Okay. I won't. I'll just, like, lightly, you know. Are we If I can have everyone seated, we're about to begin fantastic forty nine.
Thank you. Alright. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our December fantastic forty nine presentation. My name is Kayla Maldonado. I am the internal communications manager for school district forty nine. Tonight, we have some great nominees. We are going to recognize a staff member at Spring Studio for Academic Excellence and our 2025 Falcon Education Foundation mini grant winners. For our mini grant winners, I will, I'm going to read the name of all of the grants. If you're if you are present, please stand up and we will give you your applause and you will come stand over next to me.
If you're not present, we will read your name and your grant and we will move on to the next person. Before I introduce you to our honorees, I always like to give a shout out to our sponsors. We are grateful to Dion's Air Academy Credit Union and Raising Canes for donating gift cards for our honorees. Okay. So our 2025 Falcon Education Foundation, mini grant winners this year. I guess for those of you who don't know, I'm also president of the, Falcon Education Foundation, so I am very honored to have dual roles, in the district. This year, the Falcon Education Foundation awarded over $20,000 in mini grants, funding 29 projects.
So a big round of applause. Just to give an example to our attendees and our board of some of the really unique projects we have this year, there is a portable hydroponic garden at one of our schools, which I have seen that is really cool, freeze dried foods for nutrition education and career preparation. A chomp saw, which I had to learn about, which is a kid safety power a kid safe power tool for cutting cardboard. We have three of those this year, gave. A costume sewing shop for theater students, exploring art pathways with tattoo training pens, and
instruments for a world music drumming project. So those are just a handful of the unique projects that we got this year, that were really amazing. So I'm going to go ahead and once again read off of the grants. And if you are in attendance, please come up here, and we will clap for you. And if you're not, we will read your grant and move on to the next one. So Tara Wold at, Allies won $615 for chomping at creativity. I don't believe she's here. Sherry Salum at Evans Elementary School won $250 for morning bin refresh.
Mackenzie McCloughan at Falcon High School won $950 for costume show sewing shop. I think Mackenzie's not here? No? Okay. Jeffrey Habbie, I know he's here from Falcon High School. Jeffrey won two grants. So one for pop up retail and pricing lab for $599 and one for measurement and quality control tool kit for $465. One more round of applause because you were up here first. Can you stay up here? Stay up here. Stay up here. Stay up here. Okay. We have Leanne McKinney at Falcon Homeschool Program for the Chompsall.
Is Leanne here? Shauna Peterson at Falcon High School, who I don't believe is here, for facial reconstruction, $574. Fused glass tiles, Catherine Harmer at Falcon Middle School for $750, careers in art slash entrepreneur class, PT Montoya at Goal Academy for a thousand dollars, Jasmine Aldershoff, who I believe is here. Is Jasmine here? Yay. Jasmine is with Horizon Middle School. She won $675 for rolling into creativity, shaping a middle school ceramics program with the
right tools. One more round of applause for Jasmine. Laura Anderson at Meridian Ranch Elementary. I think Laura is here. Yeah. Laura won $835 for cultivating learning. That was the hydroponic one I mentioned. Book Walk, Moving Through Stories, Tina Stanfield, $400, Meridian Ranch Elementary. DRUM, Music World Drumming, Karen Petty at Meridian Ranch Meridian Ranch is just kinda crushing it. Meridian Ranch Elementary for $1,019. Jessica Orinac, Literacy Has No Borders. Yay. That was for $506 for Odyssey Elementary.
I believe the next few are not in attendance, but Science Sound Lab, Vibration, Waves, and Wonder. Kristen Spencer at Odyssey Elementary, 875. Bacteria, our not so new classroom pets. Adrian Adrian Jasper, $499 at peak. Code blue, William Yerger, $1,100 at Sand Creek High School. Kimberly Escobedo, who I believe is here. Yay. Kimberly won, $999, that's in elementary, for decodable books and AI, a grant project for
the FEF to decide. Just a handful more. Eric Eric Carle inspired painted paper collage, Brooke Gamusio, $522 at Springs Ranch Elementary. Preschool Learning to Read, Stetson Elementary, $460. Jennifer I don't know how to say her last name, but it starts with a u. Jennifer u at at at, that school. Maps of American history, who I believe is here, Linda Merritt. Linda's grant was for September at Skyview Middle School, my old middle school. Woo.
Growing into the future with nature and technology, James Sarajarvi at Spring Studio for Academic Excellence. Big Kids, Big Impact, encouraging young writers. Madison Hill at Spring Studio for Academic Excellence. Nature's Blueprint, designing with biomimicry, Laura Della Garza at Spring Studio for academic excellence. That was for a thousand dollars. Fueling young minds, the role of freeze dried nutrition in child and student health, Molly Metz, $300 Vista Ridge High School. Video conference system for holocaust speakers and more, Casey Freese, a thousand dollars Vista Ridge
High School. Fundamentals of Film Photography, Andrea Adams, $650, Vista Ridge High School. Stories that add up, mathematical literacy through literature, Teresa Howe, Woodman Hills Elementary School. That was for $595. And last but not least, I don't believe Laurie Hall is in attendance, but, Yeti Inc, a creative student magazine for $760. So that brings our grand total to $2,640.18. So big round of applause for all my mini grant winners.
Awesome. Thank you again, mini grant winners. We had over 85 applications, so those are the kind of, cream of the crop winners back there. Our next nominee, Josh Wixom, is not able to be in attendance. Josh is awesome, and he is nominated for robotics. And there has been a robotics competition during the October board meeting, the November board meeting, and tonight's board meeting. So, we appreciate Josh, and, we have prepared a video, with him and his nominator since he cannot be in attendance. I also believe it was spirit day, so I believe there are some costume choices
that we will see in one moment. So Hi. I'm Caitlin Pekanski, the seven eight social studies teacher and middle school robotics coach. Hi. I'm Laura Delagarza, sixth grade science teacher and assistant to the middle school robotics coach. We'd like to take a moment to recognize the work that Josh has put into building and supporting the robotics program here at Spring Studio. A strong robotics program doesn't disappear. It takes organization planning and someone who's willing to handle the details, setting up equipment, creating clear systems, and keeping everything running when unexpected issues come up.
From the very beginning, Josh took on all of that. He built the VEX program step by step, setting up the structure, organizing teams, preparing the fields, and making sure students and coaches had what they needed to be successful. Running the league means coordinating with schools, scheduling events, managing equipment, and keeping competitions consistent and organized. Josh built those systems from the ground up and made them reliable. Josh has spent a lot of time on outreach across the Pikes Peak region, building connections with schools and helping position Spring Studio as a central location for robotics in
our area. His coordination strengthen robotics not just here, but across our whole region. As most school coaches, we learn quite a bit from Josh, from equipment setup to running practices to understanding how event season flows. He helps us feel confident and prepared to lead our teams. A strong robotics program relies on clear systems, steady management, and someone willing to teach others how everything works. Josh provided that foundation at Spring Studio. Josh, thank you for your time, effort, and leadership you've put into building this program and supporting all of our students and coaches.
I'm incredibly honored to receive this distinction, and I really appreciate, everything that Caitlin and Laura said. A successful program is ran off of many things, including dedicated volunteers, great coaches, and mostly phenomenal students. And I'm just incredibly honored today. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you for being here virtually, from our team at Spring Studio. Before I wrap up the program, I guess, I will hand it over to Marie Lavere Wright, president of the Board of Education, for final remarks. Thank you. I believe that he's been building that robotics program for at least five years, maybe
six, because I remember him starting it when my youngest was at Spring Studio in middle school, and it's starting with just a few kids and some bare bones things. So seeing it build, to the point that it's getting the level of renown and recognition it is is pretty cool. I'm sad he couldn't come here, but I'm glad he's with our students showing off all of that they're achieving with the robotics program. I also happen to be, the board liaison for the Falcon Ed Foundation, so I was privileged to help read all 85 of those applications.
And, I truly enjoyed reading them and seeing all of the creativity that our teachers are are bringing and the different kinds of projects that are happening and the way in which they end up fig fitting into our strategic goals. And I shouted this out once, but I'm gonna do it again, mister Habie, because I don't know that people realize how avant garde it is to suggest doing something like a pop up retail lab or using, precise measurement tools in a typical high
school math class. And that is a part of our mission DNA strategic plan in improving our students' math scores. And so to see one of our high school teachers jump in both feet and say, hey, not only jumping in both feet, but I'm gonna see what I can do with the grant to help propel our students further in that. Thank you for for taking that leap. I'm excited to see how that program grows at Falcon High School and to see how that gets incorporated into our traditional math classes. But thank you all for the incredible things you do for our students and we will begin our regular meeting in about fifteen minutes.
It is now 06:30, and I would like to call our meeting to order. Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to our 12/04/2025 Board of Education meeting. The time is 06:30PM. May I get a roll call, please? Heil. Here. Olivia Wright. Here. Schmidt. Here. Thompson. Here. Withers. Here. Please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve the agenda as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, a vote, please? Heil. Aye. Olivia Wright. Aye. Schmidt. Aye. Thompson. Aye. Withers. Aye. Motion passes. We're now on to open forum. So I'll read the guidelines first, and then I have another statement about open forum tonight. We welcome comments from stakeholders during district forty nine's open forum. Please stay seated until your name is called by the board of education chair, then approach the podium to introduce yourself.
Speak clearly into the microphone, and keep your remarks respectful and orderly. Personal complaints against individuals connected with the district, except for board members or the superintendent, are prohibited. Each speaker is limited to two minutes. The board will not respond during the open forum, but may assign follow-up action to the superintendent. We also encourage you to use the stakeholder grievance process for resolving concerns, which may culminate in a formal appeal to the board. Thank you for participating. In addition, I'm gonna read a section of our actual BEDH policy about open forums. And we will be following the policy exactly as written from this point forward.
The first portion says, for the first thirty minutes public comment section of the meeting, all comments must be relevant to action or discussion items on that meeting's agenda. To ensure that we hear from a variety of participants in board meetings, priority should be given to speakers who have not addressed the board publicly within the prior month. This is the active current policy. Speaker should further be prioritized by the chair as follows. First five slots as needed or reserved for d forty nine students, parents or legal guardians of active d forty nine students and staff, active members of formal district committees,
such as SEAC, DAC, etcetera, district residents or other district task payers, regardless of residence. The second public comments section of the meeting shall not exceed thirty minutes and will consist of any relevant education topic in whatever order the chair deems appropriate, and the chair may use discretion in allowing up to two minute comments as long as the second public comment section of the meeting does not last for more than thirty minutes. What that first section of the policy refers to that I just read is during our first thirty minute section, we will only hear comments directly related to our agenda
items. And during the second open forum, we will hear comments related to anything else that our community wishes to bring to our attention. This will allow us to focus and ensure we hear the things that are relevant to the presentations we will have tonight, during that first session, and also get efficiently to that business, but then we will hear any other comments afterwards. If you choose to sign up as an agenda item and veer off of that topic, I will ask you to stop. If you don't stop, I will use the kill switch and shut the microphone off,
but you will be allowed to have that time during the second forum. So, we will move you to the second forum. With that, we have one person signed up tonight to speak on an agenda item, and that is Jasmine Connolly. So Jasmine, if you could come forward, please. Good evening, mister Hilton board members. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. My name is Jasmine Connolly, and I am the music teacher at Springs Ranch Elementary in the Sand Creek zone. This is my second year here in D 49 as I previously worked overseas in Germany for DoDEA for seven years. I have been a substitute teacher, a special education para, a fourth grade teacher, and
now a music teacher. I would like to comment about the proposed cuts that were mentioned today in mister Hilt's email to the workforce. Mister Hilt, over the past year and a half, I have come to deeply respect your leadership and your transparency, especially as a member of the vow committee last year and also this year. And because of that, I am well aware of the district's situation with its finances. As a former government civilian, I am also no stranger to budget cuts and reduction in force. I am respectfully asking that when you are making these cuts, you carefully consider not balancing the budget on the backs of hardworking teachers such as myself and support staff
such as our paraprofessionals. While I understand the financial pressures and difficult decisions facing the district, these type of cuts will have a direct and immediate impact on the quality of education our students receive. Teachers and paraprofessionals are the backbones of our schools. We not only provide academic instruction, but emotional support, individualized attention, and the safe stable environments our students rely on every day. As most of us are aware in this room, disruptive student behaviors have increased, and we have more special needs students in our schools than ever before. Reducing staffing, especially with those who directly work with children, will increase class sizes, limit
small group instruction, reduce intervention support, and ultimately widen learning gaps that we have been working hard to close since COVID nineteen. I implore you that the district explore alternative cost saving strategies that do not compromise student learning or staff well-being. Options such as higher level administrative reductions, restructuring non instructional spending, pursuing grants, or implementing phase changes may ease budget constraints without sacrificing the people who work closest with our children. Our students deserve, sorry. Our students deserve classrooms where their needs are met and their safety is ensured and
their growth is supported. They are the future of this district. Thank you for your time and your thoughtful consideration of this issue. Thank you. And we are now on to our superintendent update. Oh, wait. Sorry. I missed one. We have to do our consent agenda first. So, oh, I'm reading it and saying there are no consent agenda items I'm sorry. So we get to go right directly to our update. Okay good evening and thank you for making your way through through a difficult weather day. I'm gonna start off with that. Per our new adopted calendar policy last year, we start out with a five traditional
snow day buffer. We are also allowed by c d e to spend up to five days as e days. So in a sense, we have we have a ten day buffer split right in half, and today was our second called snow day. I think there was some question and we saw we saw slightly lower approval although still, in the in the high 80% range for today's closure. Yesterday, I think was the high watermark I've ever seen for our closure. It was above 96%, approved or strongly approved with 88% finding that the decision was
very appropriate. And those are those are not intended to congratulate myself. I've I've made some pretty lousy calls through the years, but it is to reinforce that when our community has an opportunity to weigh in on things that really matter, they take that opportunity. So we had over, 3,500 survey participants over the two days, and I really appreciate that. So thank you community for continue to to guide us, and I'll just reiterate in this forum that our community wants us to make our decisions as early as possible
to air on the side of safety and to elaborate our decision making when, when we make those decisions. And so we're gonna continue to respond to the voice of our community and make that decision. Today, I was I was I think it was a tougher call this morning, as I was listening to reports from about 2AM to about 5AM when we made the final call. And then I pulled up the news once I kind of really woke up and saw that a four wheel drive full size pickup had slid off a road into someone's front room. And I thought, that would have possibly been a a student on the way to
work or or a student on the way to school or something else. And so we, we take it seriously, and I was grateful that nobody was hurt in that incident, and I was grateful that we didn't have a lot of people on the road. So off to a strong start. 40% of our true snow day budget is already spent. So we'll keep that in mind as we go forward. I I wanted to mention, two really positive things. One is you received a letter today forwarded from our chief financial officer, Rebecca Brooks, and it had to do with a financial event that the district went through last
week. You've heard about this. You've actually signed off on it. We refinanced, little over 40,000,000 worth of certificates of participation that were issued pursuant to an MLO from 2015. And in the refinancing, we had to go, to the Moody's, credit rating agency and ensure that we really are a a an a rate, actually a double a three rated, entity. And they did a thorough analysis, not just of our of our books and our financial performance.
They wanted to see enrollment patterns. They wanted to know about our fund balance policies and how well we've adhered to them. And as a result, when we put these refinance instruments into the market, we were selling around $43,000,000 worth of of refinanceable white paper, and we had six times as many bids as we could fulfill over $240,000,000. That means that a bunch of really smart people who make their living finding these
little opportunities to gain interest thought that d 49 was a good financial bet. And so that's important, and I'm spending a little more time on it because it's gonna matter when we talk later on tonight about our balanced budget strategies. We're we're in that kind of credible position because we've made clear, and and decisive decisions in the past. And so, it was it was gratifying to see the financial markets honor that and and want to buy d forty nine.
The final thing that I wanna mention is that, over the last week, also kind of in the same timing, we were able to come to a settlement with the Colorado High School Activities Association. This is related to our lawsuit on behalf of the district in support of policy j b a, which is fairness and privacy in sports, we we took a pre enforcement. We we we took action in a pre enforcement measure, and a major thing that we wanted to accomplish was to ensure that our students would not be subject to
sanctions and would not be excluded from post season play, and that our coaches would not find their coaching licenses or their status, in any kind of jeopardy based on the district's assertion of policy JBA. And, although I've seen some media today where Chassa says they would never think of doing anything of the sort. I was the superintendent. I was the chief education officer when Chassa did something exactly of that sort and declined to let one of our teams participate in the postseason because they didn't like the way a a coach was hired and then non renewed.
So Chassa does act unilaterally. They do act with unpredictable swiftness. And what I am mostly gratified to report to you is that this settlement ensures that Chassa cannot take adverse action against our students or our coaches for policies the district might adopt, or if there came a day when our coaches, administrators, and and athletes determined that they would rather forfeit a game than play against someone where they
felt it created an unsafe or unfair condition, Chassa cannot sanction us for that. They cannot call that gross misconduct. They cannot challenge our membership in the organization or challenge our students or our coaches. And that is a fantastic outcome for not only our district and not only for the other eight schools and districts that were co plaintiffs, but it's a fantastic outcome for all of the districts in Colorado that didn't join this lawsuit because it protects them and it especially protects coaches and student athletes.
So that is a fantastic win, well worth our leadership and advocacy on behalf of students and coaches, and I'm grateful to report it to you. Happy to answer questions if you may have them. Any questions for Peter? K. Then with student board updates. Vivian? Sorry. I had to move the mic closer. We were supposed to have a student board meeting yesterday, but, due to weather yeah. I wonder what happened. We were unable to have our student board meeting. So, yeah, that's the update on that.
Normally, I would I would give you more information about what happened at our last student board meeting, but, there's not much information on that. At our last meeting, we all, we were set to discuss, oh, sorry. At this meeting that we was canceled, we were set to discuss, our all student voice resolution, and we will move forward as SVOR to meet with middle and elementary school students to bring more student perspective and representation. And I would assume we will continue to look at our bylaws and SPOR resolutions.
We intended to do that last meeting, the meeting we were supposed to have, but we didn't get to do that. So, yeah, that's the update for right now. I think Max has a little bit more of an update regarding our student resolution, but yeah. Max? Yes. So our student resolution currently, as it relates to our policy j I c j, so our cell phone policy. Currently, the student board is working on a resolution. And so we have a cell phone kind of, like, policy or survey committee.
And so one of the things that they're doing is they're currently trying to work on a survey so that we can actually get that sent out to schools and through students. And so I know that that's something that they are working on and continuing to work on. We're also looking to get support from the communications team on behalf of, like, the district. So that way we can get more of, like, a formal survey sent out instead of something sent through, like, Google forms or something. So, it makes it a little bit more formalized. I know that also most recently too, we had our committee, kind of meet a
little bit one on one at our, at the, what the sorry. It was at the principal meeting. And so at that principal meeting, I know that there were a few, like, feedback points that I know that wanted to kinda get touched on. I don't know. Vivian had a few points. She was actually there at that principal's meeting. I don't know if she wanted to touch on that. I was not at that principal's meeting. Members of my school were at that principal's meeting. But the principals gave us feedback on the survey, and they stated that they would
like to have more questions related to how students would feel about safety regarding the cell phone policy, and questions about access to the survey, who can see it, and, like, who can see the responses. Principals were really interested in the resolution and the survey idea. They really did wanna hear about, the student and teacher perspective on this cell phone policy, and the overall, they were incredibly supportive and their feedback was very genuinely helpful, with us while we're trying to edit and revise our survey before we send it
out to students. And, if I could just add one, like, final comment. Sorry. So, really, the student board's goal for the survey is we really wanna try and gather data and collect as much data as we can so we can make well informed decisions, on revising our resolution. And so that way we can have, like, a substantive, like, resolution, that we feel is representative of our students. And then, of course, Outside of our resolution, I know that at our last meeting, we also had two new, student board members added, and so that was our twelfth grader, Gannon Hinkle, from
spring spring studio, for academic excellence. And we also had, eleventh grader, Addie Cohen from Sand Creek High School. So we just had those two new additions. So, yeah. That's all we got. Thank you. Thank you. And our newest board member, Holly Withers, would you like to give an update tonight? Well, I, for one, am super grateful for those two snow days that we had in a row because, you know, I got to sleep in, and I didn't have cranky children. But other than that, I just wanna say hi, hello, thank you, and I hope
to earn at least the trust and or the tolerance of the entire community, and I look forward to getting to work. Director Thompson? And I actually got to meet with vice president Withers and to kinda give her a primer of just a few things to know when you get started, although it's a bit like drinking from a fire hose, which you'll know more as we go along. On November 7, I attended the ribbon ribbon cutting for the Patriot Applied Learning Campus expanded CTE.
We were able to see so many opportunities for CTE from home building, solar projects, agriculture, along with the bountiful Brian Smith. We were able to, use the virtual heavy equipment simulators, and we got to see the culinary the new culinary equipment and the space expansion, which is just absolutely incredible. Our our culinary team has always done such a great job out there, and now they have more space to do those things.
On November 19, I attended the 19 I'm sorry, the eighteenth annual Thanksgiving feast. Every year, the culinary students at Patriot host a Thanksgiving feast and they invite local seniors to come have Thanksgiving dinner with them. They also raise money for, Mill Dog Rescue and Karen Cher. And it is an absolutely amazing event. They do a great job. Then, I was hoping we do have something else that maybe we can circle back
around to. Due to the snow days that we've had, we had some extra gifts for, Vice President Davola and they have arrived. So, later on, with, just a little bit of grace, I'd like to give her the gifts that were ordered for her to thank her for her service. And so I'll let president Lavere Wright determine how we can do that part while she's still here. Director Schmidt, do you have an update tonight? Sorry. I do not. Director Hile? So I attended the Veterans Day celebration at Bennett Ranch Elementary.
I wanna thank, miss Meadows for, directly inviting the board. I was really impressed with it because it was student led, and, you know, we're talking about an elementary school. And so fourth and fifth graders are out there leading and presenting, and, I just love that for our students. It really helps them with their development. And, you know, it takes adults who can get out of their way and let them do that. So I wonderful job. I attended the long range facility planning committee, met with Schneider to talk about the,
investment grade audit, which is starting to kick off. Our conversation was primarily on how we are going to message it to the community. I now understand that Schneider has been reaching out to people who are in the buildings that have been selected for the investment grade audit. They are looking for what are your experiences, being in those buildings. Please participate. The more feedback we get, the better that project is going to be. I attended the SKILAC. We had a robust conversation where we incorrectly predict predicted the new, board officer positions,
partly because of incorrect feedback from me. So I'll take that hit. And, we also talked about the, upcoming, recommendations from the students on, cell phone revisions. So that committee is made up of parents and educators and, community members. So, you know, getting some feedback from them on, you know, what direction should we go? What how is that policy working? How is it not working? What kind of, changes would we make? And then finally, I attended the DAC, couple nights ago, and the budget MLO subcommittee
had preliminary conversations before the the letter went out to to all staff. And, tonight's, details were added to the to our agenda. But we already had some conversations about, you know, the budget situation and what we're gonna need to do, going into the, next year. And, I'll bring those recommendations forward at the proper time. Thank you. And I am actually going to seed my time so that we can use this time, for director Thompson to be the person to present those gifts because she's the
one who made sure that that piece happened. I know she and I coordinated some things, but she was the one who made sure that everything completely got done. And so we'll use this time now to be able to present, Jamie Lynn her other gifts. Well, we had one out of two items arrive due to snow delays. And so once again, we just gave her one of the two gifts that have been ordered for her. And once deliveries catch up, we'll have one more. So Did you want to explain to folks what our district what, we we were
able to present her with? Well, tonight we gave her a plaque with a compass on it. But, what we have coming next, I hate to ruin the surprise, but it ties in with our cultural compass. And so, they were ordered from two different providers. They were both supposed to be here on time and, so they tie in with our cultural compass, which is up here on the wall if you're not familiar with it. And so, both of the gifts align with the cultural compass. And also, a thank you for years of dedicated service. Okay. Thank you.
Minute to finish signing the, other the other gift so that Laurie can walk that to her too as well before we do our action items. So this is one of the other things that arrived a little bit late, and it's a farewell card that we were hopefully gonna sign before the meeting started, but it arrived. So once again, on behalf of district forty nine, we wanna say thank you for everything you've done and thank you for your service. Thank you. So we are now on to our action items. We're on to action item 7.1.
May I have a motion, please? I move to approve action item 7.1. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none of vote, please. Haile. Aye. Lavia Wright. Aye. Schmidt. Aye. Thompson. Aye. Withers. Aye. There he goes. Aye. Motion carries. We're on to item 7.2. And as a reminder, all of these items were discussed extensively at our last work session, so we tend to go through them very quickly because what we needed to say was already said. So you frequently won't hear us make very many comments on these items.
So again, may I have a motion for 7.2, please? I move to approve action item 7.2. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, a vote, please. Heil. Aye. Olivia Wright. Aye. Schmidt. Aye. Thompson. Aye. Others. Aye. That motion carries. We're now on to 7.3, FHS new choir proposal. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve action item 7.3. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, a vote, please. Heil. Aye. Olivia Wright. Aye. Schmidt.
Aye. Thompson. Aye. Withers. Aye. That motion carries. We're now on to item 7.4, revisions to policy JICDE. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve action item 7.4. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Do we have any discussion? Remember, this will be short because we've already had our long discussion at the last meeting, so we can do maybe thirty seconds if anyone wants to make a comment. Do we have any comment? Alright. Then we'll have a vote, please. Heil. Aye. LeVay Wright. Aye. Schmidt. Aye. Thompson. Aye.
Withers. Aye. Motion carries. We're on to item 7.5, policy JICDA provisions. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve action item 7.5. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any comment? Director Hial will do thirty seconds, please. Yeah. I won't need thirty seconds. So, my good friend, Lance Carroll, was the, dean of students over at Sand Creek High School. And before I was ever even considering coming to work here, I was hearing from
him about, about, restorative practices. And I didn't know what he was talking about then, but I could hear the way he was talking about it and how critical it was to him. And he just couldn't think of doing his job any other way. Since then, I've been on this board. I've learned a lot about them, including they are in use when we hear reviews of, of expulsions. And so we get to see how it plays out in a real life scenario. And I just cannot support a policy that that deemphasizes something that important.
Okay. Thank you. Do we have any further comment? And again, thirty seconds. Go on ahead, director Schmidt. The policy revisions do not remove restorative justice from the school from the district. Thank you. Any further comment? Then may we have a vote, please? Hyle. No. Olivia Wright. No. Schmidt. Yes. Thompson. Aye. Withers. No. That motion fails. We're now on to item 7.6, policy and procedure review. As a reminder, these are changes made by administration based on, legal changes or other technicalities that had to come forward.
May I have a motion, please? I move to approve action item 7.6. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none of vote, please. Haile. Aye. Levere Wright. Aye. Schmidt. Aye. Thompson. Aye. Withers. Aye. And that motion carries. Thank you. We are now on to our discussion items. And our first discussion item is the Purple Star Resolution for District 49. Is our presenter here? Yes. K. Hello. My name is Kelly Chapelle, and I am the military student and family liaison for
our district. Along with me is Abby Hahn. She is the Schreiber School liaison from that base. She also works alongside the CDE to review, applications for the Purple Star Award. This year we have a total of seven schools seeking the award. You may be wondering what the Purple Star Award is in general. Excuse me. It is an award program in its second year under the CDE that shows that military families in our District that our District is committed to our military connected students
by providing proper resources and support. As of 11/20/2544 states across America participate in this program. Military families are becoming more and more aware of this award and will be looking for schools to have this, these resources. Our schools have been staying the course and our district's mission to learn, work, and lead by completing trainings on the MIG3 interstate compact laws, military cultural trainings, applying for Anchor for Life, or students to student in addition to the many amazing clubs, resources,
and extra touches we already have in place. The Purple Star Resolution is a part of our application process. It is under question seven on the application as one of the four initiatives our school needs to have. This question requires at least one of the initiatives. We are able to currently meet one of them, but because of the way that the application, only allows you to use one answer per question, it makes it difficult to continuously use our November and April events, for Veterans Day and Month of Military
Child including one charter school. Applying. We have and and including one charter school. I contact I reached out to the CDE in October, and I did not hear back from them until the week before Thanksgiving, which is why we are having a rush on this, resolution right now. They told me no because I asked if our current proclamation would count towards this.
I asked if we were on we only needed one per district and if it would cover our charter schools. They said that we only needed one. Our charter schools can choose to use this if they, would like. And they did not accept our current month of the military child proclamation because it is a proclamation, not a resolution. It does not meet their vocabulary that they wanted, so they asked me to create something new. Finding new solutions quickly. So I drafted the Purple Star Resolution that follows the templates and examples given on their website and within their presentation, and it also aligns with our d 49 cultural
compass. Compass. I believe that the resolution will not only strengthen our current and future applicants but will also show military families that we are the best choice for public education here in Colorado Springs. So I would ask that the board would please consider passing this resolution today as our applications are due on December 17. Okay. So point of order, this came forward as a discussion item, and it sounds like we needed it as an action item. So we can have some discussion and then possibly, if we agree, amend our agenda to do it. We could amend our agenda, and then amend our agenda to do it. We could amend our agenda, and this is in the spirit of, something that the
board has already expressed its approval for. This is really changing the container, not the content. And, I I appreciate the illusion to military, military efficiency and bureaucracy. And I'll I'll just leave those three words together for your own conclusions. From an open meeting standpoint, this presents a sort of emergency that would warrant you considering moving this to action. Correct. That's what I was gonna say. We can what we'll need at this point is, a motion to amend the agenda, to adopt this resolution.
I would entertain that if someone would like to make that motion. I move to amend the agenda to make the purple star resolution an action item. Second. K. Now that that's been moved and seconded, any discussion? Yes? Just so we don't run into any more bureaucracy, the only thing we'll have to update on this is it still has me listed as the president, so it'll need to switch it over to Marie Lavere Wright as president. Yes, ma'am. Or Terry. So at this point, we're we're gonna have to do two we're in the first
set of votes will be the agreement to amend the agenda. It won't be whether we're approving or disapproving this. Why don't we do that so we've turned it into the action item and then we can have any discussion or comment and then the vote to approve, assuming we're, I I think that's the way it will go. But let's have the vote to amend the agenda first. Haile. Aye. Livia Wright. Aye. Schmidt. No. Thompson. Aye. Withers. Aye. That motion carries. So now we're going to discuss adopting this resolution. Does anyone have any, comments or discussion to make?
Go on ahead. Director Schmidt, you have three minutes. We've been through Purple Star before. Purple Star uses Trevor projects Trevor's project, excuse me, which is kind of a dangerous program as a student resource. Kids can go on this website to get advice, and they have an instant where you can get out right away if your parents should walk in the room. I cannot support this. Other comments? Director Hial? I'm always pleased to see you guys come in front of us.
And, you know, those comments aside, the board has unanimously been supportive of, military students. And, we absolutely should be getting that purple star designation for our schools to let our community members know that these are the schools that you want to attend because we have the commitment and we have the resources to be able to help your your students out. This has nothing to do with Trevor Project. And, so, yeah, anything we can do to to help our our schools better support,
or at least, because we're pretty much already doing the things that are required by this. But this helps us with the application and, gets more of our schools recognized. And anything that we can do as a board to facilitate, I'm I'm on the word. Thank you. Thank you. Other yes, director Thompson. Just for clarification, and I I saw you shaking your head no, so that'd be great to get an update on that. Before, the Purple Star program did have a variety of links, and one of them was to a website, and it did have instructions on how to blink out of
it if your parents came into the room. And that website was also set for, ages that went from young teenagers into adulthood. So it was kind of an interesting website where the ages that were part of it just to be clear, that link was there under the Purple Star program. But I saw you shaking your head, so I was just curious if that has changed. I have not seen that on their on the on ours, website for the Colorado Department of Education. Abby, if you wanna jump in.
So they're separate in entities. Like Trevor Moore does support Purple Star. Yes. But Purple Star in the state of Colorado is ran by the state of Colorado. CDE is in full control of that. And everything that is advertised in the state of Colorado regarding Purple Star is through CDE. They are completely separate entities, if that makes sense. Though they support it, they have nothing to do with Purple Star itself. Purple Star is a state ran program. Students, do you have anything to share on on this resolution?
Okay. I'll take my maximum of three minutes but probably shorter. I identify with you because I'm also a military spouse although mine is thankfully retired now. So yes, I understand and appreciate how hard you're working on and dealing with bureaucracy. I think that's that's why so many military spouses can move into school systems and do well in the public system because they're they're used to government bureaucracy. I also support this program. I saw it as a parent for my own children when my husband was deploying in the way that our staff was able to support our students.
District forty nine overall really is very supportive of military families both in our purple designate purple star schools that are already designated and in many of our schools that are not yet designated, and I think that recognition of how well they serve our military families is important. It's an important message to families when they're moving here to know that that support exists. We can we can say it to the folks we know as they they move in PCS here, but that designation sends a message as they start to look when they're trying to even find a place to to move and to live.
So thank you so much for putting this work in, and at this point, I will call for a vote, please. Heil. Aye. Lavee Wright. Aye. Schmidt. No. Thompson. Aye. Withers. Aye. And that motion passes, so you have your resolution, and we'll have it updated for appropriate signatures and then get it to you. Thank you so much. And we are now on to our next item, 9.2 discussion item, Vista Ridge High School advanced dance class. Hello. My name is Tom Payne.
I am the principal of the Vista Ridge High School, the performing arts mecca of, Colorado Springs, the home of state championship show choir, musical from last year, adjudicated with over 86 high schools across the state. We have had five, which is the Tony Awards in high school for our production of Newsies.
And finally, after, two years ago with Mean Girls, we were adjudicated with 50 schools across the state, and we're on the main stage. Why do I say all of this? Again, we are the performing arts mecca. And what we what you see right here, I'll just do all four all in once. Please let me know if I need to stop. I get real excited about my performing arts. Oh, by the way, I would like to welcome our new director, Withers. Welcome from Vista Ridge High School. Great to see you. Glad you're here. The, the the four, courses that I would like to propose is intermediate and advanced
dance, as well as music comprehension and songwriting, as well as advanced guitar courses. These have been courses that complete pathways. We wanna make more of a pathway for the dance courses, so that we can obviously go to the musicals and well, we wanna do that. And we also have been asked by students, constantly, that would like to have a
guitar course, have more of a contemporary music as opposed to just band. That is not something that I see, that we will add next year, but it's something we definitely want on the books and want ready to go, as soon as we can. And finally, the same can be said for the music composition and songwriting course as well. That's something that we're looking probably two years down the road, so that we can add that as we try to grow our performing arts program, and match some of
the CTE courses that are coming up with audio engineering. Do you have any questions for me with that introduction? So board members, any questions on those four courses? Yes, director Schmidt? Are these just elective courses or academic courses? These will be elective. Director Hough? And although they are elective, would they qualify for fine arts credits? They would. Okay. Actually, I apologize. The two of them would. The, the dance courses are PE credits. And that makes perfect sense.
And one other question. Can I take the guitar one? Because I cannot figure out harmonics. You show up any day of the week, and you can take one. Absolutely. And I have to endorse your, your, hyperbole of being the the mecca of the Colorado Springs area because I've been to some of the shows at your school, And there was a situation where I was talking with some parents who had just moved to the area, and they were asking me, you know, what school should your should
their student go to. And I asked them, what are they into? And they said theater, And I said, Vista Ridge. That's why you're a good man. Thank you. We actually had a student we have two students that that showed up. One was moving from Mississippi, and and they had us and had researched us. And another one that's gonna be commuting, from Monument, with School of Choice that'll start next semester. I sent them as far as you know. Thank you. And director Withers? Okay. First, can I hire you to be my hype man? Oh, absolutely.
I'm in. I'm in. Two, is there any kind of prerequisite to the composition and songwriting course? There there won't be for that one. There is obviously for the dance where you have the intermediate and what whatnot, but there won't be for the composition. And also, I was expecting y'all to ask this, so I'll just put that out there. The, guitars and whatnot will be, Fund twenty nine fundraising as well, or they'll bring their own. So it won't be a Fund 10. K. And student board, do you have any questions or comments regarding these class proposals?
Max? Max, you didn't see it, but Max leaned over and was like, wow. This This is a wonderful proposal. I'm so happy that my principal is here and love this so much. You didn't see it, but but he did that. Yeah. I can see there's a reason you're on the board, Vivian. No. No. I think the course proposals are really cool. Of course, being the student at Vista Ridge. I've seen a lot of the growth, in, like, our theater and arts programs, and I know that that's something that we're trying to bolster. And so, honestly, I I think the proposals, yeah, I mean, I think what we're
trying to do, trying to grow, a little bit more of like that mecca. No. But really, it's it's good. I don't really have anything to say about that really truly. I love to see these areas of student passion passion growing and knowing that there are creative arts careers that they can lead to, especially seeing the music composition and songwriting course, as my mom had on PTA over at Falcon High. The PTA does run a, fine arts competition every fall. The music competition requires students to be able to compose something.
And so we rarely get students from our high school applying because it's not play a piece and interpret a piece, it's write your own piece that fits the the theme. And so it'll be interesting to see when that class is in place in a few years, even though Vista does not have a PTA because there are PTAs in our district, their students can be sponsored in the conversation by PTAs within our district as well. There is a mechanism for that. So, I would love to see, how that course percolates and develops and to see the things that our students start to write.
So with that, that, I'm going to ask, we'll go through one class at a time to make sure that we're moving them each forward appropriately. So do we have any objection to moving the advanced dance class forward? Okay. I believe I'm the only one. Okay. So do we have consensus from the remainder? I'm a yes. Laurie's nodding yes. Holly's nodding yes. Yes. And Mike's yes. So now our second one, the intermediate dance class. Mike. Yes. Yes. I'm the only no. Laurie. Yes. Yes. Holly, there we go. So that one moves forward. Now the music composition. Yes.
I'm a yes. No. Yes. Yes. And our last one, the advanced guitar course. Rock on. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. So we'll see all of those for approval at our next meeting. Thank you, mister Payne. Awesome. Thanks, y'all. And now we are on to the Sand Creek High School new course proposal. Good evening. My name is Amy Sanchez Martinez. I am principal at Sand Creek High School. I think I know all of you with the exception of Holly, and I anticipate we'll be getting to know each other very soon. We look forward to having you at Sand Creek. So I also have a series of, proposals for you all this evening.
I am going to differ from my good friend Tom, because these are much more distinct in nature. So, the first one is the only one where we have made the request to do partners all in one. So, right now, we have one course called partners in PE. PE. Some places call it adaptive PE, and it is across our district. It is wildly popular, and it is a value add in every sense of the word. A lot of our students who have IEPs and students who have significant support needs
or in the education world, we call that SSN. That is the course that is considered non academic or their elective course. But right now, that's the only course that they have. And the reason why it's the only course that they have is because each of our students has a partner from general education. Those students are trained and then they're able to be part of the process together. So, for example, I was in the class earlier this week. I had the opportunity to bowl with all of their students and then they're gonna go to the bowling alley before the end of the semester to celebrate.
They have different tournaments like with soccer and a whole bunch of good things. So now we want to expand that because we believe in valuing all people. And we believe that our students deserve to have various opportunities in that way. So we have three proposals underneath this one umbrella. We have partners in art, partners in STEM, and partners in music. Because we want to make sure that all of our students have an opportunity to learn and grow in those areas. We also know that our students, should be able to have an elective course in
those ways and be able to express themselves in those ways, as well as with our students. We have a number of our students who are the partners in general education, and a lot of them are deciding to go into education as a result of these experiences. So I'll put it up for discussion. First. First of all, hi. Hi. Second, thank you for having this. I have an SSN student myself, and she gets to go on these field trips and do the adaptive, like, track and field days. She was supposed to go to bowling on Wednesday, but her school was closed.
Sure. But I I absolutely agree. I love that this exists. I also do know students who, like you said, have gone into teaching because they had such a great experience, like, with my child and all of her classmates. And so I just thank you for adding so much value. I appreciate it. Thank you. We believe that it's important that, even if the our partner students do not go into education, that they believe in the power of service and of helping one another. Okay. And director Thompson? Well, first of all, I'm thrilled to see this for otherly abled students.
And I agree with you that the opportunity for a Gen Ed Buddy to work with them will enhance both the recipient and the givers. So I just wanted to say this looks really awesome. Thank you. Director Schmidt. So are the Gen Ed buddies, the partners, are they volunteers? Are they taking a course to actually do that? Or I guess I'm not understanding. That what this is? That's a great question. I appreciate that. Yes. So this is also a course within their schedule. So they take the course alongside the students, but ultimately, they need to be trained
in order to know how to work best with all of the students. And over time, I'll say it has gotten better when I think about what it was like four years ago and then what it's like earlier this week, we've come a long way. And that to my in in my opinion, it's been because of growth and strength of leadership even at the district level on this. Well, and also the STEM stuff, how in-depth how in-depth do you go? I mean, what do you what exactly are you doing with the STEM stuff? Sure.
It's gonna be in a couple of different ways. So right now, what we're looking at primarily is going to be some science, scientific experiences and experiments as well as with technology, providing them an opportunity to interact with technology. Thank you. Thank you, miss Deb. Director Hough. So in reading the abstract here, I couldn't help but notice that the word equity and the word inclusion occurred more than once. And you're talking about in, blending STEM or sorry. Gen Ed, and SPED students, and that sounds suspiciously like diversity.
Right? And so those are trigger words for some people in the community, and they say we gotta get all of that out of our schools. This is an the exact example of what we cite when we push back on that and say, I challenge anybody to come in and look at a program like this and find where it's doing any harm for anybody, whether where it's, challenging anybody's family values, etcetera, etcetera. This is a wonderful program, and we need to support this kind of thing. So, thank you very much.
Thank you, mister Mike. And student board, go ahead. I was just gonna say I think this proposal is really fantastic. I believe and I think something that we talk about quite a lot on student board is ensuring that the voices of all students are heard. And so I think the inclusion that this brings to encourage students, no matter who they are, to interact and I think most importantly to learn together is so incredibly wonderful. And so, yeah, I just wanted to say I think it's a very wonderful proposal. Thanks, Vivian. I appreciate that. So I actually had a couple of questions myself.
Yes. One is when I read the course description, it says students receiving special education or five zero four services. So in my reading of that, that means this isn't just SSN students, but it could be students or an IEP because of learning disability or for social SOCO, you know, social communication support or Correct. All kinds of pieces. So where it it's a variety of needs. Yes. Any of anybody who anyone would qualify for that piece of it by having any
type of special education service. Correct? Correct. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Because I have two who one who was neither of whom technically met CSN, but somehow got CSN, like, their IPs were very, very complex. These kinds of things would have been amazing for them in terms of helping them then access general education curriculum better later. Specifically, when I read the STEM one, I think of my kiddo, and I'm like, man, this class would have prepared him for the other general education science classes he
was in to do a better job participating in those because it would have given him some of those foundational skills. Might have even helped him be a little more engaging in mister Habey's math class because I know he was not, despite mister Habey's best efforts, and I know some of the things he proposed might have helped my son as well. So I'm excited to see those pieces. Would this thing count for those students as a science elective credit if it was the STEM one or is it have we figured out how those pieces count? We have not gotten that deep into it yet, but I I would anticipate that
if we were able to address enough science standards within that course that yes, it could. Because that would be amazing too. Yes. For plenty of of students who move through the system like my two did who are now tech well, one's out and one's in transitions now. But I think this is amazing. I really love seeing it grow. I remember seeing the start of the partners in PE when my daughter was still at Falcon High. And to see this continue and expand into other areas and to see, students who are not receiving special education services be excited to partner with them because they're all
our general education students. Some of them just received special education services as well. Mom's little mantra, but thank you. I think this is great. And so with that, do we have consensus to move these forward? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. And now we're ready for your next one. Right. This one is different. This one is, through our pathway for health sciences. And so this is the next step into our pathway, which is for the medical assistant. And so you'll see within that proposal that there is a number and a variety
of benefits that would come from this. So I'm just gonna read a little bit of that. So, we've made some individual requests before. So for example, the patient care technician, part of that is within this. We also have CNA, EKG, phlebotomy, and front office administration included in that. It also provides for basic life support and QMAP. We have a teacher who is qualified to teach this course, and so this essentially is going to be part of the capstone, which is the end point of a student in the health sciences pathway, and it makes them job ready as soon as
they leave high school. And there are some students already who join the workforce and they're ready for it even prior to graduation just because there's that much of a demand for it. And I will open it up for discussion. Go ahead, director Adams. I just wanna be clear. When they finish this capstone pathway, are they qualified as a medical assistant and can immediately be hired at that level? Or is there, additional part of the certification process. Yes. Thank you. And so I will say as part of that, something that's important to note, as
part of a certification process, they have to meet the hours for that process just like we have all done when we've gone out and tried to get certified in something. That means that a lot of times when we are all off from school, they are not. They are putting in those extra hours in order to make sure that they meet all of the requirements for their certification. Thank you. Did you have something? Seeing as we started this way. Okay. That's good. Laurie, did you have something? Okay then, Holly. Are you partnering with, like, any, outside entities in order to get them, like, more
familiarized with different types of systems? Yes. We sure are. So the and that is part of the certification process as well. And some of a lot well, two ways that that happens. Our teacher is very well connected within the community and is part of that community, and so he uses some of his individual connections as well as for the office for advanced and applied learning. They help us and support us. Student board, did you have any comments or questions? So how do they get to these outside places? Do they drive themselves? Or bus or what is it? We work with every student individually, but oftentimes at this point, they're a senior in
high school and they're able to provide their own transportation. And if not, there's been some students whose parents also transport them. But we make sure that every student has an opportunity to get to where they need to go. And so students who aren't 18 yet, they will be able to they would essentially finish the pieces that require that you can't do till you're 18 Correct. Probably after they've left Sand Creek. You know, so if you're someone who's graduating at 17 because of where your birthday is, for example Yes. They can still complete the course. They'll just finish these pieces afterwards. Yes. And I can say even in the, adult disability community, caregiver need is very, very
high and Cuemath is a minimum requirement. Some of these other things are requirements as well, and there's always agencies looking for people to be willing to work. And seeing that income with the partners classes we may have students who learn that they love working with that population and this could give them some of the extra tools to immediately walk into working with that population as an adult shortly after graduation as well. That would be amazing. So there's another link for you too.
K. So if there are no other questions then, are we good with moving this forward? Yes. I have a yes. Deb's a yes? Yes. Holly? K. So we're all yes, and I believe you have another one for us as well. Yes. I have three. And so this next one is, the one course that we have that is, purely an elective. This is our Jewelry two course. So we came, I think it was a year or two ago, and we pitched the Jewelry one. It is going well. We have two full sections this semester, and we also have two sections next semester.
And we want to make sure that in all of the proposals that we're making, we're wanting to provide students with opportunities to go farther in ways that are relevant to each of them. So, the jewelry course is a great way for students to engage both the creative mind and then construct something with their hands, and do something with their hands. And so, that's honestly what Jewelry two is doing, is to help them move farther into the technique. Every single student in that class in Jewelry one is producing a piece of art
and something that's wearable and it's something that's their self expression. And so, we want to make sure that they have an opportunity to continue that. Any questions? Yes, Deb. Is there anything academic, you said it was an elective, is there anything academic attached to the course that they need to, I don't know, jewelry history, something along those lines. A lot of what I'm seeing when I'm going into that classroom right now is a little bit more math and science related. Because they have to make sure that their measurements are correct and that what they're drawing on paper, when it transfers into something wearable, how are they going to do
that? How are they making the dimensions correct as well? Do you do you teach them any, any skills on let's say they wanna go into a jewelry business. Do you teach them any skills on how to run that jewelry business or is that another course altogether? That's another course altogether and that's gonna be part of what I'm gonna discuss a little bit in project management. You bring up a good point though, and that it's important that when we work with our students, that if they're expressing that they would like to do that, each and every student needs to have a graduation plan.
And that's also the ICAP. Each and every student needs needs to have an authentic ICAP. And our students have them twice a year with their teachers. Director Thompson? You mentioned math and science. Mhmm. Because once again, when you're looking at combining different elements, you left off one piece and that's engineering. It's gotta stay together. That's right. And so it touched on math, science, and engineering, but it sounds really amazing. Yes. Thank you, miss Lori. Any other questions? Alright. Then let's see. Are are we okay with moving that forward, director Hile?
Yes. I'm a yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. K. So we're now on to the project management course. Yes. So project management falls underneath our business department. Right now, we have a number of courses that are more foundational in nature with business. So, for example, we have marketing, we have entrepreneurship, and we need to build on that with strategic thinking and problem solving. Project management is it. That is something that, again, again, falls underneath the business department, but it is universal.
My own master's is in organizational leadership, and for me, as an organizational leader, taking the classes on project management was transformative. It was incredibly important, and it's something that I can take with me in everything that I do. And we want to make sure that our students have the same opportunity as well. Go on ahead, director Howe. So this one is very close to me because I work in the IT world. And with the changeover to agile development Mhmm. The pace and the volume of projects has been has been increasing.
This has been a growth area, in my own organization and in other organizations like mine. And so there are plenty of opportunities. And the the projects have changed from being, you know, something that involves three teams to something that involves 12 because the complexities of the, of the technologies have grown so much. And so, yeah, this is an area where there's gonna be tons of opportunity, and, these students are gonna be able to apply these in so many different industries. And that's what we're here to do is launch successful students, so I'm here for
it. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Sorry. Vivian, did you have something? I was just gonna say it seems like a very beneficial proposal. I think the idea of teaching students, it said somewhere in their modern project management and not just project management, but, like, preparing them for the world today, I think could be incredibly beneficial to students. And it it would provide so many transferable skills to so many different career fields, And I think it really is a wonderful as a student, I would have loved
to take in this course. It seems so it seems to be able to prepare students so much for so many different career fields and so many different things that they could want to do. And it seems very much like such a fantastic avenue for students to be ready for what, teachers and, you know, administrators and people say all the time, the real world. It seems very much like a course grounded in the real real world, and so I think it's a wonderful proposal. Thank you, Vivian. I appreciate that.
Director Schmidt? I just wanna echo what Vivian said. I think this is a cool course. Thank you. Thank you, miss Deb. Any other comments? Alright. Then are we okay with moving it forward, director Hial? Yes. I'm a yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Alright. So, my last one tonight is moving right into what Vivian was just discussing. So, when I think of people your age, Max and Vivian, and I think about all that you see in
Assume within a day. Sometimes it is hard to determine what is real, what is fact based, what is not. And when we think about our students in our senior courses and how we're going to launch them out in order to make sure that they're going to be successful and productive citizens. The number one thing that they need to do, no matter where they go, is that they need to know how to consume all of this information that is in front of them each and every day. So over the past few years, our senior English courses, and those teachers have made
tremendous efforts in order to make sure that that level of English for all of our students is relevant, and it helps to prepare them for the next steps in their journey. And that includes everything from writing a college entrance essay, to a resume, to mock interviews, you name it. They're doing it in there. But when we think about now our senior level electives courses in English, we need to make sure that we provide an offering that does more of that, from that same angle.
And so we want to make sure that we're providing an opportunity for our students in that way. And now, so this includes everything from what am I doing about AI, how do I use it in a responsible way, what are the different ways to use it, and what is, some opportunities that I have with that that can advance with making sure that what I'm seeing, if it's produced by AI, what am I gonna do about that? We also have some, information in here about viral messaging, about social media.
There's so much information that's out there and our students need to be able to look, view critically in order to know how to solve problems as they learn and grow. Going ahead, director Hile. So given that media literacy is a weakness across the community, is there any way we could offer this to absolutely everybody? Pack the audit Sand Creek High School auditorium. We've thought about that too. You know, when I was looking at this proposal, I thought, gosh, this would be great for all of our students to have in English four, but there's just enough
material within the course to offer it all on its own. But I appreciate that this is a societal problem, and, we're doing what we can, to, address it, with the students we have in in house. So thank you very much. I love this proposal. Thank you. Director Schmidt. So is this an elective, academic? I mean, you're talking about English. So this is an English credit. Good good question. So it is an English credit Okay. Because it falls underneath the English standards, but it's an English elective. So right now, the senior English electives that we have are creative writing and mythology.
And while those are great, we want to make sure that all of our students at the senior level are able to take courses that are relevant and help to prepare them when we launch them out. K. And then how much AI? If this is just that would be just one portion of the course. Okay. So in a nine week period, it might be a week? It's within one unit of study. Okay. I know it's tough to recognize AI sometimes. Oh, sure. But are they taught little tips to maybe help them recognize it in the future?
Yes. And that we as a matter of fact, one of the teachers in the English department, is taking master's levels coursework, about technology and a lot of that is about AI. She's also serving on the committee that we have here in the district with AI. And so we're wanting to make sure that that's all implemented into the course. Thank you. Director Thompson, do you have any questions? Okay. Director Withers? So, first of all, phenomenal idea. To, like, the songs that you analyze and the films that you watch, is is
there going to be, like, a rotating, I guess, text or media to use? Are you open to, like, other suggestions? Or is this what you're going to use continually for every semester, every year? Typically, whenever we make a proposal to the board, we want to make sure that we are preparing as much as possible prior to. Because we want to make sure that if you're gonna put your stamp on it to approve it, we're telling you exactly what we're gonna be saying, doing, and working
on with students. If a teacher would like to use some other type of media, so for example, another film or song, that's always communicated to students and families prior to. And it also falls within the parameters of the expectations of the district. Students? Vivian, did you have something? I know I keep going. This proposal is amazing. But, I think that this proposal, I may be biased when I say this, but I feel that district forty nine has always kind of been on the cutting edge of wanting to move students towards more modern, education and more modern literacy in all
areas, preparing them for once what happens to them outside of high school once they graduate and adapting to their everyday lives and what they see. And I think you're completely right when you noted that, the media consumption for teenagers is constantly happening. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a video and not realized that raccoons jumping on the trampoline trampoline is is AI. And so, I think that this program is really wonderful in the sense that it provides a level of literacy that recognizes that there we are in an age of
constant media consumption and teaching students how to ethical way is just, I think, so incredibly important. So this program, I think, could do wonderful things for students and yeah. Thank you. And I would say many of us as adults need those pieces too. I had a, teacher have a conversation with me recently about two students a student who showed them a video of a fight that looked like it was in their school. And when the teacher said, I don't know these kids, where are they?
These kids laughed and said, oh, this it's AI. It's AI. Look, we made they took a video of their own classroom, and they put a fight from some other place that was on TikTok into their classroom video. And so within the classroom where the student showed the teacher, everybody knew that was a joke. If that got shared on Facebook, people would have thought that fight happened in one of our schools and it was a completely fake video. Correct. So in the school, you know, the group of students was small enough that that
teacher knew everybody in the system. I was like, I have never seen these kids. How did this fight happen? I've never met these students. It's like, well, because it wasn't actually here. So that the AI component and what it can allow us to manipulate ourselves to believe is is pretty amazing. I think this is a great class because of that piece in addition to. So are we good with moving it forward? Consensus, mister Ailes. Yes. I'm a yes. Director Schmidt. Mixed, but yeah. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. It's good to see all of you students. Thank you so much. Have a good night.
And so now we are on to the financial strategy presentation, which was what our one, speaker spoke about tonight at open forum as well. Good evening. Peter Hilt, superintendent. And, if she were not at a national conference learning about, federal funding, Rebecca Brooks would be beside me. She and I have collaborated on just the basics. And, I wanna ask if you knew if any of you ever owned a Pippen? Right. Do you mean a Byrd? No. I mean a Pippen. Did any of you own a Newton? How about a ZipCam?
I had Fig Newtons once. K. All of the things that I just mentioned and many more printers and servers, those are all discontinued product lines from a corporation called Apple. We have lots of Apple gear in the room right now, but, I'm I'm starting with this analogy because one of the reasons Apple is a strong company is because it got really good at understanding its core business. And it took things they made amazing printers, monitors, the the cam I used that camera, and the Newton.
I was an early adopter when I was an IT guy. But they weren't core to their business. And some of what we need to talk about under this financial strategy is gonna really drive us to focus on what is our core business. And there are some things, there might even be some classes that we will decide are not as mission critical as others, and that's the challenge of prioritizing when you have limited resources and unlimited demand. Right? This is the the educational application of of economics.
And so, as you are aware, and I'll go ahead and zoom this up so I can scroll down as we need. As you are aware, from prior presentations, primarily from miss Brooks, we have we are experiencing flat revenue. Our revenue is not growing. And part of why our revenue is not growing is, although there have been an there has been an increase in the formulaic funding from the state, that's the per pupil revenue revenue or PPR. So we have had increased PPR, but at the same time, we have had decreased
state funding for mill levy equalization and so it's a wash. So instead of our revenues keeping up with our expenses, our revenues have flattened as our enrollment has essentially flattened over the last three years, while our expenses have continued to climb. And so you can see here in in the first paragraph, in order to meet our required obligation to balance our budget, we had to take money out of our fund fund balance, which is sometimes colloquially called a reserve, our savings account.
Account. We had to take money out of that and put it into our main budget in order to balance revenue and expenses. Every every school district has to present a balanced budget and operate based on one. And so we had to do that. But fund balance is a is a one time, function. Using fund balance to balance your budget is something you can do once. You can't do it indefinitely because the fund balance will drain, deplete, and then you don't have a recurring source of revenue, but you have recurring expenses. That's our basic tension. We are absolutely in a good position, as I told you earlier.
People a lot smarter than any of us chose to invest in d 49 financial instruments because we are a good bet. We are we are a very strong organization. And and we're gonna start the discussion tonight about how to preserve that strength. And some of the conclusions we'll come to together are going to be difficult. As you see here in the first table, on the left hand side are our major expense factors. There's no question. In an organization where between 8285% of our costs are personnel costs, it is it
is natural that as we have increased our commitments to competitive compensation, we have increased our expenses. That is a the major factor. But it's not the only one. All of us have lived through incredible inflation over the last five years. That inflation has hit us on the fuel side, on the utility side, on the food services side. It has hit us in every supply that we purchase and ship, and so we're under the same inflationary pressure as the rest of the economy. But District 49 also had a dramatic increase in health insurance costs.
When we talk about the the funding shortfall, excuse me, that we are that we are covering with our fund reserve, with our with our fund balance, excuse me, when we talk about that, a little over 3,000,000 of that is directly related to health insurance cost. District forty nine is a self insured operation. We have we have a a backstop for some some, kind of calamitous expenses, but we cover, out of our own insurance reserve fund, we cover the insurance costs for
our employees. We're self insured that way. We purchase additional services through networks. But as a self insured entity, in years when our members or our workforce have extraordinary costs, we are on the hook for those. And what is great about recent medical discoveries, especially around gene therapies, is that they are helping people live longer and and thrive and and be healed and in remission, and we really appreciate that. And some of those therapies are incredibly expensive.
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so that reality on the left side of expense factors is our reality. I've shown you a chart on another day where that red line of expenses has climbed. It's not that our our expenses have, dramatically jumped, they've just continued to ratchet up, while our revenues flattened out. On the revenue side, the School Finance Act, has a new variable calculation and that calculation rolls in 15%, then 30% in the current year, and it's based on some
other factors. How much of it comes online, depends on how much state revenue we have. And so we're having to recalculate more than annually. Like, we have to we have to calibrate it, and then we have to test our calibration and bring it to you. And that has made our ability to rely on state funding, less secure. There was a mill levy equalization fund that brought, many millions to the district over a three and a half year period. The district considered whether to retain that or to amend it or to end it,
and they ultimately decided to end it abruptly. And so those were dollars that were coming our way and that we had incorporated into our budgeting. Those dollars simply vaporized. They just went away. And Just to clarify, that was not the district that did that. That was the state. Correct? Did I misspeak and say the district did it? Thank you. I appreciate I appreciate the correction. The the state made that decision based on a task force that included, leaders from districts and and from the state department of education. And then the the simple fact that our enrollment has been down.
Now we are we are slightly up in our operated schools this year, but overall, we are we are flat or mildly down across our operated portfolio. And so after twenty five years of growth, growth, growth, and growth, where we were growing one or two or three or even three and a half percent a year, to have three years in a row that are nominal, that that are just sort of flat is is new territory for District 49. And so think of revenues and and expenses as the two ends of a teeter totter, and we're required to balance that teeter totter.
We're using balance two ways in this conversation. One is balance as in the two things have equal weight or equal proportion. The other thing is, if if I have a a thousand dollar car and I've paid off $500 of it, the remaining balance is $500. And so our fund balance is the amount that remains after we've spent all of our revenue on all of our expenses. Anything left over, we call our fund balance. You could maybe colloquially call it our surplus at the end of a budget cycle. So we need to both bring down our expenses and bring up our revenues.
So on the controlling expense side, this is where the Apple analogy becomes pretty apt. I heard some great courses. I love the courses. And there have been other courses that we have brought through the years that I have loved just as much. And there are some programs in some of our schools that have either lost appeal or in some cases, they might have been personality driven by that one, we call them kid magnet teacher, that that really drove it and isn't part of our organization anymore. And so there we are probably going to reduce program in some places.
But this is not not even primarily and certainly not only an educational program proposal. There are other things that we do that cost money, that require personnel, that are less mission critical. I don't think we're doing anything that is fat or fluff or unnecessary. Everything we're doing contributes to our mission to be the best choice to learn, work, and lead. Everything. But some things are more essential. Some things are more critical. Some things are mandatory. And so, for example, we are required to maintain our spending for special education.
We can't just cut special education by $10,000,000, or we're gonna get a $10,000,000 fine. That's called maintenance of effort. It's a mandate. So there will be some degree of reduction in program, a rip, which will be to cut things that are valuable, that contribute to our district, but are not as mission critical. I'm gonna speak right through this because this is this is a topic that deserves our time. Some of the programs that we will contract or cut are led by people, and
so we need to consider along with a reduction in program, a reduction in force. That reduction in force, commonly called a RIF, has to move in parallel with reduced programs, whether they're academic or administrative or operational. If we reduce the program, then it does not make sense to retain the personnel that are administering or delivering that program. And so a reduction in force in education in Colorado, if there is a possibility that that reduction in force would be related to or would impact teachers who have
achieved non probationary status, in some context, maybe you would call them tenured teachers. If there is any possibility or plan that that might happen, then the board is required to adopt, something, a resolution that declares a fiscal exigency. The term fiscal exigency is hyper precise. It only applies to a reduction in force that applies to non probationary teachers. Up until about three weeks ago, when we met with our our, another law firm
that supports us on human resources, I didn't understand that. I thought it had some other implications about contracts. I was wrong. It is exclusively, uniquely, and and only about reduction in force related to, non probationary teachers. And as such, it's a fairly minor part of the plan, but it is a required part of the plan. And so we're bringing it to you publicly. I I informed our workforce about this by email this morning. As you heard from Jasmine earlier, I had actually planned to send that out yesterday, but somebody called two snow days in a row.
And so we just wanted to make sure before I had this conversation that they had a heads up. We believe that we will need to consolidate non instructional positions to reduce overall operational expenses. So there may be places where we have three people in a row, we'll have two. We have two people, we'll have one or we'll have one and a half. And I wanna say this very, very clearly. We cannot reduce personnel without reducing our expectations for delivery of services. It is unfair and unrealistic to think that two people can do the work of
three. Nobody's slacking in d 49. We're one deep in a lot of places. So if we have to reduce personnel, some of our services are going to get slower or they won't be in in the same breadth or depth that we are accustomed to. We believe that consolidation will be an important part of this plan. We intend, under this plan, to control expenses by providing incremental raises in salaries. So people that have been expecting and have a right to expect a step increase
or a lane increase in our salary schedule, our proposal or our plan is that they will get that. But we will not also be able to raise the entire schedule. We can move people within the existing schedule, but to raise the entire schedule, we would have to find an additional source of revenue that we don't yet have. We can, but but we don't yet. We also are underway consolidating programs and administration into fewer facilities, and we're doing that in part because it will reduce our costs if we're operating fewer facilities.
But it also gives us the opportunity to sell some of those facilities. And we've talked about that since since July. We've been talking about that possibility. And finally, as I mentioned in my my earlier report, we have just completed refinancing certificates of participation. That will save us, overall, a little over $3,000,000. And, on an annual basis, that will save us a little over $250,000. So we're doing hard things on the expenses side. Part of the reason the expenses side is longer, has more bullets, and is more
painful is because that's the side that we have more control over. We have much less control on the revenue side because so much of our revenue is tax based and state funded. Funded. But it will be important to continue promoting and accepting choice because that will at least hold our enrollment, and we actually saw a a slight uptick this year. I'm proud of that because it shows that more parents are choosing district forty nine than ever before, both on our charter portfolio and on forty nine than ever before, both on our charter portfolio and on our operated portfolio. So that means we are the best choice.
We are we are accepting more choice than any other district in Colorado, but we gotta stay strong on choice enrollment. We have also let some of our program fees, stay flat while the cost of operating those programs has increased. Base forty nine is a good example, but not the only one. Transportation, co curricular, preschool, those are all areas where we have held the line and and borderline subsidized those programs. We cannot afford to offer those kinds of subsidies. We have to have we have to pay as we go for those programs.
And so that's a way that we can increase revenue. As I mentioned, we can sell surplus dedicated land, or as we consolidate into fewer facilities, we'll have facilities that that then become surplus. And rather than back filling them and, you know, the available spaces expand or the the people expand to fill the space, we're not gonna make that mistake. We're going to, find a market for those properties, and that will generate revenue. I've already told you I'd like to earmark that revenue as down payment for a future Falcon k pre k eight on the eastern boundary.
I think we should honor that commitment, but that is ultimately the board's decision. And then the final bullet, I don't think is particularly controversial, but it's a big deal. We would like to pursue a mill levy override from our community. We have done this. We did this in a really adverse, environment two years ago, but we'd like to develop a plan with you and bring it to you that would help us to not only support salaries, and if we passed it I if I scroll down slightly, you'll see this under point three. If we were to pass an MLO next November, our plan would be to make
a raise to the salary schedules retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year. So that if we were able to secure additional community support, that our workforce would be the immediate and first recipients of that support. So these are all broad plans. This is the time to start discussing them. And the the one that has a technical characteristic is the declaration of a fiscal exigency. If we do that, we would like to have that resolution developed for you for
the January 8 regular meeting. At that point, if you adopted it, and I don't make that presumption at all, but if you adopted it, then we would have thirty days to notify any affected, individuals. And even if they weren't affected technically as non probationary teachers, we would let our anybody across the entire workforce know, because most of the positions, that we are contemplating and and analyzing right now, are not in classrooms. And that's intentional. It speaks to our commitment to preserve what is the most mission critical work we
do, and that is the interface between a teacher and a student. So that is the overall presentation of a plan to establish a balanced budget. I can tell you that, miss Brooks is confident that this set of approaches will get us square. Our bal our balance for revenues and expenses will be restored as it has been historically, and we do not anticipate that there would need to be a third wave of contractions, and that we would have to do a third riff. We we did one last year.
We do we're proposing doing one this year, but we think this would be the last one. What questions can I answer in general? Forgive me. I can't be very specific in this setting yet. Go on ahead, Deb. Okay. First of all, my laptop has been down. So this is kind of the first I'm seeing this. Okay. But I do have some questions. When you're talking about strategies for consideration here and we move this on, what The most important thing you're moving forward is, an agenda item on January 8 to declare
a fiscal exigency. Bluntly, most of what is in here can be done administratively. Of course, the board would have to approve any pursuit of a ballot measure, a mill levy override ballot measure. But most of this can be done. It's just it's it's so serious that I wouldn't want us to move forward in in disunity. Okay. And selling surplus land, that makes sense to me. I mean, some of that land along Woodman, there's some money there. But I do not believe you're gonna get a Mill Levy override with the way
these times are and the voters that we have. I'm not gonna say that I'm don't do it. Don't do it. But I'm just saying good luck. The area here is still building and growing. How come students are not enrolling in our schools? Actually, we're just about leading the state in holding enrollment. The entire state of Colorado is down, well over 10,000 students, and we are an outlier to the positive side. So, the question is, where are the students that have left?
Where are they? Have they left Colorado? They're not in private schools. They're not in online schools. They're not in charter schools because we count all those. We know about all of those. Those. They're literally just gone, and we believe some of them may be in other states. Colorado has gotten more and more expensive, and so we're seeing enrollment student enrollment growth in places like Texas and Tennessee, and we believe that that's part of it. But we're actually the reason that we're the largest school district in in the Pikes Peak region now is because we've held enrollment while others around us have not.
Okay. And then the last thing that I'm a little concerned about is we gave our newest teachers a really good pay raise, but they're gonna be the first ones cut. That that is not a correct characterization, and we didn't give just our newest teachers a good pay raise. We made a big commitment through they didn't get the most. They the the group that got the most were our most veteran teachers through the teacher repositioning project. And that data is really well discussed, and and the board was generous.
Every time you had an option to break the tie, you broke it in the favor of generosity. I appreciate and respect that, and it's why our our cost for compensation have continued to ratchet up is because we have been so committed to competitive compensation. K. Director Thompson? For a long time, we've actually discussed matriculation rates. We've discussed rooftops. We've discussed that they haven't translated into the number of students that that number of rooftops used to produce. And if I remember correctly, when there was a proposal made for different health insurance
options at that point, The overall feedback from our employees was we like what we have, and the increased cost of that health insurance has been a big part of this picture. But I just wanted to kinda make clear that this is not a District 49 problem. Douglas County, I just saw a Denver Post article not too long ago. They cut a 150 employees because of a budget shortfall. So these are decisions that are being made in different areas as people are looking
at their budgets. It is not specific to school district forty nine. And so, I think the approach that's laid out is what can we do to be more efficient with what we have. Are there any other alternatives, with the insurance program? Because I think back then, the feedback from the employees was they wanted to keep what they had. There there is an alternative. It's a it's a really obnoxious alternative, and I won't I won't name the provider. But there is a provider, of of lower quality at lower cost, and that provider
is is increasingly present in the school district marketplace. We asked that question very directly with our workforce, and they overwhelmingly said, don't take away the quality of our program and and of our network. The network that we work with with with UMR is very strong. We do think there may be an opportunity next year to go even further with, the the broker that we use and the program that we are exploring, but we wouldn't it would not have been responsible for us to try to implement that this
year because it was a very in in, we use the term flash to bang. From when we knew about it to when we had to make a decision was about a little less than a three week window. Too fast to make a major change to a different provider, but that is absolutely something that we're we're talking about with our Vowel collaboration team. Snow days never come at a good time, but I was really torqued that somebody called the snow day yesterday because we had a Vowel collaboration team meeting scheduled all day yesterday afternoon. I would love to have been able to give you some workforce sentiment related to
this, but I will I will try and honor what I have heard anecdotally as long as you'll forgive me that it's anecdotal. There are there are multiple people on our workforce for whom the increase in health insurance premiums more than ate up the raise that they got. That's a hard reality, but it's a reality. Georgia Heil. So I wanna clarify something that I think I heard, and that was that the you're looking at positions right now, and those positions are not in classrooms.
The majority aren't. Not all. No. We're we're we're looking both in class I said the majority of the positions we're contemplating are not in classrooms. And so I'll just I'll frame this really really simply because you all know we're never gonna operate a school without a principal. So principals are not really subject to this. Are principals in classrooms? Nope. Are they mission critical? Yep. So this is what I have said as we begin this analysis. If someone works directly with students, our presumption should be that they are mission critical. And if someone does not work directly with students, our presumption should be that they
are not mission critical. Now I believe a lot of us who don't work directly with students are still very mission critical, but it's it's our case to make it. The burden of proof then is on us as an organization to defend those positions. When 85% of your budget is personnel, you cannot make this kind of of adjustment without impacting personnel. And when over half of your workforce are teachers' license, you cannot make this kind of adjustment without it impacting teachers. I would love it if I could give you the whole list and we approve
it tomorrow because I don't like the idea of waiting, but we are actually required to have some intermediate time so that teachers who might be effective have a due process right to ask for a hearing, to understand the implications, and we will be scrupulous about honoring their employment rights. So I'd like to, if I may, take some time to talk about, some of the feedback I've been getting, from the DAC, subcommittee as well as just community in general. Because a lot of times, people wanna talk to me about, the budget and where
they feel like we could be saving money. And so one of the the topics that came up was, well, you know, we're we're spending too much money on Renaissance. Now I'm not in a position to say what the the the value, or what the cost is. But, you know, do we need to send that many people to a conference, once a year? Something to be thinking about. Absolutely. Another thing that is frequently mentioned is that the zone structure and each zone ordering
its own curriculum or its books or whatever. We lose some economies of scale by placing essentially one third the the size of the operated, portfolio is making that order. That, I think, is a bit of a misnomer. And the reason is because those those purchases are negotiated one on one. And so a lot of times it can be, hey, this zone is going to be adopting something. Let's if you give it to me at a lower price point, the other two zones are watching, and they're gonna be purchasing next year.
And if this is the successful, purchase, then they'll be talking to you next year. So my interpretation is that that kind of balances out. The third criticism that I hear about where we're spending that we maybe shouldn't be is just the zone structure in general of having three zone superintendents. So I did the research. And I went to CDE, and I pulled up the data for, ourselves and six of our neighboring districts. And they list out the the cost, per student, for school administration and and central
district administration. And I summed those, and I and I ranked us. And we were sitting in third out of seven, only $11 per student away from the middle. So the other thing is that that data was the fiscal year 2324, when we still had the iConnect zone. So that has already been significantly lowered, and I would expect us to show up, with a data refresh in the bottom third of our area.
So that is not something where we're we're overspending. In fact, if you look over at d eleven, they have four area superintendents where we have just the three. So I just wanted to put those things out there. The other part of it too, and Peter touched on it, 85% of our, budget is going to personnel. And that leaves 15% of it for the things that people are talking about. Of those, a significant amount of it is fixed costs. You're talking about debt repayments. You're talking about the electric bill. You're talking about, you know, fuel for the buses.
I think, toner for the, the copiers, that we really we're not gonna stop doing. So when you look at where we have expenses that we can control, sure, we could all of these things should be on the table. But I would guesstimate that it could that it would save us in the tens, maybe low hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we're looking at 8,000,000. So, yes, we should be looking at those things and and making, you know, smart decisions where we can, but it's not gonna get us out of the ditch.
Anyone else have questions? So I just wanted to reiterate the one thing that we read there. So when we talk about the salary piece, normally what happens when we're having good we've we've had a variety of ways this has been handled in the time I've been here. We've had it where everybody was completely frozen and didn't get a step or a percent and then had to wind that back down once we had and that was when there was an $11,000,000 rescission way back in the day where the state didn't even let you know ahead of time and they pulled they believe d forty nine lost 11,000,000 that year.
That was right before I got on the board, and led to them cutting all kinds of things and starting the transportation fund and all of those pieces. We're at least having some advance ability to prepare this time, but in this case what we're saying is normally, anyone who's a current employee who is getting a step is entitled to a step or a lane, which is pretty much every year people get a step. Right? Are going they would still get their step. But what we do in a good year is not only do we give a step, but we take the whole schedule and apply, like, a 2% increase.
So the very bottom, first year, no experience person hiring in, that salary actually increases by 2%, so do all the steps. So you actually get your step plus 2%, essentially. What we're saying is because of this situation, our current employees will all get their steps, but a new first year person will hire on the same salary as what we hired a first year person this year, which is a different approach than we had used in the past and I think is more, honorable towards our current employees
even though it makes, recruiting a little harder, but in this circumstance, we're not worried as much about recruiting. We may in fact have people in a reduction in force situation who fill spots that become available because of people leaving for other reasons, moving or changing careers. So, I think that that I appreciate that approach. I think it's it's very respectful of the people we have here. I also, if if you all have been looking at the programs enough that you're ready for that thirty day window, my personal preference is to do the fiscal exigency
statement sooner rather than later because I think that's also more fair, especially in the education environment because you're letting people know in January, we're not gonna be able to have a position for you. Hiring in the education field starts in March when you start to see positions opening in other places. We're giving them a much larger window to be able to make sure if they need to find another position that they can. So I think doing it earlier is smarter and more respectful of our community.
And then if we find out, oh, woah, something happened at the state and we're getting more money, we can pull back Correct. And re offer, and that gives people the most time to make sure they can do what they need to do to take care of their families as well. May may I respond to that specific, please? Because our our intent would be to bring you on January 8, a resolution declaring fiscal exigency. That starts a thirty day clock. We don't intend to use it. We would like to notify everyone who is impacted by the January 23. So we would actually only use half of the statutory allotment of time.
And it is just as important that we let people who are not subject to the reduction know so that they can be confident and and we can retain. That is absolutely as important as it is to honor, colleagues for whom we will not have a position in the following year. The reason January is the right time to bring this to you is because it's also when we have to bring our amended budget, and there are some positions that we are not backfilling now, that we are already booking some savings, for the next
six months. And that I mean, we're we're looking for every dollar that we can find anywhere we can find it. Yep. So I just wanted to really quickly address the the part about selling surplus dedicated land. I absolutely support that, but I think we'll see a a small budget positive as far as we are no longer having to maintain those properties. However, the sale of those properties, that is one time revenue, and we should not be using that for recurring expenses.
So I would absolutely resist, putting that into the general fund and using that to to help support salaries. We agree. Do we have any other comments or questions at this point? Go on ahead, Deb. It's just tough because, again, I have just now seen this since my laptop has been down. I do have a new one now. Yay. Thank you. It's tough. I you know? Seems like we're gonna go pretty fast on this, and I don't know that I'm ready to go this fast on it. I'm gonna need to gonna need to look it over a little bit more.
I respect that. It's it's quite serious. So at this point, what do you need from us? With I I would appreciate your direction, whether it's unanimous or or majority consensus. But I would appreciate your direction that we draft a resolution declaring a fiscal exigency. That is the only thing on on this plan that has a hard statutory compliance element to it. We'd like to bring that on January 8, and and I will tell you, and this is very significant, that it's such a it's such a significant declaration that it
will require four votes, not three. So it requires that super majority. So we would like to bring that. We would like to place discussion of a potential mill levy override ballot measure on the agenda for the annual planning summit, which is where we have placed it in the past. But I guarantee that you will start getting input immediately, about both of these aspects. Disheartening. And we have this very strange set of messages. We're at the same time reducing programs and workforce, but also celebrating some big wins.
And and that's a that's a tough environment to maintain morale and to feel our values of care and respect. We might we might see them and cognitively see them and and recognize them, but to feel them is a different thing. And so I think just letting us be patient with each other, acknowledging the the cabinet is working really hard, on this set of tasks. I have great respect for them, but they need to advocate for their people and programs as well. And so my job is right now to sort of be the referee to bring
you a plan that is more specific. It will include positions that are not teacher positions, that are not nonprobationary positions. It will include not backfilling positions that we care about, that we depend on, and it will include reducing some of our our production. I can't be specific yet, but there are some things that we do that we really like and we really appreciate, and we can't afford to do them in this in this condition. Deb has one more question. So this exigency thing Mhmm. This window, is this the only window, or are there other windows?
We get to choose when to open that window, but once we open it, it it has to close within thirty days. We could do it in June, but that's not we can't plan for that. You have to adopt a budget in June. We could have done it in in August, but we didn't know our October count yet. So this is really the first time we've known. So you can't do it in February or March or April? It's January or June. Every every every longer delay makes us less agile, and it gives people less notice.
And so, we wanna give people as early notice as possible. And January is it is well in time for people to be in the job market, if they choose to be. Thank you. And on that piece also, we've put this out there. The conversation is there. The anxiety is now already there. Yes. Like, literally, I was getting it the second your e I the second your email went out right, I was getting stuff. So, and the only way to alleviate that anxiety is to now pull the trigger
on it, make it very clear exactly what is happening because the other aspect is, as you said, if we leave it where we still don't know, everybody is worried that their position is one of the ones listed and everybody starts looking. And now you're losing positions that that we that you all had made a determination we couldn't afford to lose. Okay. And we don't want we don't wanna put anyone through that for any longer than we have to, and we wanna make sure we maintain as many of the people the quality people we have, that we absolutely can.
And that happens by doing this straightforward and honestly. And although this component of it, we're hearing now, we've been talking about the potential budget amount Correct. Since early this fall. Since August and in August and September, we were starting to hear some of these numbers. And in fairness to everyone that's been involved in those budgets, remember the state didn't know what was happening to their budget either. Every time federal tax code changes, state code tax code changes, that changed everything the
last legislative chain, group planned, which is why they had a special session. And anything that affects the state or the federal budget affects us in a way that we have no control over and have no way to predict until they do it. So we couldn't predict the impact of we we still can't predict the impact of the changes at Department of Education federally. We don't know those for sure yet. We can't fully predict the big beautiful bill, and we can't fully predict how those those chain reactions are gonna affect the state budget, and all of those things impact
us. This is what we know impacts, so we have to plan for what we know now. That's what puts us in good position to plan for anything that comes in the future because we'll already have adapted to the no's. So at this point, I'm gonna ask if we have consensus to allow him to draft that agenda that resolution for January 8. Mike? Yes. I'm a yes. I'm still not comfortable. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Right. Well, that part is our next, actually item on our agenda is the setting up of our annual planning summit. So and Peter has put two documents in there for us, and it's currently set
for February 7, Saturday. And, Holly, we spend that whole Saturday, breakfast and lunch are provided, and we spend that Saturday. It is still an open meeting, but it's pretty boring for most people, so we don't get very many other people come to attend. And we work through, reviewing our performance, setting goals for the following year, and kind of our whole strategic plan as a board with the administration over that period. And so that's planning now. And, Peter, do you want us to walk us through what you have, and then we can add what other pieces we need?
I think I'm getting credit for Lynette's work, but this is really just kinda it recapitulates what we've done for at least three years now in a row. We're gonna we're gonna talk through those strategic objectives that are on the wall behind you. I'll give you a sneak peek. I think we will ask to continue writing and middle school performance, and I think we'll bring you a couple of other recommendations. But we always expect and invite the board if this is the board's summit. So you could you could ignore any of our recommendations or not even listen to them, not even entertain them and come up with your own strategic objectives, and that
would be perfectly, within your prerogative. But we wanna tell you how we've done over the last six months of implementing what you adopted. You adopted it last February. We implemented it in July. We're giving you a midyear review. Performance excellence is our overall operational, performance. This is this is one of our two big, hairy, audacious goals, BHAGS. This is role model organization. And by the time we meet in February, we'll know where we do finally stand with the Baldrige process. They they were delayed by this the federal shutdown, and they have not regained momentum.
So we still don't know what that process looks like. As I alluded to, we would recommend objectives going forward. And then I think there are a number of other topics. I I can anticipate a a longer conversation about our relationship with charter schools and optimizing, and enhancing that. The board has sometimes wanted specific training about topics that the board is developing or or or is growing on. The main the main thing is whatever it is that we need patient time to
talk about and learn together, this is when we should do it. Okay. Well and so we if we look at the one from last year, if some of these pieces we just move forward to be able to discuss. Right? So we'll be talking about what our strategic plan was. We'll review the BHAGs and then decide whether those are BHAGs that we are continuing with. Right? The BHAG number four, we may that one's probably gonna be, hey, we've achieved as far as we're gonna go. I'm guessing that that that, Baldrige will not be something we'll be investing money in during a fiscal exigency.
The board can discuss that, but that is my I would guess would be one pretty solid recommendation, so we can discuss other pieces there. Is there anything under the goal piece that board members wanted to add, Deb? Did you have a suggestion? Well, I heard you mention the writing strategic priority. I think we should have math and literacy in there as well. I think we need to keep those as strategic priorities, math, literacy, and writing. K. So we can add that as a discussion under those strategic objectives. I think writing was became a new focus.
I don't think we dropped the others, but we can make sure that we're discussing how we're doing in tracking those. So and I think for because we'll be looking at 26, 27. So this list will be able to expand. Other topics board members would like included? Go on ahead, Laurie. I just know that in the past, you know, it wasn't all decided necessarily at a meeting. And I saw you have a note in here that any things you want added to the APS, you can get that information over to Lynette. So if you think of something later, this isn't the end all be all.
It's some it's an evolving annual planning summit. Yep. So we again, this isn't until February, so we have another, month where we can try and think through some of those pieces. I know two items I was interested in us starting a conversation about. One would be, charter schools, both in terms of the relationship and accountability and and ensuring we're building a system that ensures that success as well. As we look at that BHAG of distinction with diversity, we can't get to be
a district of distinction if our charters aren't getting there too. And many of our charters, do well and sometimes they struggle. And so how do we build, something systematically that, helps move that bar as well? And so I I Like us to start to have a discussion about that at the annual planning meeting. That's one item I'm interested in. And then the other would be looking at some of the same systems pieces in our district in terms of at one point, and I think we still do have
some type of a matrix of accountability and responsibility, and looking at school performance and how we tie relative autonomy versus supervision, both in our coordinated schools as well, and having a discussion of whether that's something to revisit, and recalibrate. Those are two items I'm interested in. Laurie, you had a comment? Just it was just a thought that I had that anything that we do with charter schools, we can't interfere with the current contracts. They would have to be developed for future contracts because the other ones have already
been signed and implemented. So that was the only thought I had. And also, I think we used to get recommendations from the DAC on different items to look at. Go ahead, Mike. So, in light of the fiscal exigiteness yeah. That word. We probably need to have a deeper dive into long term solutions. And so that may be an MLO, but, I've I I think I think we need to start taking a little bit of a of a longer view of, our
budget. You know, let's deal with the the situation that's in front of us now, but, we really need to, start being proactive. Okay. Anything else for now? And this is just our initial conversation on this. You can start sending things to Lynette that we can look at, through agenda settings as well, and then I'm sure we can have another discussion as we have a proposed one developed, and share it. Go on ahead, Peter. May I make one observation and ask one question? The observation is remember that you will get a midyear academic report from all three
zone superintendents in January. We we've adopted that practice where they all present on the same date on the same night, and that's intentionally timed to inform you as you get ready. Maybe you hear something from those presentations and you wanna drill in on that at the annual planning summit. Maybe you you hear a really good report and you say, okay. We'll use our time on other things. That that's the observation. The question is, is the board, committed to a half day, three quarter day, or full day agenda? I'm not giving the option of a quarter that's not enough time.
But we we've had years where we we went four hours and went home. Some years, we went four hours, had lunch, and spent another hour. Some years, we've spent the entire eight hours. But but the years when we did that, it's because you decided to do training in the afternoon, and you brought in somebody from CASB or you brought in somebody from, some other outside entity. Go ahead, Mike. So I'll just answer that question. It really depends on what we put on the agenda. If we need an eight hour day, I'm ready to put in an eight hour day. I've never felt that we've had enough time. And if we go longer, which I would definitely be behind, to not take these
and make them longer to fit the longer. They still need to be brief so that we actually have time as a board to figure out what our strategic goals are. Laurie? In light of some of the the things that the district and the board will be facing, I think it is only judicious to plan on an entire day as there's a lot of, different moving pieces that I think deserve serious consideration. Holly? Yeah. And I think we should I think we should plan on the long day, and
then if somehow we get through it a little earlier, that's okay. But I think us all planning on having that commitment because we do have some really big pieces coming in. Some of these are things that also multiple board members may not have been through before. And so that takes a little bit more, preparation and understanding and probably more questioning, and it's easier to do that in that environment than it is in this one, and we'll have more information at that point. So do we need anything further on this at this point? Okay.
We have one person signed up for public comment in the second forum, and that is Emily Barr. Hi. My name is Emily Barr, and my son is a third grader at Stetson Elementary, and he's so proud to be a part of the operation world language program. In case you're unaware, last year, right before Thanksgiving, parents got an email saying their teacher was leaving and another was taking over effective immediately. That seems strange as their teacher had been excited and engaged, but we weren't we aren't entitled to staffing decisions and personal decisions of staff. The new teacher did great, but it was a disruption.
Fast forward to November 20, we received another cryptic email stating the DLI students were being split between the other third grade classes as they look for a new third grade DLI teacher. I was devastated. My child has blossomed under the teacher who was leaving without notice. She was engaging, energetic, and it was obvious that she was passionate about teaching in languages. Once is a fluke, twice is the start of a bad pattern, and I'm not alone in having a lot of questions, questions that go far beyond why a beloved teacher is no longer at the school. We deserve to know the status of the DLI program.
Do we need to worry if the program will continue especially with budgetary issues? What's being done to support our students' emotional and educational well-being? What's being done to support the teachers who took on additional students? What's being done to prevent this from happening again? And what can we as parents and families do to support the teachers in the DLI program? As the parents tried to grapple with these questions, we took to class Dojo to express our concerns and didn't criticize. We were met with a repeat of the email from the principal, miss McCoy, and were told that the chat was being archived in just a few hours.
A request to keep it open so we could exchange phone numbers was ignored. I then emailed superintendent mister Horace and told him of our concerns and that we were wanting to meet with him and miss McCoy to discuss them. The response I got was so dismissive that I found it disrespectful. He told me there would not be a meeting and that no additional information would be shared. I reiterated the specific concern concerns I stated earlier and, as of this afternoon, have not received a response. Thank you. And, Peter, I'm sure we can talk about it after for follow-up.
Thank you. Thank you. We are on to miscellaneous items. Does anyone else have miscellaneous? I have something, but I'll wait first to see if anybody has anything they need to bring up. Yep. Go on ahead. So, with, Jamie Lynn Devola's, exit, I think we should probably talk about any, committees and other sort of assignments that she had, that we might need to fill right away. So specifically, she was, our representative to the DAC.
So I volunteer, just because since you retained me as the treasurer, the treasurer has been meeting with the, budget MLO subcommittee anyway. And then since they changed the format and they, there's there's no opportunity to just attend that, I I could continue in that process. And then the question is what other, things are there that we are not thinking of? Deb? I believe the first time we did this, when we all first just got in,
we did that at the annual planning summit. Did we not? Yeah. But I believe we have a DAC meeting in January. Is that correct? We'll also need coverage for CASB. And so that's something Well, and we had a so we had an alternate delegate, and I believe Deb is our alternate delegate. So she takes, Jamie Lynn's place in anything that's voted on at CASB. Do didn't we have an alternate for DAC as well? That was me. Then as alternate, you then serve on DAC until we have the February planning summit.
And then at the February planning, that's that's the beauty of having the alternates, is that then we can actually do all of the committee assignments at our annual planning summit, and make sure everything gets distributed and everything gets covered. But, Deb, you are now on for, if they're having a delegate assembly, I don't know if there was one scheduled on the CASB meeting. So so is there something to vote on at the meeting this year? So you have to be the person to go to vote, because you are our alternate and we need to make sure that that her name is submitted correctly with
CASB so they recognize her as our okay. Anything else on that piece? Any other committees or anything like that that anybody can think of? Not anything that's within that month. K. And so and then the next piece, so we have two things. One is we need to schedule, our meeting for Peter's evaluation. So unfortunately, that did not get done before Jamie Lynn left. I have had conversations with Paul, and we can actually do that in January as
well, because we're not required to give Peter notice according to the contract till January 15, according to the pieces that he sent me. I think it would be wiser to do that because everybody a number of people are going to CASB next weekend, then we're into the week where everybody's running around and it's Christmas, and I would rather we take the time to be able to think about it and and process it before we meet. I am going to ask, everyone to email me email Lynette what their availability is,
from January. And then we'll see what day we will be because we do, Holly, for your piece, we do an we meet in an executive session so that we can discuss it and then come up with a consensus evaluation. I would like Paul is going to make sure he emails us all of the content right before he leaves, so we'll get that December 22 or twenty third, and that way we'll have that whole break to read it. I also had something I wanted to ask of Peter.
So in prior so this year and in last year's piece with the new evaluation set up, the predominant thing the board had to review was the MSEC, but we didn't really have any other documents so we were relying on ourselves and our own memory to think of what are examples of this objective, this objective, this objective. Way back in the day, chief officers used to also provide us a subset of documents that we could use to review to help us with a starting point on
that. Given this level of notice, would you be comfortable providing us with some a subset of documents to be included in the packet Paul sends us so that that helps us to begin framing our discussion as we look at the the domains. So exemplars of, you know, the different standards for Right. So so the majority of the quantitative objective evaluation is based on the performance of schools. And so I can provide that in the in the in the form of a table or or of of a matrix.
We actually provide that already. The board has moved away from evaluating those different domains, leadership and communication and and management and and personnel. The board doesn't give me a quantitative score on those because the board very intentionally over the last two years moved to an objective measure that was really it was based on this theory that the performance of the organization is is identical identical to
the performance of the executive. And so the way we measure the district in schools is by school performance and district performance framework. So most of my evaluation currently is based on that. There is a small component based on the multi rater review, and I have already presented my my analysis and synthesis of that. And then there's a sort of comparable component where the board does an evaluation of those domains. But I don't really have I mean, if if you would like me to, I could I could, Maybe if you and I sit down a little bit, just because
when we met last year in executive session, what I found in our discussion was when we went to do a rating on some of those pieces and we had to decide a number, it was, well, wait, what's the evidence of that? And because I have a really good memory, I was pulling up examples that then help say, oh, wait, yeah, that should be a need. So, oh, wait. Maybe that's this. But that puts everybody at a different level of advantage in that discussion because of the way my brain works versus the way someone else's might.
And so I don't I and I think we had a hard time defining what those domains should be. I'm happy to meet with you. I'm happy to meet with Paul. I could provide you I could say, here's a here's where here's two cases where I think I demonstrate leadership. Here's some places where I think I showed, you know, good personnel management or appropriate, project management. But I will say in public as I have since Kevin Butcher first came on the board, that's twelve years ago, you really wanna know what I'm like as a leader? Send two of your membership to sit with a group of cabinet and senior leaders
for one hour. This is the VLT model. I've done 600 of these. I learned so much from sitting with eight to 12 smart people and just letting them speak freely. I would invite the board to consider, as I have invited the board before, that there is a wealth of knowledge about my leadership and performance that you're not tapping into because you're not talking directly to the people who experience me day to day. And they would give you the examples that you're asking for. I just think they'd be more authentic coming from not Peter.
Well and I agree for another year's evaluation cycle, and I think that's something we should be putting as a discussion item at our annual planning summit of is how do we how do we make the next step of improvement into this evaluation process? But I think it was I mean, I felt it was hard as I sat there, and I think it was hard for others because I was referring to things that people didn't remember and didn't have any access to and didn't, and that's because my brain might work differently than someone else's brain, and that really isn't fair.
I don't know how else to phrase it. Mike, do you wanna add? Yeah. I just wanted to add that that what you're asking for is a component of my annual review process. So step one is I do a self review, which you've you've get done in the form of scoring. But what we haven't seen is what is your what is your rationale behind each one of those scores. Right? And so that is something that, as I said, is the first step in my annual, review process where I provide my own, scoring and, you know, hard data justifying,
you know, how I arrived at those scores. My managers rely on that heavily because, you know, I it's been a busy year. Lot of things have happened. Some things I've been doing, they didn't even see me doing. And so it's important input, into the evaluation. So I think it's I think it's a very appropriate thing to ask for. So I we would generically, we would we would talk we would call what you're talking about a body of evidence. And I'm happy to provide a body of evidence. What's the timeline again? Could we have it by Christmas break? Is that possible? I'm not looking for something nearly as thorough as what you did before, but something
that at least gives us a starting point for discussion or even a list of things because then Yes. We can pull them up, ourselves if we need to. But that gives us some type of starting point And as soon as he answers, then I'll I'll Yes. I can do that before you leave for break. And, Deb, go on ahead. I'm just not really sure that we'd be should be tasking him to do this when we've already got the multi rater from principals, from, the cabinet, from, you know, pretty much everybody. Well, we're using that.
Yeah. Why we wanna We're using that too. So it's just supplemental information so that when I'm sitting there and I refer to something, those of you who don't remember that document aren't aren't saying, wait. Wait. Where is that? Because that's what happened when we did it last year. And, and it shifted scores significantly. There were some things where it's like, well, show me make me a good argument. I remember someone saying and I made the argument and it was like, woah. I didn't remember this and this and this and this. But we didn't, I felt like at some level it was unfair to others that
they didn't necessarily have that kind of recall and therefore we're starting at a different point. And so I've and I ran this by Paul as well today because it's just some supplemental information. And we can board members can choose to use it or not use it, but it provides some of that supplemental background, that I think could be helpful in framing our conversation during that executive session. But the multirater thing is still a huge a significant piece of it. I just think we have to be careful in looking at that in a balanced way. And then so if it's something that individual board members don't find a value, they
can choose not to review it as heavily, but then we at least all have some of those pieces. I just don't agree with it. You're having the I don't wanna say employee. Excuse me. That's not what I mean. You know what I mean. The person that we're evaluating, giving us additional information to his favor. Well, and having seen Peter do this before, he often provides things that are not in his favor as well. When he he he tends to be, you know, the that that is a characteristic of his personality to end up giving you the full picture, and he is often
harder on himself than than his raters are, overall when he does those things. But I think having that base piece and ultimately, Mike, you're saying you're interested in that information. I'm interested. Laurie, how do you feel about getting some supplemental inter information? Laurie says she's interested, so that's already a majority. So if we can get that information, and then Paul will just make sure it's in the stuff he sends us, and we can all review it. And in the meantime, I'll need everyone to send Lynette their availability for January so
we can find a day we're all in common. And I also contemplated possibly having Paul help us, just to in terms of process. So, so if we can also coordinate with that, we can have Paul help the process component, so he can help us begin that conversation and frame it. So and then the other piece is noticeably, although we've had, there are two meetings now where we've said the JBAA dash R would be present on the, agenda, that hasn't happened in in part because of the change in the board.
And so rather than bringing JBAA dash R forward directly, my intent at the January meeting will be for the new board to look at, the bathroom policy itself, JBAA, as an action item to determine whether to affirm or repeal. Because there's no point in trying to look at the regulation about the bathroom policy if we don't know where the current board stands on the policy itself. So I'm just letting everyone know to expect that at that next agenda to see that on that next agenda. Is there anything else for miscellaneous items?
Then I believe we're adjourned. Thank you everyone.