional learning are being greatly reduced and disbanding in many uh large corporations generally this is because the public is rejecting the products and services wrapped around Dei Dei is
dying uh it will take time to get through the damage that's been done but with strong leadership like you who can stand up for the community we will get there and remove de eii thank you again for allowing me to address this the board and thank you for acting in such a
manner thanks thank you Larry Langston my name is Larry Langston and uh former I had two former students at d49 and I want to thank you guys board for serving I really appreciate what you're doing because I could never do this anyway the reason
I'm here I'm talking about the 15th annual Falcon craft fair which is happening out at Falcon High School on the 5ifth and 6th of October 9 to3 on the 5th and on the 11th to three on the 6th and I'd appreciate
oh sorry I'd appreciate if you tell your friends let them know about it it's going to really be a good Fair my friend's one one of the ones setting it up thank you thank you Timothy Weber hello I'm Timothy Weber uh I just
moved into the district two weeks ago um and I was hit with a curveball as far as no bus transportation for my kid to get to school um me and my wife had to change our work schedules um they said there was 18 people on the waiting list
to catch a bus to school and I was wondering what the district was doing about that as far as transportation for our kids in the district so thank you thank you now we're on to the consent agenda and
by the way we will be following up with you just so you know that it's not that no one is responding directly we will get back with you with information on that um does anyone have an item does anyone have an item to be pulled from the consent agenda
can I get a motion to approve all consent agenda items as presented I move to approve all consent agenda items as presented second any [Music] discussion can we get a vote
toala i h i l Wright I Schmidt I Thompson I and that passes and we are on to the superintendent update so good evening uh Peter Hil superintendent and um tonight just
because of the meeting this is and where this falls in the annual calendar uh what I want to share with the board and and the community is performance by the numbers as you know because I sent you a preview email uh a little over a week ago um we got our district and school
performance reports from the state initially we did not have have the reports for Patriot High School and go high school which are alternative education campuses but we have since gotten those as well and so um these are the numbers that reflect performance in
District 49 9779 [Music] 63200 and 2 million and I don't know that you can guess what those mean so a walk down 97 is the percentage of schools that
maintained or improved their level of performance on the CDE school performance framework 29 out of 30 of our schools did really well so congratulations to our our teachers our paraeducators principales students
that's fantastic um now you're going to want to keep those hands hands warmed up because every one of these numbers is a is a win you're going to be tired of winning before I'm done um last year two of our schools earned 74 or more points
74 is the threshold for distinction and as you know being a district of Distinction is one of our big hairy audacious goals well there is no way a district gets there unless its schools get there so last year we had two schools hit the mark of Distinction this
year we had seven and so that's a remarkable achievement one of those was Patriot High School on the aec framework uh that scored 75 points the next number is nine we had nine of
our schools make doubl digigit year-over-year Improvement on their SPF score so that's a big [Applause] deal in our elementary schools the number was six because we test science math and English language arts and we
test for achievement and growth and so our our elementary schools had six opportunities to score and they improved their performance in all six so they went six and0 um fantastic growth and uh Improvement and achievement as well and
so six subjects we three is a key number um because all three of our levels elementary middle and high school all improved the average Improvement in the state of Colorado kind of bouncing back from covid was right under 2% our schools improved on an average 6% so we
we tripled the Improvement percentages across the state of Colorado which is a fantastic accomplishment both of our two is a number two of our two two out of two alternative education campuses uh improved their performance and earned
that performance rating that we're looking for and zero zero is the number of schools in District 49 on the accountability clock we have zero schools in turnaround status and zero schools in priority Improvement and I am confident that next
next year I'm going to tell you we don't even have a school in Improvement status because the ones we have are are so close to tipping up and over and you'll see those scores as we as we get into a little bit more of the detail later on in the year um 100 this might be my
favorite number on this list 100 is the percentage of Title One schools in District 49 that earned a performance rating the highest rating on cde's standard and so because there are times when when the word is a little bit controversial I want to point something
out um there are places where the word Equity would be applied to Title One schools because there is some attempt to change the outcome to manipulate the outcome our Title One schools students teachers principes parent educators are
held to exactly the same standard as every other school in the state of Colorado they get they take the same test at the same time with the same conditions nobody is doing a thing to the outcome but what we are doing is using the federal dollars that are
targeted for schools that have a higher percentage of students living in poverty we are providing extra resources we are providing extra support so we're providing access and opportunity on the front end and the outcome took care of
itself um you're going to have to look long and far to find a district where all of their Title One schools are performing and you won't find find them in this region this is a remarkable achievement and the final number is 2 million I am technically constrained
from telling you what the 2 million are but I can tell you that soon you will have 2 million reasons to celebrate and forecast future math improvements in District 49 so once I can go fully public with that I will but
977 96320 100 2 million tells you that d49 is doing a lot of things right thank you it is going to be pretty hard to top that this evening but if we could go on to the student Board of Representatives
you can give us updates on what's happening in your schools should we start off then with Katherine and go left to right here um well Lots going on a lot of great things um for
one um I'd like to just congratulate our football team um they be Eric academy by a great deal um and this is San Creek High School by the way um there is one thing that I would like
to point out um is we have a lot of students and um it's great I'm happy we have a lot of students and there's also the point of there's also not a lot of room
in our school um so if there is a way and I know that's going to be hard in some cases but if there is a way to um increase the space inside our school just because of how big students are
just for other schools too because I'm sure there's a lot a lot more students building up at other schools too if that's a possibility but I'm loving everything that's going on in my school so far Katherine would you mind sharing
with the audience just a few of the activities you're involved with in at San Creek High School and Juliet if you could do the same when it's your turn I think that the audience should hear what we were Hearing in the back room um sure so so I am
a um High School senior and I current for the past four years I've been in NHS I have been doing Roc and I'm currently the chief Master Sergeant and I am in marching band uh
and I'm the horn Sergeant for our marching band and this year I'm hoping that we can make State because I'm seeing a lot of great promises with our marching band um I used to be in student council um
but I dropped that because I do a lot um um but I really enjoy what I do and I think that's important okay Juliet you can choose your order if you want to do your report first and then tell us what you're involved with or vice versa we can do it
either way okay um my name is Juliet Olson I'm a senior at vridge High School um I am student body president um of student council which has been such an amazing experience so far I also um run cross country um I would say vistor
Ridge is having a very good start to its year this year we've definitely seen a lot of effort to improve our school culture um with more school spirit um a lot of that is thanks to um newer Administration such as our principal and
just the work of the students and trying to get the students more involved it is homecoming week this week and we've had a ton of student participation in a lot of our events which is amazing um and a lot of improvement from past years um and then for the student board as a
whole we are just getting into working on continuing our resolutions this year that we had last year so we will have um two students presenting to principles about going to our middle and elementary schools and
really hearing what those students have to say about what's going on in the in the district so I think overall um the student board is also doing very well thank [Applause]
you director Schmidt so this month I've only had a couple events and both of them were really fun and not really business sorry um the first one was the field day at been at Ranch Elementary School Field Day has always been my favorite when I
was a kid long time ago and I always helped with my kids Field Days too it was nice to see another generation of field days so I really appreciate that they had a really good variety of outdoor activities and they had music
and art stations for the kids who are more interested in those activities um middle school students came down from the middle school and helped run each station so I really like to see them coming back and giving back
I think that's really really a positive um the festivities ended with the legendary truck pool and if you guys don't know what that is uh they set up two trucks with ropes and each of the students compete against their parents
to see who can get their truck to the end of the parking lot first it was really amazing to see all the kids but I got to say the pride in the faces of the kindergarten students for the first time they were pretty proud of
themselves um it was really organized it was safe it was fun and Mr Ben Wells who is the PE teacher over there did a great job did a really good job um my second event this month was the all staff event
at Sand Creek High School the staff event is high energy and could never in any way be considered boring or quiet this event allows to celebrate a pep rally atmosphere some of the good things about d49 the spirit Award winner this year
was Remington Elementary School they came dressed as Horses with cow bells and they even choreographed a line dance in the parking lot Mr Hilt shared the good news that he shared with us tonight um and we had sponsors donate to put
together gift backpacks for those that were winning some of the games and the fun dra drawings um I was very impressed that we had cheerleaders from all three high schools and I was very impressed with Christian beroff his speech was very heartfelt and I think very
inspiring for both the teachers and the staff so both of them were a nice celebration of our district and it was a great break from business as usual thank you director Hy so um as we heard at the last regular
meeting um uh coach Izzy over at um spring studio um he was coaching he was in Paris to coach uh gold medal winning wrestler uh Sarah hilderbrand and uh
when he came back from Paris the the school held a surprise honoring of him and I was there to to watch it and uh you know the the whole tribute they put together a video they they really went all out for him and you could I he was
standing right next to me as he was watching the video and you could tell that he was he was really feeling honored and moved so uh I just want to congratulate um everybody who was involved in planning that it was a it was a beautiful event um I've been
really really busy now as the uh school year is getting going so I attended a um casby seminar on Title 9 changes and how they affect us in Colorado the different statuses of the of the the legal challenges just so that we have some awareness um I attended the first skiak
meeting of the year I attended the first long range facilities planning committee of the year so that is where we are taking on that challenge of finding you some more space um and then uh upcoming events um
uh by special invitation ation of the president of the PTA I will be at Evans Elementary tomorrow night for the Multicultural event so that'll be 5: to 7:00 p.m. so come on down if you uh want to be a part of that um yeah on then on Tuesday we've got districtwide we're
going to have a Constitution Day activities you're going to hear more about that um tonight um and then another event that I'm really excited to attend um Sarah hilderbrand the gold medalist she's gonna she's been invited to speak to our middle schoolers at
Spring studio and uh so I'm going to do my best to attend that you know skip out on a little bit of work um uh one thing I really want everybody to know about that I'm I'm doing um the state is organizing panels to try to Define what
adequate funding of schools are and so I have volunteered to serve on one one of those panels and so I will be representing the d49 voice there I don't know what adequate funding looks like but I do know that it doesn't look like $150 Million worth of deferred
maintenance and a $5 million budget to handle it and it doesn't look like professional staff who are being paid significantly less than they can earn out in the free market so um I'll be I'll be putting my energy into that
thank you director Olia Wright so um a few things one the the shout out for Coach Izzy is also a reminder of yet again the innovation in District 49 um and Mr Franco I believe
was responsible for bringing the um the high performance athlete program and connection into spring studio and the campus school as a um making that Community aware of the opportunities that we had available to support their students and so again that idea of
looking at recognizing that different amilies and different kids need different things and making sure that we're expanding those offerings just as we heard also from a D20 parent our D20 resident who is using many of the services we offer because that is our
purpose here is to focus on our kids and focus on providing the opportunities the kids who exist today need um which are different than what maybe I needed um 30 years ago when I was in high school and so that's another example of a program that took time and effort for multiple
boards to invest that now we have people on the international stage connected to d49 in multiple ways um and that's pretty awesome uh another piece we had a speaker mention the craft fair that they're going to be hosting over at
Falcon High I believe that is on the same day as the Falcon High School homecoming parade um and also a Harvest Festival at Falcon high school that will be held um in the parking lot so there has been a great effort to combine comine different things from our
community um some that are directly connected to the school and the um homecoming game which is I believe the following weekend and celebrating our Zone and our schools and some that are for our wider Community to access as well so I encourage everybody to come and participate and support our
community and help build and continue to build the community that is Falcon um there are a lot of great things out there and the more opportunity we have for people who aren't necessarily directly connected to our schools to see how great our kids are and for our kids and families to see how great some of
those other community resources are the stronger we become as a community so please support both I am also the liaison to the Falcon Education Foundation we just had our meeting um I don't have a date to give you yet but I can tell you that theme will be tentatively 80s so as you're looking
through your closet save 80s the other um comment was I wanted to remind our student Board of Representatives members that when you brought um resolutions forward last year some of them would have required funding to try and Implement and one suggestion is to
consider partnering with a teacher um who would be willing to sponsor that piece um to write a minig grant and Falcon Edge Foundation gives quite a bit of money out every year to projects my personal recommendation would be no matter who agrees to partner to sponsor
um which whichever piece you would like to bring forward also have a teacher connected that will help write it that has been successful in Grants in the past um there are people who are known for getting them multiple years in a row at every high school and at every school in our district they're really
great go-to people to help you know how to make sure you're answering the questions correctly thank you Jamie Lynn director devola that's fine so start off with uh talking about um the fun experience I got to have at
the power Zone back to school family fun night uh that was hosted by Sky View Middle School and my daughter and I both got to attend there and she really enjoyed the Hungry Hippos bouncy house uh the fishing for prizes station which I'm sure she fished about four times
before they told her she couldn't do it anymore um eating cotton candy and then blowing lots and lots of bubbles um Power Zone did a great job of putting this on fun f family event together and I'm hoping that we can attend it again next year very great idea that you guys
had uh I also was able to attend the first daak meeting of the year um which is actually called the District accountability advisory committee and this committee is made up of representatives from the school account accountability Committees of all of our
schools including our Charters and this is a very important committee and I would love to invite all parents if you are listening to this board meeting um to to Really um see if you are able to
attend your schools uh School accountability committee and then become a representative on that committee and then you could also be on the deck we need a lot more parent voices um these are important voices that help us to
make decisions for d49 and how we are run and what we do and um those parent voices are are very much needed currently most of our DAC members um are teachers and administrators and we love having them there however the DAC is
supposed to be more of a parent advisory committee and we are lacking representation of uh just parents now we do have parents who are also teachers we value those voices as well so please contact your child's School uh principal if you are interested in being on your
school's School Academy accountabil ah starting of our school accountability committee or the deck we really appreciate your involvement is very very necessary and important thank you and I will have to see how well I
can translate some of my notes I actually have recently been diagnosed with carpel tunnel and I'm dropping things a lot and so the other day I dropped half a quar of serve each in the kitchen and I coated 50% of the K the kitchen and my husband made a comment
that when I make a mess I make an extraordinary mess and I informed him that I did not wake up that morning to be ordinary so hopefully I can get through some of these notes over here along with uh Jam Lynn um I attended the
power Zone Funday and it really was a great day just so you know it was hosted at Sky View Middle School but it was all ages and so we had current student student Board of Representatives there we had former members we had high school we had Elementary and it was so much fun
um I danced a little too much in the Heat and kind of ended up a little redac because I still think I can do a little bit more than I can actually do but it was a blast uh Jamie Lynn and I were invited to an education Summit with board members from around the state we
couldn't stay for the entire day but it was just a a wonderful event we received up dates on the read act legislative updates uh there was a legal panel there was a lot of collaboration among different board members and it was a
really really great event um I attended Peak View 2024 along with Deb and a host of caffeinated teachers and staff and let me tell you they were loud
and of course the spirit award I think Was Won by those shiny uh shorts that that one gentleman was wearing from Remington definitely those were eye-catching I'm I'm surprised he could breathe um I did receive actually some uh contacts from people around the
neighborhood because we took over the neighborhood with parking um so we might want to work on some more busing opportunities uh I had to park up above the football field and then I had to walk down Carefree to get into the building but it was an incred incredible
event and it was really fun to watch the different schools everyone was very well represented uh there wasn't enough seats we're growing as a district I think we're going to have to take over movie theater or something to host this event so we can provide seats for everyone so it was a wonderful
day I attended uh the seak committee and uh just so you're aware that's special education advisory Council and this one I might run over I might run a little bit into administrative updates but uh we still need another parent co-chair
volunteer we for the last few years have partnered with District 11 in District 20 to do a special education resource fair this fair was not just for families with kids in school it also serviced adults throughout the community who
might have special needs we will not be having the resource fair this fall and the reason why is the two people who were coordinating with District 11 and District 20 their kids have graduated and what we need is we need volunteers we need parents who will
volunteer we had a discussion could we possibly host the resource fair in the springtime now I know that this resource fair and and Marie can vouch for it it's an incredible event where we get providers from around El Paso County
that offer different Services everything from applying for Social Security disability benefits for caregivers for respit care for all kinds of resources both for kids and for adults so um we did have a grandparent during the
meeting who volunteered to help out a little bit more Samantha Hollister has done an amazing job she's trying to transition out but there's no one to kind of pick up the reins to help out so if you have a heart for special education um we could really use
volunteers to help put pull this together we will not be having monthly meetings we are moving to quarterly meetings and we're going to try to get speakers on different aspects of special education needs and we're going to try to make them kind of kid-friendly
events and then I have I'm going to roll over to administrative updates I have a report from our representative for ER bosies that John sent over to me and if I can't pull this up rather quickly I
think I'll just find a way to upload it yeah if if you don't mind pulling it up and if you could read that board update for me so uh our representative our good friend John Graham uh wrote wrote a
slightly longer report um but this is the the essential gist of it the the the bosis which is the education re-envisioned bosis of which we are a founding member uh along with uh Pikes PE then Community College and and the um
school district has now 54 schools and programs their budgeted enrollment so just as we have a budgeted Target they do as well is 9,961 students and they are at 9,750 with more students joining their
programs and we will expect they'll get more through the rest of the month up to the October account and their FTE out of those 900 9,750 students their FTE is
7,354 because many of their student count are halftime or part-time students so they count as one half FTE uh but that is still a very significant operation um that is affiliated with District 49 and so those funds flow
through uh former I connect Zone superintendent Andy Franco was at the erbos in a leadership role he has now left the ER bosis and is supporting many of our charter schools and in his stad Trevor Miller uh son of our own Brad
Miller has been selected to fill the position and work with the ER bosis and so uh that organization is very mature very stable and doing very good things for students all over the state of Colorado I added that editorial part
John you're welcome the other uh administrative update we have launched our new website and I don't know if you know how hard the comms team works but if you get a chance go ahead visit the new website and look at all of the incredible
updates that they post about on our District web page our Facebook page just to see everything that's going on in the district we received a great email from um a grandparent with Evans Elementary that talked about their project growing micro
greens and I know for a fact right now we have three grandparents from Evans in this room right now so they are growing micro greens and I was thinking this is wonderful they'll not only learn science of growth now if they're like me they we could also do an economic lesson and the
board president can say how that she planted late and we get a very measly yield this year for the amount of time and money invested in fertilizer Etc but the fact that if we can get our kids eating more salads and I think it there it ties in with the wonderful resolution
we had on composting from our student Board of Representatives also our student board they're going to be going into our middle schools and our elementary schools to get information from kids on what they would like carried forth by the older students um
commissioner gner was speaking at I think it was Bennett Ranch Elementary and she comes every year to talk about governance and she gets a list every student has to write out something they want her to consider for legislative
needs one of the most important ones that were coming out of Bennett Ranch was they need more ice cream trucks in the neighborhood so it's really important to have kids involved to hear what they have to say to make them part of the process and uh so I'm just really
grateful when these things are brought to my my attention and I really love what the comm's team does with the magazine and with the Facebook page so if you visit our Facebook page you get to see exciting events throughout the district and I'm really proud of what
everyone has been doing thank you can I get a motion for action item 7.1 I move to to approve the official survey date for impact Aid Second do we have any discussion can I get a vote dalala i h i
liia Wright I Schmidt I Thompson I can I get a motion for action item 7.2 I move to approve and execute the supplemental appropriation documents for fund 19
second any discussion and by the way I should bring in the student board just so you can we're discussing first off as the impact Aid because we have a lot of military connected students by having these forms returned on impact Aid we can actually
draw more resources and funds into the district and so I don't know have you guys received those I think we just approved those forms but you've probably seen them in the past when they go home everyone gets one to see if you are military connected the other thing we're discussing right now is a supplemental
appropriation because we needed a little bit more money for preschool so that would be a supplement to the budget and I don't know if you guys have any questions or anything so far that you'd like to uh I do not thank you okay
I don't have any questions either okay we're not actually we're so on the supplemental appropriation we're approving both we also received extra resource specifically for preschool so just as kind of a Clarity piece um we we
have to technically approve that they spend the money that we collected for preschool on preschool we collected more money than we were than we had originally budgeted because we had a more successful preschool program than we predicted so but we have to approve the expense of that resource in the
supplement just so we didn't take money from some other part of the budget to cover a shortfall in preschool this is there was Revenue that came in that was also spent on preschool that we have to technically approve what she said all right can I get a vote please
devala i h i leier Wright I Schmidt I Thompson I I and that motion passes can I get a motion on action item 7.5 I move to approve the 2025 graduation dates and
times second and that was 7.3 I apologize is there any further discussion on graduation dates by the way did you guys attend any of the graduations last year that were held at the World Arena what did you think of
the venue did you like that I yeah I thought it was great I thought it definitely made the students feel very recognized and a very good graduation so yeah if I may I really liked the venue it was huge and it made me feel like I was CU I presented the colors for our
high school's graduation so it made me feel like I was important even though I wasn't grad uating and it was just awesome venue and so what we've done is we've been we we did it last year we're going to do it again this year we moved our
graduations to the World Arena and there were some on the student board who mentioned that it was further to drive um the differences is that we had more uh easy access for otherly abled students um in the past when we were graduating it is it called Vibes field
now um there was a little bit of an issue with if you had wheelchair if you had other mobility issues and also this may surprise you but the weather in Colorado can change and when you're indoors at the World Arena um it's a little bit of a
safer venue for that so is there any other discussion on the graduation dates hey can I get a vote tala I Hy i l r i Schmid I Thompson I
can I get a motion for action item 7.4 I move to approve the resolution for Constitution Day second and could we go ahead and um would one of you like to read that
resolution for Constitution Day if someone other than me can do it because I have a broken tooth and my jaw is killing me that would be awesome Director D you want to read it I will gladly take that resolution National Constitution Day September 17th 2024
whereas District 49 recognizes the importance of the US Constitution and the development of our country and whereas District 49 is dedicated to providing a quality education for all students and whereas District 49 exemplifies the best traditions of our
constitutional republic including a robust system of public education and whereas the choices available to students and parents through d49 portfolio of school schools embodied the democratic ideal of self-determination
applied to public education and whereas the students staff and stakeholders in District 49 express pride and appreciation for the traditions of democracy enshrined in the US Constitution and where I studying the history and tradition of the United States promotes the value of Greater
civic participation and active citizenship and whereas it is appropriate for District 49 to endorse the OB observance of national Constitution Day as an opportunity to support better understanding of our nation's history and culture now
therefore we The District 49 Board of Education Proclaim September 17th 2024 National constit Constitution Day adopted and approved this 12th day of September 2024 and for our student board I wanted
to know have you participated because we do this every have you participated in some of these activities uh yes I have I think they're um very helpful for a lot of the students um just learning about the constitution in general especially at
the high school level um when you get students that are going to be a voting age soon um having days like this is very important to kind of refresh their memories and get them ready to prepare to vote so um I think I attended one it was
pretty cool um yeah do we have any other discussion I just think it's really important for our students to learn as much as they can about the Constitution
because they need to run this country one day so it's good to learn the history and how it works director H and just as I alluded to earlier tonight there are going to be a slew of events happening throughout
the district on this I wish I could tell you more about them but I just got the email on it today and I really haven't had an opportunity to get my head around it and digest it but um yeah every single school is doing something important and special to uh to help our
students understand um the Constitution director devola um I would like to say a few things about our constitution because this is very important so we're celebrating 237 years of this document uh our constitution is
the longest lasting constitution in the history of the world the average length of a constitution is 17 years so for it to last that long attests to the uh Timeless principles that are in our document um
head are leading up to the the Constitution they uh the signers of the Declaration of Independence came together at Independence Hall in order to uh discuss and talk about these issues our founding fathers were actually made up of 56 signers of the
Declaration of Independence only half had a college degree 25% of them were homeschooled 25% were orphaned or from single parent homes we had Farmers Merchants businessmen doctors a land surveyor and a scientist I bet you could
guess the last two Sam Adams was actually the poorest of our founding fathers he was so poor he had to borrow a horse in order to get there some interesting facts about that uh the Declaration of Independence is the foundation of our Constitution and our
founding fathers relied on these Timeless principles as the essential basis of our founding documents these include we get our rights and freedoms from the Creator not from government or our neighbors there is a moral right and wrong the founders called self-evident
truths and good morality and knowledge are necessary for good government and happiness of mankind and along those lines and we've gotten a lot of different like I said we got the email today on the different events um there is also something
available to teachers in our districts subject of course to princip approval um so far this program has been in several of our charter schools and it also is at Sky View um Middle School constituting America they offer free classes they
come in and teach the classes um I think they are let me take a look here this is grades 4 through 12 and they are 45 to 90 minute presentations they include engaging videos created by
students for students as well as prizes for participating students and each student will receive a personal copy of the US Constitution they also have the we the future contest which includes monetary prizes for all grade levels and DC trips offered to middle schools and
high school winners teachers also have an opportunity to win $2,000 when they enter their lesson plan on the Constitution and I have a an attachment for the flyer um and for their events so
this is a free presentation that any teacher can take advantage of to have them come into your classroom and teach this class and I will forward more of this information on to superintendent hiltz to share with whoever would like more information on it and I have talked
to one of the teachers who took advantage of this at Sky View and he was blown away by the content of this program so I it's a free program that I hope we can utilize and that's what I have on the con institution so let's take a vote on this
resolution and by the way I hope you notice this particular resolution every director gets to sign I don't know if you saw that on your board docs so can I get a vote tala I Hy I laier
Wright I Schmid I Thompson I and that passes with pride [Applause] can I get a motion for action item 7.5 I move to approve the recommended policy updates listed under policy
procedure and review second discussion director Schmidt um I'm going to be the rebel on this one obviously I am a lot of times there were 28 policies with edits that's
a lot and I want you to know I really appreciate it and actually what we're doing on this is we're just doing edits just the redline versions or in some cases green so it's not like we're redoing 208 policies some of the changes are statutory some of the changes are
because of Law changes other ones are changing like superintendent or from chief officer to superintendent and I understand and I appreciate your diligence on really looking into each of the policies board members do have the opportunity to
request policy reviews for different agenda items and so like there's one policy that we're going to be discussing soon we just got some more updates on that the one that you want to discussed so what we're doing is we're doing edits and that's what's we're voting on
tonight we're not voting on the policies themselves we're voting on The edits to the policy any other discussion three policies actually were reviewed with no changes as well on the 28 um I don't remember the exact number
of policies we have um but as a board we're required to review all in a three-year cycle um so when you take a look at that ginormous policy book and divide it by the number of meetings we have in three years it also has quite a few policies and some of these come up
multiple times um we have a little cheat sheet here um that um Lynette does an amazing job of putting together with us it is a an amazing process Improvement that has occurred since um that was not available on my prior board service but
it lets us know why there's um what's there that we need to kind of log into so if there's something for example every time we end a legal um session so when they end in June in in Denver um there are always things
that we have to edit in our policies um right away and so some of these policies it'll say legal edit that lets us know that what we see in the red line um was required by law um so there are ways for us to be able to make um clear judgment
on on what we're reading as well because we are looking just for the portion that changed anything in black is staying the same whether we approve it or not um the black doesn't change either way only the edit does and then anything that's a really big ch change they'll bring to us
separately um unless it's one of these legal changes that we have no choice about often HR and um some student-based ones depending on what the law is but there's lots of HR stuff that comes based on state and federal every
year and I think if I went on the new website and someone can double check me if you ever want to see the documents we're referring to at the board meetings I think you go under transparency still and then you drop down to the Board of Education you can pull up the meeting
and you can pull up the meeting agenda um and so if you ever want to look and Lynette did prepare a wonderful cover sheet just showing okay no changes this is name changes and so all of that information is online and it will remain
online just like our uh meetings are on YouTube on the YouTube channel and I did think of one quick thing I hate to backtrack to the Constitution res resolution we also have a woman who has been attending board meetings here for
30 years who is uh who became a United States citizen by choice am I correct about that Ellen yeah and so when you were taking your citizenship exam you had the opportunity I assume to also learn about
the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and I'm just proud of your involvement and that you became a US citizen so thank you for [Applause] that oh can we get is there any other
discussion on those edits do you guys have any questions about the edits uh no thank you I'm all good okay so Miss Thompson I did want to reinforce something that director Olia Wright said which is our our policy manual is over 400 individual
policies the vast majority of those are are required by Statute or required by just good governance um we don't have very many frivolous or optional policies and so if you think about a three-year cycle where you will typically have
10 business meetings where you can take action that means you've got to you've got to deal with over 400 policies in 30 meetings and some of those meetings get canceled like we did in July so it really ends up being in in the 20s and
so that's why you see many meetings where you've got more than 20 but um just as as her administrative partner I want to also Kudo Lynette because the level of technical oversight that this project takes is very significant uh and
it's why she is one of the only senior executive assistants because it takes a great skill set to manage a policy manual and so I'm grateful that we have your leadership and I have the the um strength and courage to remind on many other senior people in the district when
it's their job to make sure the policy edits come forward keeping track of when they're due is very daunting um and communicating to the people who are responsible for them when they have eight million things on their plate as well and making sure everybody does
their part is a huge part and a huge thank you I and I have to remember those days and say thank you thank you thank you yes I have to uh add additional kudas on top of what um superintendent Hilt said what
what Lynette does for this district is nothing short of amazing um she is calm she is hardworking she is diligent she checks things over um and she just does an amazing job preparing for meetings
and everything she does I mean she is just just absolutely amazing we only hire the best so you're you're you're you're one of the two so you're the better half can I get a vote
please dalala Hi H i l right I Schmid no Thompson I now we were talking about resolutions with the student board and um can I get a motion for action item
7.6 I move to approve the resolution for go Academy second and we can have more discuss but I would like director devola to read this um just so you're aware we we have we have a lot of different charter
schools that we Charter under District 49 and we also Charter a Statewide program for an alternative high school called goal Academy um so we prepared a resolution that we would like casby to consider and we would also like some of our
administrative staff which will be covered in this to kind of direct lobbying efforts towards getting this done and and I'll have director deola both read the resolution and kind of give some of the thought process behind it and Catherine and Juliet I think
you'll find this one interesting all right whereas go Academy is a Statewide Alternative High School that offers hybrid Education dropin Centers and flexibility that benefit students in a variety of situations whereas go Academy is also an attractive
option for students who are behind on on their credits possibly due to life challenges and are at higher risk for dropping out whereas because of the unique population of go Academy their graduation data and academic performance is significantly lower than conventional
schools whereas the number of Statewide students of go Academy exceeds all of D 49's local high schools combined whereas less than 5% of go Academy students reside in Al Paso County whereas go
Academy's graduation data and academic performance significantly and disproportionately impacts d49 District performance framework whereas G Academy's data provides an artificial picture of graduation rates and Workforce Readiness whereas District 49
is committed to maintaining our Charter in support of go Academy throughout the state of Colorado and is proud of opportunities offered by go whereas go Academy serves an important role in increasing the number of high school graduates throughout the state whereas
students who earn a high school diploma have higher earning potential throughout their lifetime and benefit the state of Colorado therefore be it resolved that the board requests the state legislature to develop legislation to report District performance framework data in a
way that separates alternative education campus data from all other performance data be it further resolved that the board will work with the district dist lobbyist and local legislators to support such legislation be a further resolved that the board encourages gold
principles and staff to reach out to their local legislators to support such legislation approved and adopted this 12th day of September 2024 I was um honored to be invited to a teacher Gathering that was hosted by the freedom foundation and while I was there
I met a goal Academy teacher that came from I think it was outside of Fort Collins there is a goal Academy in Pueblo there is a goal Academy in walsenberg um Brad didn't you drive by a gold Drop in Center was it Durango or
where did you see one yeah Brad Miller yeah they're they're ubiquitous if you drive through the Southwest for sure and so when you're driving around the state of Colorado you're gonna see go Academy and it's it's a hybrid School there's dropin
centers where kids can get a little additional help and so 5% of those students live in El Paso County 95% of them live in the rest of Colorado when you look at our actual graduation rates they can hover anywhere between what 92
to 100% graduation rates depending on the school when you factor in goal Academy the Statewide program it can drop us down where you'll see in The Gazette Telegraph or other resources even though we've explained it to them um 56 to 57% graduation rates for
District 49 you can see the disparity but as we have mentioned at this Das multiple times we are proud of go Academy we think it serves a very important Mission and uh we take a hit for it on the district performance
framework we take a hit from it um on reporting that doesn't explain what we do because to my knowledge we are the only District that's that Charters the Statewide program I don't know if there's any others or is there we're certainly the only one that Charters
Charters a Statewide program of this size um there are some other multi-district online programs which can be Statewide when you're finished I've got a couple of comments about this um that I'm actually positive about the Gazette this year and so when you look at the depth
and the breadth of what we offer from homeschool enrichment support uh Charter School offerings of a variety everything from dyslexia to Alternative High Schools to high performance charter schools that have done a really great job and they have a different Focus um
that's why we came up with the first resolution we wrote as a board so I would like to also hear well I don't know should we go to superintendent hiltz and then go to you guys or should we go okay they are deferring to you first Peter so thank you uh so some I
said I I was positive about the Gazette this year I really appreciated that The Gazette this year added a caveat at the end of the their article that these this first distribution of reports are preliminary they're they're name they're labeled that way and that the request to reconsider process might change those
ratings um we are we are pretty confident that we have met the standard to request that that CDE recalculate our district performance framework our calculations which have been quite
accurate um in projecting all of our schools Frameworks our calculations tell us that when the aec data is removed appropriately uh equitably um all three of our levels and therefore our district
as a whole will be well above the the threshold for being accredited uh as a performance district and so we've said this for years but for a variety of reasons this is the first year uh since preo that we've been able to U make that
request and have a have a very good chance that it's going to be granted uh CDE like a lot of organizations is is badly understaffed in key positions and this is one of those offices they've been working really hard since early August on school performance framework
so it may take them yet uh a week or so um maybe even a couple of weeks before they release that and you can be sure that as soon as they do we will be shouting about that but I'll give you just a small small preview in the icon connect
Zone when goal is part of it because you know how huge they are when goal is part of the calculation their score is approaching uh I'm sorry their their score is um in in well down into the Improvement level when those alternative
education data are extracted then all of a sudden their entire High School level jumps to distinction it jumps to 76.5 um from a score down in the 40s and so that just tells you what the statistical impact is of a school of that size and like you and
Thompson I'm proud that we authorize goal we're uh in the middle of commissioning an important study about the impact of goal for the whole state of Colorado um but it is very gratifying to see what we have been saying which is
that District 49 has been and continues to be on the rise and we are uh heading toward distinction with diversity in District 49 [Applause] okay Katherine do you have any thoughts about this resolution um I think it's a interesting
resolution I wasn't here when they made this resolution um but it looks amazing um so may may I ask cuz I don't fully know if I understand what goal Academy
is um if I can can receive information about what that is I I think this is a just an area of significant public interest so I'll I'll respond uh briefly and then we can go further in Colorado if a school uh
intentionally serves students that are overcoming life obstacles and those are uh those are conditions that legally are called risk factors or high risk factors so some of those are federal factors some of them are State factors but in Colorado they're bundled together and if
a school serves a very high percentage uh 90 or 95% of their students have one or more of those risk factors then that school is called an alternative education campus and those students are
held to their their schools performance not students the students perform on exactly the same test at the same time but their school's performance um is is judged on something called the alternative Ed education campus framework or aec framework and that
standard uh acknowledges the reality that students who are overcoming all kinds of Life obstacles those could be illnesses those could be uh incarceration they could be issues within the family system um substance use um criminal activity but they're
also very often individuals that have dealt with a major life illness or perhaps they've become parents so there's a a range of things that create life obstacles and why we're so proud of go is because they are um the second or
third or final chance for many of these students there are thousands and thousands of high school graduates living in working and contributing around the state of Colorado that would not have graduated if go high school did not exist and go
high school would not exist if District 49 had not taken up uh their their authorization they they came to a point where they needed an authorizer and we were the only District that said welcome we we opened the the door we welcomed them in I'm so glad we did and they get
bigger every single year which makes their impact even bigger on our data every single year which is why I'm super proud that even though they've grown by almost a thousand students even with goals data we've still continued to improve our district performance as
they've gotten larger so that's a a very that's a very very oversimplified version of of an incredibly important school maybe the most impactful School of its kind in the nation because of its size and scope and how many students it
cares for Juliet do you have anything um I'd like to start off with saying I'm very proud to be a part of a district that is involved with go um I think I just have some questions about the um graduation
rates are the low rates that we're seeing with go just what is to be expected of an alternative education school and is that so are those low rates something that the district ourselves that we need to address or look into fixing or is that goal's
responsibility and we no take responsibility a lot of the kids who transfer into goal so they will come to go when the state calculates your graduation rate they look at the first year the student started anywhere in the state in high school so the kid could
have started at a traditional High School in n9th grade and they failed n9th grade and they failed 10th grade and they dropped out now they start at goal and goal might get them done in three years but the state's going to count that as five years because they
calculate from the first day they ever stepped into a high school so given that many of the students who transfer into goal transfer in with a credit deficiency and are behind in school um the likelihood of them graduating in
the four-year time frame if it starts from the day they started any High School anywhere in the state is really an unrealistic expectation right it really would be far more fair to goal to look and say hey why don't we calculate it from the day they started in your
school because that's when you became responsible for them um but that's not how the system works and because of that their students might graduate and what the state would would consider five or six years even though many of them get through goal's program in three because
they come in with a few credits and then gold does all kinds of amazing things in in terms of helping them regain credit and get Workforce Readiness and all of those types of things but then when the state looks at our district they average that school which has more students in
it than all of our high schools combined with our traditional high schools which then is going to make our rate look bad even though it really isn't and in both cases It's amazing And when go came to us they were struggling not only with an authorizer but they were struggling as a
school if I remember they they're um they weren't nearly as big when we brought them on but they also um were in danger of being taken over by the state because of their their their rating their Improvement status and we made a commitment to help them figure out how
to do it better and worked with them and now we have a performance a that serves more kids across our whole state than all of our high schools together and turns their is generationally different I have attended graduations at that school where because the school's willing to also help other family
members get geds while the students are while their children are attending there um a grandmother has walked across the stage with her daughter who is now a mother carrying her baby who's and the baby's father is receiving his diploma
behind that person that's generational change that wouldn't happen without ghou um and so it I my my hair stands up and I get very defensive of it because I know where it was from the very
beginning and I see the impact it has now and no one else is willing or able to do that for our children in our state in part and that's part of what this resolution is trying to address is no District wants to get beat up in the
paper like we do every year and have taxpayers think they're not doing a good job for their students when in fact we are because it's a complicated thing to explain and once it's something that's complicated to explain people's ears go off they just look at the general number
and it's an easy egg to throw rather than looking at good Lord what we're doing is amazing what we're doing is lifechanging what we're doing is what we should be about an education for every child in this state and we should be cele opting every place that's willing to offer a program that helps every
child so it's my baby in some ways not really but kind of at the same time yes director Schmidt also with these performance Frameworks the alternate education
campuses um are kind of judged on four factors as opposed to three which kind it put it actually put Patriot in the middle of the last Cass last year but it's still not enough you know we need to we need to still see if we can't get
that busted out director Hy and just to emphasize how important this is so I spoke earlier about some of the financing challenges that we have in this district and we need to for example make sure the students have enough room
at uh Sand Creek we may need to make sure that you know we're provid ing uh adequate busing throughout the district um and we can't do any of that without Community Support so we go out and re out to the community and say you know can you help us with extra funding and
if they're looking at performance data and they're thinking that our schools are failing then they are far less interested in supporting us and so we could solve this problem immediately we
could just dechter um goal Academy and uh let the the state chartering body take care of it that would be the wrong thing to do for those students uh particularly because one of the benefits they get by being chartered in d49 is
they get to keep more of their operating revenue and so that goes into to help the students there um and so yeah we can you know we can game the system and just cut them loose but it's just so wrong morally
and so what we need to be able to do is correct the way that these things are being reported so that the community is getting an accurate picture of exactly what it is we're accomplishing here in d49 director Dev i e Echo everyone's statements um go
Academy is so needed and uh when I first came on the board I did not understand the impact so I can actually uh test firsthand how confused I was by the performance and the district Frameworks
um and I was one of the people that thought that our district was um failing because I did not understand goal at all so when that was was um um explained to me then I was like oh I I get it and so
even um even now to this day I'm like I understand I really do understand why the community so many times will fling things in our face because I was in that position so I understand what it's like to have
misinformation um and I think it's really important that we are able to explain this and it's important not only for us but for other districts who want to do the right thing and want to start other alternative schools like goal so that they can have more impact without
it impacting their District's um performance Frameworks I'm just going to add one note in support of this and by the way just you know there's other students who choose to go to goal not because um of Life difficulties they actually choose
the goal model which is hybrid it's it's online but they have dropin centers but I know um parents of two goal students and they just chose it they just worked better for their kids um the other thing that you know they've talked about some of the life challenges and they actually
do provide baby caps and gowns and it's true that parents of a of a student who's attending goal can get their GED at the same time one of our speakers last year came from a refugee camp from the country of Chad and he was so excited to be
accepted into goal um and another way to drive home the importance whenever I am impressed with your accomplishments and everything you're involved in that was not me when I was in high school I was already a practicing alcoholic okay by
the time I was in high school and by the grace of God in a 12 step program I've been sober now since 1980 some of you knew that some of you don't I I don't care that's just who I am and so when I look at kids who have had those life struggles whether it's addiction whether
it's pregnancy whether it's criminal whatever it could be that's what goal is there for and and superintendent hiltz is correct kids who graduate high school and a lot of them are now doing concurrent college enrollment they have a better economic
future ahead of them and so I hope you understand some of my personal passion for goal Academy because I wasn't like you guys I had a lot of good ideas I was just applying them in the wrong manner so can I is there any other discussion
or can we take a do we need to vote on moving this resolution forward I think we do okay can I get a vote now on that resolution yeah we're isn't this under action items we're adopting it
dalala i h i laier Wright I Schmid I Thompson you betcha and that one passes okay see where we are oh yeah we're on to disc discussion
item can you help me with my sheets here I lost my place here 9.1 which is the financial report hello I am Spencer mccave the budget manager um so this is the last corly for
the 23 24 school year um the nice thing about this is that no not much has really changed from the other three um it's kind of nice when the information is pretty consistent um so summary is that our spending ended at 148 million we
originally projected 147 um so that's a million higher but our Revenue was also 2 million higher so our Revenue was about 150 million so our our Revenue was 3 million higher so we're 2 million under
budget um there was no unexpected variances um this is through our core just the difference between revenue and expenses we brought more in that's all just from collecting property taxes this may look different going forward this
year because the state changed how we get funded um when they allocate money they we get more now for the first nine months instead of it equal throughout all 12 to kind of balance out that um
that deficit in the beginning until we collect property taxes so this will look a little different going forward um this is just a summary of some of the larger funds nothing really changed um same information fund 10 just
collecting taxes 22 is the time grants um and then F 49 we already received all the money we're spending it now you'll see that again this year um and then ideally well no not ideally at the end of this year that'll be done
um here's how the uh Revenue expenses compare from the third quarter to the fourth quarter this is just our spending process our calendar um I put June just cuz that's the end of the quarter um
creating the budget for the new year and stuff and closing out we're currently from now until really through November we'll be closing out the previous year any questions I don't have any questions thank
you no questions okay and if you change your mind after hearing the discussion don't hesitate wave flag if I don't see you jump up and down that'll be very entertaining director Schmidt at our last meeting we had um
some academic information that was given to us and it was in a really understandable way for really more for the public I think we pretty much were grasping what was in there I'm just wondering if at some point we can do a
presentation I mean that was a lot of information yeah and I don't know if the average Joe can understand everything that was in this so I'm I'm kind of thinking maybe in the future we
can work on I mean I can't task anybody but you know just kind of like a like a um basic like Financial teaching like what stuff means kind of yeah so the people from
the public can understand certain things maybe a little bit a little piece here a little piece there yeah not necessarily a major overhaul but I don't know that the Public's really understanding what all that just was yeah I get that uh yeah I
could definitely work on like 10 15 minute presentation just going over the basics of what stuff means and so when I'm like referencing revenues and expenses you know what I mean by that stuff like that yeah and it's kind of interesting I
don't know if you guys could provide a little bit of the history when it comes to District fin District 49 Financial transparency and some of what we helped to change in the state um Brad Miller speaking and I'll
just jump in because Peter was largely responsible for this but uh at the time when we began to uh devise our our Zone um orientation structure and the and leading towards the Chiefs one of the things that we did through our off
office of Finance was we were the first district in the state to comprehensively put our books online we became the the the poster child for transparency in the state which led to the adoption and I bet you Peter will remember the year but
I'm going to say 2010 or 2011 of the um State financial transparency act which was emulating what we were already doing in practice and we were the only District doing this and S since then if you kind of track with the legislature
we've been for our size very outsized influencers in the legislature in terms of all of the components of the way uh uh student funding is considered and and the priorities and the ways that it's
managed and that's been expressed in large part by the person that you know stands at and at this Podium and does things for us and it's always by nature super complicated it is but uh we do and have continued to have all of that stuff
online in a very comprehensive manner so it is discernible even for a a lawyer like me who does nothing to do with numbers and tonight you've heard a couple of references to Andy Franco we also have to talk about Brett Ridgeway because it was his format of putting
these books online that led to some of that legislation so once again we were leaders throughout the state of Colorado as far as opening the books and letting the public take a look now sometimes I'll be honest I look at these and I'm very grateful that I have overdraft
protection I just want to get that on the record here but um they can be complicated but the one thing we lead in is transparency and I'm really proud of that um director Li Wright I was going to just add a little bit to that that in
fact um our district at various times has been recognized not only Statewide but nationally in both conservative and liberal um organizations for the financial transparency I think the the issue with Average Joe's including me
who only handles my own family budget um $148 million budget of a complex organization that involves all kinds of federal and state law and regulation is something that we can only boil down to
a certain extent um but we have been recognized at the state level and at the national level largely due to the work that Brett Bridgeway and his team initially put in um actually have been held up as model organization and education in some of those
places um because of being a leader in that work but that also means then that um when every single book and every single pieces is on there that's when people start looking and saying oh but what was this check and where did it go to and they're they're looking at again
an $148 million budget the way in which we look at those transactions is very very different than you look at in a home budget but most of us picture money in in terms of how we in how we've personally experienced it and you know most of us in our community are
experiencing a $70,000 budget a year not $150 million budget or the the rules that come with it and so I think that it becomes um sometimes the fact that we are so transparent also um leads to some
of that confusion that really just has to do with the size if you opened any corporations books to the level that we have opened our books you would see very similar things um it just isn't comprehensible to those of us who don't deal with that large of a budget in that
large of an organization um on a regular basis the other point I just wanted to make was um we often get questioned about our unassigned fund balance and so we have about 15 million listed in there
and you know our um budget though last year was We spent 148 so around $150 million so to put that in perspective instead of thinking of it in millions of dollars think of it as percent that's only 10% of our Year's budget so that's
less than one month of our expenses that we have kept in savings for if something happens if you think about that in terms terms of your own family budget how many months do you try to keep in Savings in case something happens in case the state
screws up and doesn't send us our money in case you get caught in the federal budget fight which as a military um government spouse we've had and someone who gets VA funds for um a disabled VA uh disabled vet well when the Congress
is fighting and they decide the VA funds are going to be screwed up for two months because they can't pass their budget how do I make sure my bills get paid I make sure by having a savings account well the same people fighting about that also could withhold federal education funds how do we make sure our
teachers still get paid um all of our staff get paid our buses still run by making sure we have a small savings account and that 10% is again less than one month's budget most of us would be as individual homeowners or individual families would
be trying to have maybe at least a month's expenses in case something happened to our paycheck too so when we talk about well you have 15 million why aren't you spending that down too this is why the same reason you don't spend that last month down of savings that you
have because we want to make sure that we never get into a situation where we have to say we can't write our paychecks this month we have to make sure we have that savings too it just seems like a really big number because we have a lot of expenses director h
and I just want to make sure that this gets called out because this is very important uh to the topic so um Dr Trout andberg forwarded us an email um I don't know who this organization is but uh it says congratulations to you your staff
and your District on receiving asbo International's certificate of excellence in financial reporting for your fiscal year 2023 annual comprehensive financial report your continued participation in the Coe program is a testament to your
District's commitment to transparency and highquality financial reporting um so congratulations to to everybody involved in that um now with that said I actually agree
with um Deb that the um information could be improved to make it more accessible and so I have um pledged to work with Deb to come up with a ort of a a set of guidelines that um that we would like to follow we're certainly not
asking for any tasking at this time especially understanding where you guys are in the budget cycle you just started an audit so we want to be very mindful of um uh of resources but we can continue the conversations off uh between the two of us come up with um
with some suggestions bring those forward to the board and then um you know later down the road um turn that into tasking and do we need consent I think we need consent for the two of you to work on that project um so if I could get board
consent and then I know director devolo might want to make a comment so can I just get a yes on the microphone that consent for those two to come up with a model I'd also like to hear director deva's comments so the consent is different from this part so can I get a board
consent on those two members yes I would be happy to work with Mike yes director devola uh I just wanted to bring up something that I've known from previous board meetings um that I believe way back in the day before I was on this
board the budget packet was what a couple hundred Pages 500 pages long and um I we right and I think yeah whole thing in paper and just huge stack so um the fact that we were able to get
the budget packet down to I think it was like 23 or 3 something I can't remember something a lot more manageable for us to look through was a huge um it technically is still that long that I'm
talking about the one that you guys give the board yeah um so we don't get the the huge big fat one yeah there's like 300 pages of um just student fees that fill up a lot of space exactly and I left that off at the beginning but you
guys still a great summary and you take that and you make it into a more manageable document that used to not be a thing so I'm really glad that we were able to put that in place where we have a much man much more manageable um and I can understand it a lot better than I
did the first time I was on this board I was like I don't know what any of that means and um we were able to get a lot more explanation so I appreciate you guys and all your hard work yes you guys do a great job of authoring school Finance for dummies um
uh superintendent hiltz ma'am um the association to which director H was referring is the association of school business officials so they're the they're the smart folks on school business matters um I I I would I would make an an observation and
a request the observation is that much of what we have to provide to you and most of the format so both the content and the format is called out in statute we have to follow the state chart of accounts
there are there are Clarity obligations and so um if you think about Goldilocks and that porrige that's too hot too cold and and just right um we have to balance absolute transparency which is
anybody can look at any spreadsheet at any time and be absolutely incapable of understanding a lot of what they're seeing on the one hand or we can give you a comic book version which obscures a lot of relevant detail so we have consistently tried to
balance the hot and the cold or the detailed and The Superficial and what what asbo is telling our team is that you're doing this to a level of Excellence so that's my observation my request is this
budget reports are financial data reports and I think part of the reason uh that that the board appreciated the FI the the academic data that Miss gr granus presented is because she was able to use the data to tell a
story and what I would ask particularly from the two Lia on from the board is would you please tell us what questions you want the story to answer because if you can give us what do you need to know on a monthly
basis or on an annual basis we can organize the data and especially the visualization of that data in a way that tells that story we do want to be sensitive to the annual budget cycle and we do want to be sensitive to the workload cycle and I know that you are sensitive to those things but my request
is if you are going to ask us to change what is already an excellent form of communication then it would be very helpful if you would ask in the form of questions that are either not currently being answered or that you would like answered with a level of of increased
Simplicity or in increased um visual accessibility I think that um following State Statute um we'll be able to hammer it out so just a point of clarity they're just working on a proposal correct this
would still come back to because because I I don't know if you noticed but there were four yeses not five um went for the consensus which is 100% fine right it's still a consensus of the board to task um and that that's my personal bias
having lived having seen now um what 12 14 years of of what has progressed in knowing how difficult it is to boil down so um some of which were Treasurer also but either way it's I just want to make sure that be before it ever becomes a task for any staff member it is still
coming back as a discussion item for all of us that's okay so point of clarity for all of us including our finance folks remember you're not tasked with anything till the five of us agreed later if we agree I appreciate that I actually didn't I thought you didn't hit your
button so I really appreciate that Clarity and I want to tell you the first time that I had a meeting with Brett Ridgeway and he had those three enormous screens and then he projected all of the different fun balances and all of these different things on these three screens and I thought to myself what if I gotten
myself into because it was a little bit overwhelming to look at all the different funds and there's pastors there's grants that can only be used for specific things uh there's all kinds of stipulations with each of the different funds so sometimes we might think oh gosh we could just take from here and
move it there can't be done and um so it it can be daunting and uh I appreciate the financial transparency but sometime you guys ought to see what that looks like because you'll just go wow is so are there any other comments of
director Dil I just I appreciate uh director hil's uh knowledge of of this and I'm actually glad that we have a Treasurer who knows a little bit and has background in some Finance because uh it was interesting not having any of us
really know what we were talking about with the finances with the five of us so this is pretty awesome so I appreciate your background and likewise I I have said before and I'll say it again uh director L Wright has forgotten more information about this District than I could ever hope to learn and I
appreciate the background and the history are there any other comments uh just joining in the lovefest here um so just to give you know just just on a high level this is just as a four instance because what Deb is pointing
out is that the the the audience for this document is the general public and so you're coming before us and saying hey I can come here and teach you uh how to read these documents and we've been getting a lot of really great training and as a result I can look at this
information right here in front of me and I can understand what I'm looking at but then when the public is looking at it that's a different audience and so like as I'm looking at this uh page four here with the with the chart I'm
thinking yeah I see what MLL 3A was doing and I see what cop repayment was doing and I understand those terms but I don't expect that our general public does so maybe just as a for instance just in this particular case we might
add a page that said that defines those and just gives just really quick information so that the general public can understand a little bit more of what we're talking about so I don't I really don't want to you know change the formula of what we're doing and I re
I've I made the argument when Deb and I were talking that Peter made about you know it's a trade-off between transparency and understandability and we have always valued transparency we heard earlier tonight that we have been
a leader on transparency and so I do not want to give that up but maybe we can supplement so I think that's kind of where my thinking is um going into this and on one other little
Point uh just uh and we're gonna I'll get right to that before I forget a thought uh busing we had a question or comment tonight about busing there's different elements of busing there is the budgeted amount that goes to a portion of busing a lot of people think
that we raised the bus fees to help pay off the transportation center and that was not the case we've had fuel increases and we've had other increases which is why the bus ridership fee went up but there're separate funds and that Transportation Center was planned for
and allocated and approved D but it has nothing to do NE with what we charge on bus fees so did you have a question Catherine uh yes I was going off of hail's Point um I don't fully understand what YTD means um if I can understand
what the YTD variance analysis is year to date you did year to date oh to date year to date to dat oh I understand okay thank you it's a good question but but Katherine it's complicated when did the year
start because we operate on a fiscal year that starts July 1 and so that wouldn't necessarily be obvious to folks I think of the year as starting January 1 so I these are these are the kinds of things as I as I invited the board to ask questions one of the questions might
be what do all these acronyms and initialisms mean and would it be helpful to have a legend we have a lot of wall space um I wonder if the comms team could put up a the glossery I I I do want to say one thing
which is you know prior to Spencer um working with uh me on the budget and US looking the district really didn't do quarterly financials in you know like any kind of disciplined way and part I
think of the con of either the concern or the consternation is really really when we're looking at our quarterly financials we are not looking at all of the other funds on that complicated slide we are really looking at this
which is to figure out each quarter at the end of the quarter what have we taken in in our revenues what have we spent in the general fund which is our main operating fund and the bulk of our Monies to show you it's kind of like the
that it's like an early warning signal it's the canary and the coal mine so to speak so if I were the community or I were on the board and I saw that historically we've been having kind of a fund balance that fluctuates between 20
to 15 million and all of a sudden you come in and you see a quarterly and that number is 8 million that's a warning signal but you know part of this quarterly presid presentation is just to show you and our
community that we are on track with our forecast and our expenditures and you know it's it's cyclical right early on we spend more then we kind of go on a low and then at the end of the year you know PE we spend a little bit more going into the end of
the year so when uh schools and teachers come in they've got you know their supplies and Facilities right so this slide SL which is your fund summary Slide the reason we show that that is what you approved on the budget right
all of these distinct funds but our main focus when we do the quarterly is for the general fund because these other funds are what we call categorical meaning when monies are in there we cannot spend them in any other way
except in the category for that line item so I just want to make that clear if I could make this any more simple I would I mean trust me but this is about as simple as we can make it and I think
as the superintendent said still comply with what we're obligated to do to get information out you know in a way that financially is responsible and transparent so um it's we we try every
time we do this present presentations we we all get in a room it's like running film if you're like coaching a team we practice the presentation can we do something different which you'll see will show up in the student count
because we changed it literally at like 2 o'l we came in and we we said forget these numbers that are now stale let's go with the new numbers and let's see how we can present it so any feedback is
great great feedback for us director olier right well and just as a comment when people look at those those um fund the what five you have listed each of those is listed separately because it has very specific legal requirements so when we say it was
Al we allocated we didn't actually allocate to the MLL fund that money is the mlo money that comes in from the state and that account is encumbered by the language of the ballot initiative that voters voted on so that is tracked
completely separately and can only be spent on what that is the grants fund that's all the grants that come in that are encumbered explicitly to be expent the way the grants say they have to be spend so we can't we didn't say well let's put $20 million into the grants
fund and let's put you know um a million into the mllo fund those monies came in with very specific encumbrances and therefore our kept in in separate accounts so that those incumbrances can be met and we can meet the legal obligations to have them I think the
only one we might allocate to is capital reserve right that's that's a an a separate allocation from the board um the rest of them general fund is all the money that comes from State fed for our student operating budget that we can
then spend on all kinds of things that's the one we actually have lots of control over but we don't really because run out of money before we can meet the things we would like to spend it on um it's not enough to do everything we would like to do for kids but just as a piece it's not us choosing first and
then saying well now we can't spend it anywhere it's legally required to be spent specific ways which is why each of them are tracked differently okay any other comments real quick just one are Treasures getting training which is
appropriate but is it appropriate to also train the other board members as well you know we've talked about the quarterly trainings that we've started to set up and so that could definitely be a discussion that we could do we
could kind of take a poll and see who would be interested in doing that and getting it set up it sounds like we have two very uh knowledgeable individuals and Jamie Lynn's come quite a long ways but I don't know about you and I don't know about
me yeah and just to add I haven't gotten any special training on this um you know mostly it's just been um you know attending these meetings and and hearing your reports and and uh asking questions
can other board members join those meetings well I mean I'm talking about these meetings just yeah but uh I do know that they have made themselves available for um training one-on-one in the past I I will defer to Brad but I
think that we can cycle in kind of like Noah's Art two by two we don't run a foul of um kind of open you know meeting laws but we would be happy to do that um if you want to cycle through monthly
and we can cover a different topic or you know now that uh we're a little bit more settled in our offices and I've got a good assistant um you know we can put it up on the big screen and kind of just go over it that may be very useful
exercise so I've I've personally done that in the past with with boards right but you've got to have a willingness to want to cycle through right so and just so you know prior to you being here we used to have meetings oneon-one with
Brett and they were scheduled just like we have our opportunities to do oneon-one with Peter so back when we had the three Chief model we were given the opportunity to have those and I think it's a good idea the reference to 2 by two is really good is just so we don't run a foul of open meeting laws and we
could also if there's the desire there we could schedule one of our quarterly board trainings on this as long as we don't we public we don't discuss board business we did one the first one we did was on resolution training where we had a representative from casby come down and we created that resolution for goal
together as a board and so it gives us an opportunity to kind of learn more together so I think that's a good idea I think we would get more out of it on that um on on in that manner you know sometimes at these board meetings
everything goes so fast and I know just enough to get myself in trouble but if we all understood it a little better we could make better decisions for our kids and we could also just as an idea it would be fun to open some of those up to any student board members who were
interested in it not a mandatory thing but where we could say hey we're going to do this training if you if any of you would like to come we would open up that opportunity uh just a small Point we've we've transitioned our model from Chiefs to a superintendent so I want to be
respectful of that as you think about these sorts of things that used to be natural just consider the pathway that you utilize to set up meetings with subordinates and so forth thank you for that reminder that was really good so we'd have to run everything through Peter and um also if
we set up a training then it would be a little more independent so that's a that's a good point thank you okay I believe casby also offers training so if you watch when they do the I know the conference was overwhelming last year but there are
usually some Financial um sessions offered um during the Retreats and also during some of the the quarterly things if you kind of just keep track of all the things casby offers they'll offer some general training in school Finance true it's not specific to our
district though and it I've been I've been in a couple of those trainings and they were eye openening on certain things but I think we need to have some more District train okay all right there's not a second public comment we're on to miscellaneous okay if not we're going to
adjourn and Mr Weber if you could hang around for just a minute that I'd appreciate it and thank you very much we are adjourned at 8:29 oh my God e e