we're good okay it is Monday February 10th 2025 and I call this business meeting of the Elizabeth School District to order at 6 PM can I get a roll call please Callahan here director Fletcher here director olon here director pal
here and direct Waller's absent okay let's stand for theedge ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all okay I move that the agenda
for the business session meeting of February 10th 2025 as presented second any discussion okay GNA get a roll call director Callahan hi director fler hion I and I motion approved next up I Mo I from January 2725 meeting and the February
52 live meeting as presented second any discussion there all right can I get a roll call director Kell hi director Fletcher hi director olon hi and director pal hi okay motion approved and next up we have communications and we have Singing Hills here to present we have Amber our wonderful principal
forur yeah just hold the button down the numm
it's not doing anything off Jeopardy
you okay I just scroll
reached out to you guys so she when I asked her this morning she said the kids are coming in calm they're not they're used to looking for all the toys and stuff first and so they see all the books and it's they're making their little wish list today so they're looking for you know books they haven't even seen before Nole head and all these things like what is that so very good so I haven't the sales
yet because they just making wish list but we go through wednes is there any evening yes I think she's doing we three evenings okay yeah so we have in a lot of parents and the parents are notic volunteers are okay we have some community members that would love to come and buy books which obviously would help your school but they
would prefer to come hour so that that's okay so the first so we had our winter so we ened you know dads and grandpas and uncles and come out so I don't think they've done one in a while so the funest story the first group to show was grandpa with his
little priest board and she had this Rapunzel hair and it was lighting up she kept say
um to bring in Treasure gold bring Princess all right next one I think is our so this is something that I think they've done in theast that come in it's every Tuesday morning at8 so if you're in
the um so we have all of our that help them through all kinds of different athletic type things so they've got obstacle courses and them how to play you know basketball and different things so get ready for big one that's coming up school right so stop by Tuesday morning and that's the same got C that
get out of the car every morning is it Tuesday all right so we have graders so this is our stem teacher sus McMullen and also ashy CR and our fourth andth completed that so they they were about 30 teams um and they ended up kind
of Ro our little school district and then right now what's happening is the anders are explain what they what they bu so that'll happen in April so the youngers are going but this is kind of a couple pictures of our fourth and fifth graders competing we'll compete against middle school students too so on the same group so they did well I think they were around 16th
or something at all am I miss well I added ambassadors theread have an application so they have to attendance good grades good character all those things they have to a huge interview process so they they get chosen at the end of um this school year for next year um so this group they it's kind of like our student council leadership so they've been doing they do our morning announcements morning so that's kind of fun to
hear them do that um they do the introduction at all our coyote competency award ceremony so they actually Define what the competency is and they have to come up with the definition so from their words what entrepreneurialship is um they do a lot of the community indri events like our C drive they help with they have a float for the parade and they're helping with kind of
okay so that's kind of our and I did a coulees January where we reflected on a couple of our new um the first one is building a foundation of trust and we're Usinger genetics this year and really the main goal was to kind of help St
turnover you know issues out in the rural areas sometimes so we're hopeing they increase their wanting to invest in St AIT school districts um so with the Emer gentics tool it's really about self awareness and we call it the language of Grace once you know yourself kind of enter into conversations and stressful situations maybe a little bit better so
our leadership team um reflected on kind of our M reflection January what were some positive progress pieces they felt and then also some of challenges and barriers that we need to look at um so some of the big things that came out I am seeing them actually using we have all our profiles and so I I see them reflected on this when they're walking St they're having conversation with them they're looking at their profile so that they're entering in the conversation how that person would need
it you know they're very analytical they're coming in with I better have my data you know those kind of things so they said we understand ourselves and teammates better and are getting more grace and I do see that you know through stressful times I feel like they are kind of leaning on each other in different ways um and they're flexing to meet their teammates where they are and not getting frustrated so it's it's a lot about you have to fle to other just Flex to you you actually have to try to meet your teammates where they are
so I do see that especially when we workos or different things we're trying to problem solve I do feel like they're taking a minute to think before they enter into crazy conversation um and then some challenges and not really barriers but what they would like to see just more short refreshes on the attributes inetics we did one big training at the beginning so they want to make sure that we're you keeping up with the verbage andbody so we're doing that at each staff
meeting just like a 10 minute kind of refresher for that um and then we're trying to do a lot of team building so about once a month we're trying to some fun interaction with emergenetics and just you know putting them in a stressful situation that's kind of funny watching Everybody how do you think your profile contributed to the way you reacted to that situation and then our next one was um this is this but we
did put an intervention time for literacy a 45 minute purposeful intervention time within our master schedule this year um so that our students with um are not being pulled from direct instruction gaps um they did do an intervention time before but it was not in the master schedule and so the team were kind of full when they could and so some kids were not truly being double dipped because they were Direct in
um so these are some of the reflections so the pro the positive progress make the literacy interventions um students are not being pulled from direct instruction and we're able to pull more students in the bubble Gap kind of and I'll so a lot of times when plans are being ped you end up with the students are kind of in that bubble and don't that with sometimes those kids
can get lost because they're not in a group that they need um so that's really helping us a lot this year um some challenges and barriers um we don't have a specif intervention time like this already that um so we're they're feeling like they have a little bit less we're still working on the balance of St isow
the cut score on so second grade is probably for us where we see the most replans and so um one thing we've done with that is the SP so that we have all Inspire groups in that particular grade level helping our
data as well and then we're looking at there possibly be some cross next year to open up one time so maybe next year we do a k one intervention time so that some of the groups can be kind of age mixed if possible and that might free up some adults so that we can just get more creative in more groups so that was a good idea they you find you have
this kids that have also have problems with ma sometimes yes and a lot of it has to do problem they're at actual maths are super high in math and it's just that they need help read the actual word problem so they kind okay so let's look at
andall so the bottom line is beginning and Top Line MD and a couple things that I like to bottom this looking
at that strip so what are we doing for those kids so we've got to look at that too so just some cool celebrations and that we're about a little ahead of we were yearim Trend like we moving kids definitely um you know from 19 to 31% from that beginning to the um
top green line we're dropping so that students and then our students of plans and leaving some of those bubble kits more to the teachers um you can see that that's definitely helping almost so is this all grade levels so first K through five yeah this is our K through yeah so just some cool things there we had
only8 and then defitely all that in the right direction um this one I think is important because when you look at the stri the or above
grade level this is looking found I really think our progam top three so the chological they're spending a lot
more time on that so defitely Bas foundational pieces I think that's very encouraging good there um and then the next couple sides I just you theak for and I think you know you look at our K1 I think the exciting part when first we have students in the three or more grade
levels below or two or more grade levels below so now we got to look at how keep that so I think that's first we they doing a good job so how do that and then when you go to three through five definitely um fourth grade moving into fifth grade with our tough they had a lot of drops of this fifth grade
group the teachers are working really hard it's just it's been an interesting group um just kind of work habits study habits they're working really hard on that but they are definitely increasing their green are 10% so I
think I would 45 minute intervention Ma I do feel like I already and I was just kind of get glimp at it the teacher second year I do feel pull small groups like they normally direct instruction short but then
they also do a lot of disc minutes intervention into the day because the way that I already um curriculum is built it's sort of already built for that so I think teachers are already able to pull map groups and people can push in different parts so I'm still watching that way can can you sp a pull map ma groups what do that yeah so like in Reading if you know the teacher does a direct instruction and
then students were struggling on we were doing two digit addition now we've moved on to something else so they might do the direct instruction and to the back for an extra 10 minutes to go back to what they they try to fill in gaps so if if in like a 60 to 990 minute class period they need do a 20 minute here's our new lesson teach it everybody and then they probably have to
pull a few small groups to really work on what they need and at that time other students based on what their needs are or they're playing a math game together so they kind of like cers almost last just that one our foundations of math think
meas not always like that so um I think a lot of this it's good second year teachers are able to pull out of then the other ones are just breakdowns of the grade levels I think so I think within the second year
of this math curriculum I think it's very much it's a lot better than what we before so I just say thank you very much for worship amazing job
thank you this is
second year anded we were trying to figure out how I presented last I'll little in November um I had what's called education administrative
unit color continu so um is really the whole team when I met with our
parent group our teer our district administrator this is all of the information that we could ever ask for in terms of um the data that we and then here and of course
there's questions feel free to ask so again you know we really always want to do and just talking about our mission and so we reviewed that together as a group and then here is just the agenda we met for the entire day and again we had a mix of parents special education teachers school
and administration District administration and then my office so we had inchino is from Legacy
Courtney lamb running creek Curtis is our middle school and then Amber and then myself for special services so we
just here are some just some pictures from that day we had a really good opportunity just to go through the data have brief conversations to really dig down and find out what is it that we really need to pay attention to in special education um you know the students in special education need very focused specially design instruction so we really want to look at the data and pay attention to that so I I think we captured some really good pictures there people are smiling
and um again we had really great conversation you were you were there ambro and she was a perfect little guest so in the first section it does correspond in the bigger packet it really just talks about just in
the state of Colorado government you know what are we being held accountable to and so what to know about that so for this piece impress focusing ones for students with disabilities through a tiered system with the layer Continuum support So districts can
need requirements needs improvements or needs intervention and so you again there's a lot of data in here really enjoy looking at data I happen to enjoy it um so if you want to Le a little bit more about that and then this is the summary of the indicator results in special education we have 20 indicators we have compliance indicators and then we have performance indicators performance um in the
packet here on page let's see if you look at page seven I don't have it in the PowerPoint but it kind of looks like this on the left hand side are the performance indicator so it includes graduation rate Dropout rates these are all things that we are scored on as an au admin in special education
um assessments the Statewide assessments we really do want our special students taking either Cass or coal um preschool setting preschool skills parent involvement post School outcomes which is after kids graduate and then um let's see hearing uh resolutions and then mediation agreements sometimes those things happen and then on our compliance we're looking at
suspension and expulsion rates disproportionality which has to do with um you know who's getting suspended um and why they're getting suspended uh child F which is our preschool so we have that Liv in our and we have a kiddo we think they um need an evaluation they have a special need we're required regardless of their age to um EV for that family and then they can choose
to either come to our schools and join the district sometimes you just want the evaluation and want the information so it really ends up being that way um part C to preschool to um kindergarten through 12th grade and then secondary transition so 18 to 21 year old program that we have so um for us um how do we do weet
requirements so in here we do have a where it says section two that is a letter to the district addressed to me and it's from Dr Paul Foster he was the state director of special education so every year we'll get um a letter from him letting us know how we're doing according to um the different indicators the compliance and indicators right any
questions about that information and then this is the last part that we really dug into I think this was the most important piece of the work that we did um it's really digging into the data and so if you look at section three you'll see just a lot of different three or four
it talks about how many points many area so all of that information is in there um there's growth achievement Ela math um so all of those things are really important for us to attention to and then that's how we get to what we're going to actually work on as a district so 23 24 and
this actually should say 22 to4 um these were two years in these particular targets and then the different um the plan that we had put together and this was prior to me coming into the district so we noticed or they had noticed that preschool growth in positive social emotional skills and then an increase in the fouryear graduation rate so prior um I mean these were the areas that they thought were really important to look at they
developed um the different targets and then um what their plan their action plan was going to be so the timeline who the key personnel are what kind of resources would they need um what were the implementation benchmarks and then um is the state of the um acress has it so when we looked at this information really informed us about okay where might
we start for this um school year so if you look at the very last page in the PowerPoint presentation we came up with um three major Improvement targets and so we did increas preschool grow achievement and postive preschool skills so what we noticed in the data is that we've had some drop in our preschool scource so we really want to work hard at making
sure that we're paying attention to you know whether it's curriculum how um instruction is being delivered you know what are all those pieces um that need to happen in preschool Karina doen she's wonderful I'm so glad that we have someone that um really her focus is preschool and she really brings um a wealth of knowledge in that area so we're super excited to partner with her and her team around that our
second major Improvement uh Target is removing barriers to parent involvement across all district schools so I think you know one of the things that we hear really loud and clear from you as a board is that really important piece around parent involvement and how do we get them more involved so we really feel like that's something that is important for us as well and really um pour out in the data in terms of what we want to accomplish and then our third one this is a from last year and this is
an increase in graduation rates you know we always want to get as close to as we can so um that was another piece of focus that we wanted um to really look at so in preschool we have three different um action pieces so we want to in terms of achievement we want to apply the use of appropriate behaviors in the PK classrooms um conscious dis so implementing PD and conscious discipline in
all PK classrooms Karina would really be able to explain that better than than I would but um just really making sure that everybody's on the same p in terms of how we support kid TS gold um to provide P PD for TS gold um in rater reliability for all PK staff and collaboration with PK staff in ecse teachers and assessment so your ecse teachers are your SP teachers for um
preschool up through um age8 and so um in that inor reliability so U director Olen to give Mr snowberger um a reading assessment then miss glazur would um give a similar one that they would have a similar outcome in those pieces so we really want to make sure that our teachers are um really trained well so that matter who does the
test we're going to get similar um results from that so it's super important I'm not going to read through all the pieces but there's a timeline who those Key Personnel are our resources and then what we're going to do in terms of we need to continue to analyze that data and observations and that's in progress we just came up with that in November so all of you are going to be in progress so parent involvement um so in special
education um there are a couple things that help us know how we're Eng so each year the state generates a list sends it to me and then we send out a survey and it all goes through CD if um a student is no longer in our district we can make a substitute and they'll pull another um kiddo's name from their list we send that out we're actually getting ready to send and so
um we haven't had a lot of great success I don't think their surveys back so we talked a little bit about that um you know how can we you know try to get more parents to participate in that survey so you know maybe sending out additional emails to parents and say Hey you know we'd love for you to be able to fill this out you know it's really important to give us feedback um and so those are some that we're looking how can participation rate um for our surveys to our parents
and then usually it's due I was actually talking to was one of the parents that was at our um meeting and we were talking about the timeline of when we get those results back I'd have to look at my CDD timeline but I think it's after school gets out so we'll meet at the very beginning of the school year to look at the results what are some things that we can do make sure that
again we're engaging parents and helping make sure that you know what we're doing is supporting them and that they're also supporting that you know the partnership and and how we work together let's see um so we want to explain the the survey that's import so in the email that goes out we make that's in there providing time and technology for parents to complete the survey so if a parent were to get back to us and say I have a way to take this they can come into my office they
can possibly come into this office you know get on the email and then be able to surve um survey is in the home language so one of the things I'll look get before we send that out survey needs to go in a different language and I would contact CD around that um survey parents about the barriers in survey so once the deadline has passed we'll look at who fill
about who hasn't fill about and then approach some of to find out can you talk to us about why may you didn't fill that out was there something that we could have done better understand from participating in that and then of course graduation rate uh meeting Juniors to provide Credit Recovery including summer schooling or other options Al students who graduate
in four years continuing into the senior year as necessary so um those are our areas of focus for um our continuous Improvement so I don't know if anybody has any questions or Kimberly has really been working hard to um build systems I say our distri
special service providers we have some our contracted some employ continually working just because those are so hard to fill so don't think a week goes by without interviewing somebody it's an interes I'm already trying for next year
but there are times I'm we're not completely um and that's been a really hard thing just because everybody is looking for a especially the related service providers like social workers um occupational therapist speech language we've had to go to a a virtual model this year although we do have a um an inperson slpa for our um preschoolers and we just got someone that graduated
in December he's going between the two elementaries so being able to provide some in person to our elementary so yeah it's definitely and you know I do want to say that and I told to do that I feel like the board was super supportive in um bumping up those salaries for our our special education teachers and for related service providers because I think it's made it better for sure and I
think as the word gets out that we're um much more competitive than what we used to be I think that will be helpful so I do want to say thank you for for that support because without that I think it would be an even bigger challenge so I I appreciate that you recognize the importance of our special Educators I really do the Staffing challenges are are not unique to us though right it's pretty much across all the school districts
and you know we have a lot of teachers that are lure programs um they haven't gone through a traditional program we're fortunate that we have people who um choose to do that we've even had a couple of J teachers um come over to spend which we've been super pleased with so um yeah if you know somebody or you know put it on on your Facebook page that we're looking for uh Staffing um that's
always appreciated so thank you so next up we have board member reports I don't have meeting
tuting I will say I appreciate you be here this is a I been watching school boards for years now and this
is Heroes in this country that are not and so I appreciate the opportunity to be glad you're I don't so much this week um maybe a few events coming up got T got
coming okay well I've got two or three so um today um Dan and Jamie and I got to do a fun thing High School um making you g i she asked
for some volunteers to intr some of her students in her wealth management class for jobs and so we we all went and we each had three or four students that we did and um I was very impressed um all of them did really well I had my that I know really well to we were all very impressed and um it was it was a great experience I think kids and they learned a lot but they were very engaged and I was just very pleasantly
um not surprised but very pleased I guess to to see how the ones that were interviewing they were doing this they were obviously they through their answers they showed they had a good work ethic that they were you know going to be having in a job um I asked one of the questions I asked was are you going to be able to do this job but also keep up your school work and they all show plan for that um and so that
was that was good because it's great to make money but you can't let school school stuff fall down and I'm not sure a real employ would ask that but I did and I was just very impressed and so I think we have just another example of was um another quick thing um tomorrow is another eist found fundraiser um
go down toast 11 11 gotch dinner or midnight snack almost at app and mentioned Elizabeth Education Foundation they will donate 15% to the foundation so and which of course the school uh tomorrow tomor yes so um and then the last thing is Dan and I met with lady L white who is the founder of grandparents for kids and this is an
amazing organization I have a friend who is part of this and she runs the Douglas County chapter of this and they um it's protect your grandparents grandkids education join grandparents for kids and so this is an important group of people who are out there who are paying attention to the school boards and who are supporting things and who are looking for um you know the things that we as a Bo tend to stand for you know the protection of our kids the education
making it you know the appropriate and traditional education and those are the things that they stand for as well and they are looking to uh start an Elizabeth chapter and so we as a district are going to kind of figure out a time with Linda try to have a meeting here try people and find people who are interested in being part of an Elizabeth chapter of of grandpar grandparents for kids or grand yes grand for kids G for K is how they they rated a
lot so anyway it's it's an amazing so I'm hoping that we get a good show for that and you don't have to be a grandparent you don't have to be a grand can be a grandparent down the road you want to be great uncle or great aunt yeah exactly so so nobody call Grandma Grandpa if you care about kids education okay well
I've got a few updates um we went to the class conference this weekend of our members Ronda and and uh Dave and and uh Mary were able to to go this week in class is an organization that our board is a member of it's ERS for acemic success thank you always strug to remember the acronym there but um anyways uh it was great to that we're moving in the direction that obviously many
or others are so it's was kind of fun to hear oh we're already doing that oh we're already so that was that was reassuring to us um great opportunity that work with other school board members and and school leaders um was going to mention the interviews you stole myviews were amazing um again if if that's quality of future employee we have a very bright feuture so it uh was very exciting to see and of course
we were asked to pick our top candidate and each of my candidates was app for different jobs I tried to go with I'm hiring them all because they looking for different job she wouldn't let us get she wouldn't let us do that so anyways a tough a tough scenario um Sky Tree book fair you've already heard is get does appear there's some easy opportunities so I will get those um dates and get those out to
our community because um this is our first of many Book Fairs I know that Mary Creek has one in April and I think the middle school does too so um so I'll get you those dates as well but really excited to see that we have books in the library for sale which is which is so important and got an email I fored it to all of the board members from Laurel our our librarian at Singing Hills just really raving about how excited kids are to actually come in not have to sip through toys to get the books but to
be able to see books and see high quality books available to them so it was really nice to to see that um school choice week as many of you know we participated in the state celebration for school choice week and um Jeff and I were able to go our high school B did us very proud um I tell you what they were outstanding um in their performance they not only played the Anthem but they also played a couple of other songs as well
during the event and so we're very proud of them um they received a donation from the organization um so they've already repaired some instruments it well um upcoming superintendent Forum I didn't have one in January I do have one scheduled for Wednesday February 19th which is next week a week from uh this Wednesday uh 6: to 7:30 here in this board room so I do want parents to know that that's available and always enjoy the
conversation again we've had lots of initiatives our dyslexia initiative started out of one of those conversations so um really encourage parents to come and just get the dog and pony show it really is a design to just chat and talk about what's working well and what might we might need to work on so um great opportunity did want to talk a little about reading initiative um I did put out a community newsletter last week um we're going to talk a little about that with the policies that we're
looking at make some adjustments to you know really critical I think we saw with shingan hills data and we'll see um at our work session we'll see all district data go through our midyear District data with all of our students but I think we're seeing some great growth in students we're you know the students who are less than a year behind those are students within reach those are students that we we've seen the students closing the Gap already just and a half year and we'll continue to watch that through the end
of the year um but really want to make sure that it's not just about setting higher expectations it's also about putting in supports and I think we've all talked about the dyslexia challenge for students who have dyslexia some students just need quality classroom instruction other students need some unique therapies and and that's really what I'm excited about our um dyslexia initiative and our take flight program that will be remaining across the district next year we've got a pilot going and tracking that data
and seen some really exciting results um at running creek this year so um again you know our focus in Reading is not just about Gates and barriers but also lots of additional supports to make sure that there's no excuse for a student every student can read there's no no question there's no research that says ay child there is a child out there that can't read it's about making sure we access quality instruction and we heard a lot about that at our class conference this
weekend last thing I'll share is M testing actually two things to sh sorry second Cass test scene is coming up and I want parents to know that there's been a Statewide initiative is just out and while that you know we used to have tests that were much longer and took a lot more time certainly I'm proud to be on a state task force to reduce the amount of testing time um but testing is is really important to
us that data is not helpful half of our students don't take that test and so you know I know in the past districts have really hyped that up high pressure it shouldn't be high pressure it's a day for kids to show us what they know and it's one test it's not the test it's another test we have I ready we have other classroom performance data but I really do want to encourage parents to consider letting their child have that experience they're going to have to take a test when they get their license they're going to have to take a test if they want to
be a doctor an engineer whatever it is um their first test shouldn't be that high stakes test could be could be just experiencing a test and having adults encourage kids to just do their best um it's a it's a great experience and a chance for that data to be more helpful uh to us and then lastly I'm excited that our um interior walls are going up in the auto shop so driv by there's been a lot of activity a lot of delivery
of lumber drywall and things this week so the interior walls are are going up and excited to see that progress really greenhouse builders has just done an excellent job and sheering that along and getting great local contractors to help us finish that work with the dollars that we raise so I don't want people to think they haven't heard about it nothing's happening there's a lot of progress under way and certainly board members are interested we can go over SE any estimates on on when we can get
a seat um we're hoping hoping spr break time frame not too far away obviously it's based on all the pieces falling in place it's organizing different laborers to do the different segments so yeah um again just appreciate their their hard work on that certainly Derek's SP our our autoshop teacher and all the work that he's done and shepher in this this whole process so they seemed like they were going to be a really
contad are they are doing great work and keeping us in the loop and it's not uncommon for me to get a call from on that just updating me on where things are so communication we like itun I think that's enough thank the band and everybody for going
Downes providing them pizza at one of their P band events coming up so just say thank you and if you missed it you can see it on LinkedIn that's what I saw it amazing nice to watch okay so next up we have consent it I mean I doubt considering no public comment for the no public com so I move the
board approve the 81 87 second can you get a roll call Kell hi director Fletcher hi director olon hi and director pal I and you'll notice that we did repeal some policies um thanks to Rhonda she's been going through and there are some policies that don't exist in the in the world of policy these are policies that someone in Elizabeth at some created and
no longer valid and so you'll see a number of those that just raled that will come out of our policy book we've got plent of Poli we kind nice to see stuff remov it's very anti-government so next
so um last year you you'll recall our license compensation commit brought forward a new salary system um we adopted that last year was a system our teachers created um working together with Administration and so we're very proud of it one of the things that we had done at that point was we' had a retirement track for teachers that would give us a little more notice out that door with all of their knowledge and experience um they call that the
retirement track so they declare their retirement they earn some additional income to really do some extra work to lead their legacy um we had so many people apply that literally became a big Financial investment on the part of the district um and because of the amount of dollars that sa that be getting each year their plans had to represent that so when you're when you're making 10,000 $15,000 more year people say you're looking for $10,000 to $15,000 worth of
work and so um they recognized that that was probably not suain want get reti but only one dollars so um our license compensation committee has wrestled with that since last um summer and they have recommended that we're align with our support staff which is system the teachers and our school employees are in only recognizes an 8%
increase in par benefits so even if you got a 50% pay increase all they're going to count in retir calculation 8% and so our classifi sta about that our LIC St are now so when person enters a retirement track they will get an 8% increase from where they are on the salary scale each year to a cap and so you'll notice our new salary schedule has a
at the bottom instead of those re retirement track steps so anyone wherever they are in the salary system will get 8% from that point and each year they can do up to four years of retirement track that's necessary year they'll get an 8% increase each year until they hit that cap and obviously if we look at cost of living in the future that cap will r um but you'll notice on the front is
our LIC staff on the back is oural educ Staff recognize the fact that last year we differentiated and recognize that our SP teachers are very competitive and so we have a little higher scale for special education s you'll see that their cap is also in place so um our license compensation committee is recommending this change and we ask your support okay so I move that to board
approve the modified salary scale for licensed staff second reading revised policy BB School Board
officers um minor changes based upon casby edits and then we edited again which I uploaded today a little bit a little bited or do not remembered or I remember
secretary but I did have questions too and Mike have you read the the treasure requirements and some of that seems kind of old school some it doesn't seem applicable I mean I know you and I our signatures are on the bank account but never I
don't so um and we don't even know what district all monies were return from the custody of the County Treasurer I guess is that the but I mean you don't really I mean it's it's kind like as secretary I don't really do the minutes but I keep track
of you know the vote and did Stu and then I kind of check them B on what you do but you you prepare them and I just sort of check them so is that kind of for treasurer I just I this seemed very very detailed for the treasurer or or maybe maybe adding Ure Ure that yeah language this is casby language this is the definition of the treasure and obviously all of those things
happen and and it's it's the district's responsibility to Ure that that the treasure is aware that they have I don't know mik if you feel like there's more you'd like us to do GL and I do say it says the treasure
shall perform or cause to be performed so it does say that so I mean it may fine it's just it just seems so well there was in that first part a couple questions I put to the right Mary um which we talked about at a jum setting but whether we wanted to
St secretary or vice president number 11 and then number nine thatu that wasn't previously which I think is fine but I think number 11 technically probably should be the vice president because it falls that yeah and so I remove okay that
I'm any additional edits I don't know that it couldn't come for a second I think I think it's fine I mean yeah everything's been electronic these days but so you do kind of oversight to the ca
before next meeting free to let me know but otherwise I'll bring it up next time or not next meeting next business meeting Okay so that being said I that the again the first and first
reading of revised policy bdb School Board officers second Kellan I director Fletcher I director olon I director p i okay Mo approved and next up we have first reading of revised policy BC which is executive session looks like
it's adding the superintendent Employment contract if you're looking for a new superintendent I hope that's yeah we got to get this yeah I guess they've added this to thec and that's why these were on the list because all that's here language the
language here is exactly what the board did probably we're EX you're St
out of negotiations super that the board approved the first reading of revised policy executive session second discussion okay can I get a roll call
D Kean hi direct bletcher hi Olson hi P hi next up we have the firsty J LF repor child abuse Child Protection so you want to talk about this one yeah and actually I'll talk about both the next one as well just so that we'll have the discussion over once one of the challenges that we've had is obviously aler County uh Department of Human Services has a large call Value when
it comes in so when calls are made to report concerns about students their safety neglect um those calls go into and obviously our department does very best they can to address those as quickly as they can um but as we all have experienced through our experience last year at Middle School sometimes those don't get acted on and sometimes sometimes a child endangerment is is urgent meaning if we don't do something now they could continue to be
in danger and so working with our law enforcement agencies of the Sheriff's Office and the uh police department and Elizabeth we we've discussed the fact that we should not have or but an uh reporting and not that the police necessarily have to act on every report sometimes it is a it's a it might be a neglect it might be a situation child Department of Human Services it's their role in other situations the child may need to be checked on immediately just
to ensure that they're safe and that there's not anything that's hazardous to them and so um we' consulted our attorney that works on special education matters in the front pocket of your notebook you'll see the response um we have had some of our counselors who have expressed concern that they feel like somehow we're violating confidentiality so we did go oury say confirm that this is okay um and as you can see in the letter she wholeheartedly
endorses that that that that while the law requires reporting to one or the other and you may technically be in the law if you report to services that child's in danger and we haven't called police where they can be immediately um checked on or or address that situation and never forbid that child's hared is that something we want to happen and so um she certainly has endorsed this change so what you'll notice in policy jlf and then you'll see
the corresponding next regulation that we look at as a next motion um we're changing the or to ant so um our school resource officer St Perle by the way Saturday is SRO day so we want to we'll be recognizing our school resource officer but Steven herbo will take the call from any staff member whether it's a teacher counselor administrator um let him know what we've reported if there's a sense that it needs immediate
law enforcement they will be involved if not they will report that it's logs for the C and so really we don't want to determine what is and what isn't that's that's a lot of liability so officer herle report then to our County Sheriff if it's outside absolutely yeah when we've had we had stud at either the middle school or High School in one of our
town SRO introduce a student that that brings a concern and that child happens to live in the county they will then make the inter agency referral to the other agency so um certainly we can pick up the phone in call Alber County Sheriff's Office as well is more than willing to talk through here hear the concern and then pass that on as well so we have multiple Avenues so is he the contact for any school he he is willing to be so if even if sinking Hill's out of out of the Town jurisdiction has a concern they can call
him he can certainly consult and then pass that information on if necessary or they can pick up the phone and call Albert County Sheriff's Office we do have officers who are assigned to the schools although they don't spend the time at the school they do have a contact um and so in some cases they may call just that local sheriff's deputy as well um but we feel pretty pretty that this is a pretty important change that that our staff understand that it's not an option any longer to call one or the
other yes but that it is it is that we both agencies so that a child's welfare can be taken into he will be filing the official report there will be something on record he will he will always take a police report and record that you know um teacher X notified me of this situation and here's you know what taken again if it doesn't require immediate law enforcement he may also reach out to
Department of Human Services to to make sure that Department of Human Services knows such law enforcements in the loop on it um and again um we do have we do have local sheriff's deputies so if if the school feels like it's easier to contact or that Deputy might be on on scene they can certainly Reach Out directly to the sheriff's officer immediately we don't want anyone to say well I heard about it Friday but M
child goes through a weekend with potential danger danger and we know that not every report I think that's important for our parents to know is our our police department is very um careful in how they address you know a report is a report until it's substantiated and and so I think they do a nice job in double cheing and checking on the welfare of the student and talking with family and ensuring that that there's not not a danger situation so again we're not going to say we want to involve police on every matter we just
we have a great partnership with law enforcement and feel like this is a wise thing for us to do so with that said the board approved the first and final reading of revised policy jlf reporting child abuse child protection first and five first five first
okay so Mary second yes okay any further discussion director callaham hi director cletcher hi director olon I and director p i all right motion approved related to that we have the first reading of revised regulation jf- regulation and I think the argument is the same it's just a regulation of
process to do to carry out the policy okay so I move that the board approve the first and final reading of revised regulation jf- reporting child abuse prot
got a change on Behavior defate law um there there there are some casby edits that are just terminology based on statute but the bulk of it is reallyis of immediately upon receiving such information
and one line was removed based on Tyler thought it was unnecessary open to interpret get a call hi director Fletcher I director olon
hi and director B I okay motion approved and last up we're not going to be voting but this is a discussion item and it is poliy all students meet standards policy ilc early literacy and reading comprehension andc so wanted to just begin a public conversation because obviously this is a pretty big change and felt like let's
talk about it first we bring back there are some minor or there are some modifications in ik um and the other literacy policies will need to to also be updated um to ensure that they reflect because we are focusing heavily on literacy here and obviously ilc is our early literacy reading comprehension policy um we really want to ensure that again first that we have all
of the appropriate interventions and supports in place obviously we don't want to just create an expectation and have children not read it me meet it um with the things that we're doing we feel like for next year we will have a lot of intervention in place not only intervention but remediation take f is a remediation program not an intervention program it truly is taking students that haven't learned to read and EXP them to the type of instruction necessary to help dyslexic highly dyslexic students uh
decode which is which is the biggest challenge for dyslexic students so um with those being put into place we are wanting to to make it very clear that we don't want children leading Elementary School without being able to read at or tiny bit below grade level we don't want more than I upgrade L because obviously we just set a student up for Success research is very clear that children Elementary School not reading actually third grade in particular but we feel like fourth and fifth still allows
us time for intervention um children do leave third grade not on grade level have a six to seven times greater propensity of not making it 12 education and so we truly are setting children up for Success if we send them on our Middle School teachers many of them have not gone to training on how to teach reading they you're reading to learn at that point not learning to read and if you can't read then obviously it's hard to read to learn so um so we
are proposing that we set these these Gates knowing that we will have lots of supports in place um that we will look at third grade and we will look at fifth grade If the child at third grade if we have an action plan that's showing growth of that student you they still have two more years at the elementary school but before they leave fifth grade we want to ensure that students are reading at or very close to grade level so that they are set up for sucess when they move on to the middle school and high school we will have intervention in intervention at the middle school next year
as well so students who we haven't caught with this we will be able to do some intensive remediation so it's not as if we're this year's kids were just hending on and good luck we will have intervention but hopefully at some point we won't need that level of intervention at the middle school because we be catching students and ensuring they have uh the reading ability it will take focus on directu Conn a
great consult who will work with us on that um but the other thing we put in here is a requirement that we notify parents fall after initial testing and that we again notify parents before spring break if their child is at risk so we don't want anymore we've had a couple of parents say well I was told I important is important now it's only one important test there other measurements that show the child's reading on grade level
and I doesn't okay but but we need to make sure parents know and that we're very clear with with parents that their child is be low grade level and what we're doing about it so that that notification segment is really important to me so that parents aren't surprised we don't want parents to be told at Spring break hey we're retaining your child they should know all of the work that's going into and if they need more time because they're on a progression and they need additional time for reading then it shouldn't be a surprise
and it should be something we partnered on do we know why that message got out that I read scores aren't important I think I think this whole isn't important I think we went through that phase I think certainly Co um sent us I think even deeper into that phase where people just are like testing doesn't matter and we've seen this drastic decline in the state again we higher than the state but nothing to brag about so um it just
makes sense I'm kind of back to what you were saying earlier today we we we really ask parents not to op their kids out ofest because I mean everybody knows schools gets ranked but how that's how we rank that's how we know how SCH do a select group of students that's not going to be truly representative and so again I'm just going to reiterate please we're not going to like have you know days and days of trest preparation so
we look good I mean that's not the point of it the point of it show us what you know yeah show us what you know so we can know how how to proceed and we and we've mentioned in here also about on collect and itally throughout the year so it's a body of evidence SS really struggling with face agreeing and then again that we have a plan the
first part um the the policy is always said that students who are um uh who are not making adequate progress have a plan but it didn't say what kind of a plan so we've added that too it should be an ntss plan a replan a 504 IEP so a student who's not making progress we should have them on some plan parents hold us accountable that we're doing the right intervention and the parents know what they can do to be a part of it to partner with us um and so that's also an important addition to ik
um I would say ik will probably have little changes unless you have any I do want you to to look at it carefully because I think ik has a bulk of the changes that we want to make the key that we still have left is going to ilbc and ibcr which does emphasize specifically around reading and read act and we want to make sure that we align everything with the read act the re act when it
was revised a few years ago did add that consideration of retention into the state law but again people haven't left them retention isn't the answer to everything but a child who needs more time forcing them on is only out of the testing said yeah if they
out of the testing that limits they they're really putting us in a position where it's only going to be our data in the classroom and that may not be do we have risk for that though I mean do we have a what do we have risk like from we do recourse from the parent if if we're only looking you know it's like he said she said like teacher says my kid's not doing it well I know my kids's doing well like that's my concern
is if they if they're not satisfactory progressing they can't and they can't read and comprehend and perform the tasks that demonstrate that they can be hard to argue that okay yeah I mean I'm in Colorado and this is hard for parents to hear it is a decision of the principal to retain parents do not have there's no there is no right to deny if a principal retains a student
by Colorado state law that student is hereby recorded as retained in that grade level um and so I think many people think that the parent can say no I refuse well technically by Colorado law you you can't if you choose to leave our district the records we forward to that other school will say your child is retained now that school obviously has the ability of ignoring that but but by Colorado law is ultimately the district now I don't like that I rather parents be on board
and that's ucation is so important the plan is so important so parents know that we're working our tail off and your child's working their tail off and we're all working understand the research that said that we just pushed them on we're setting them up for failure um I think to me I my hope is that any child ultimately time going to be an agreement because of the level communication we're going to have starting next year and obviously even this year we should start before the end of this year we
should have some way of notifying parents whose children are more than a year below grade level so the parents go in next year knowing my child's got some room to make we'll be looking at summer programs we'll be looking at extended school day anything we can do to add time for students to close that g will be really important so we going to notify this year then by Spring would be probably not by break because we're not going to retain early this year we'll certainly begin talking with parents about what's to
come and if they feel like you know we focus on learning to read in K to3 fourth and fifth does have some reinforcement of that but K3 is really the grades where we have teachers who have gone through the um reading training required by the state that's teachers who have gone through the science of reading um training so that's a that's the best grade so we will C talk with their gr parents whose children are drastically below and talk about retention this policy we would be
asking you to put into place for the start of next school year so certainly I would want parents some children before the end of this year to know your child is below grade level where we've got a plan for your child for next year and this is a new policy that will go into place next year now you do kind of do this as a collaboration as well absolutely so a partnership between the district teacher and parents that maybe with that plan it would come up with a way that they can help reinforce it
absolutely and we and we've talked about we we used to do a lot more reading nights of supporting parents and how to help your child reading I think we have to increase that opportunity and help parents understand um you know we it's important for parents to know we can't do it all you know you can't send your job to school and think that they can go home and there's no reinforcement um you know we have them for six hours a day parents happen the rest of the 24hour clock and so we do need help and we need partnership but obviously we have to
do our part so you're talking some trainings for the parents trainings for parents that's great challenge I think that you know certainly that dyslexia program has a requirement for parent engagement with activities that go on every day shouldn't just be for children of Dyslexia we really need parents to recognize the value of Rich language in the home talking to children children who go home and sit in front of the TV don't get the language exposure that they
need um I mean there's so much research out there I think the more parents see that research the more they're going to say I can be more support my job what some these things the plan may be an mtss plan the read plan I know what a 504 is in an IED at least theoretically um but what is an mtss mtss plan is multi-tier systems of support something talked about a child who's who's struggling an mtss plan is basically what area are they struggling and
what are we doing about it data to show that we've intervened and does a child progress so if a child doesn't progress on an npss plan the next step is special education evaluation determine if they have a learning disability um but we no longer just test a student and say your IQ an i it's after we intervene Research bed vention are you growing and if you're not that's then the pathway to special education and
so an mtss plan is where we say child struggling with reading fluency here's where they are here's what we're going to do to improve that here's we're going to measure regularly to see if in six weeks we see growth if we don't we don't admire the problem we then change up what else can we try and if we do that a couple of times and the child still isn't progressing then we go to special education special education 200 um 4 shifted from a identification
based on ability model to a failure to respond to intervention what is a rep plan rep plan is the state requires any student with a significant reading deficiency um to have a plan that outlines and so an mtss plan read plan to be honest with you are the same if it's in reading it it should be a K3 students typically start on a repl a student who might arrive in fifth grade
ntss plan is probably what it will be called because typically the law require students leaving third grade not reading on grade level have a read plan um so fifth grade or may not be identified we don't identify high schoolers who can't read and put them on a read plan the read plan is really an elementary plan that identifies students who are struggling NSS the same thing we identify the CL andour out there
on the signs of reading understand not as easy people would think you just put a book in the kids's hand and they're going to teach themselves how to read it just doesn't work that way and we and we you know when I taught I had kids here I had kids here to here low to high today our teachers have kids we're never going to hold
that student accountable we're never going to we're never going to hold ourselves accountable to make sure that students progressing and we just pass them along so that the Gap becomes wider and wider and wider it's why you know Amber's data you saw very little red in kindergarten because all students started at a common point but as those gaps grow if you don't intervene and you get high schoolers who can't read above the fourth grade level and we wonder why can't they learn
science social studies because it's a book to learn if you can't read to learn Focus for us and again certainly want to partner with parents and like I said I think that that communication piece is so urgent that parents aren't surprised absolutely I
let's do it together yeah let's do it together show me we par does a child's homework and says see can
effort because we keep passing kids on and they find a difference between themselves and others and it becomes something you know we've gotten away from kids reading in class because we don't want to embarrass a student
that child can even a student on an IEP they may progress slower but their plan should capture that their plan should set benchmarks um and I've always worried about students on IEP that we just lose our expectation of them while they're on an IEP so we're not going to know children on the I can learn too and we just need to
aong Le 12th grade there's I listened to I think I shared it with you all called so the story and it's a very you know um very even podcast just talking about
the ramifications of the kids not being able to read and as they go into adult I mean it was you know to listen to it you know you're angry sad you know frustrated all at the same time it was it was it was very emotional to listen to even looking at the research of individuals are incarcerated the number Wonder are they incarcerated because yeah if they learned to read
if they if they had those skills students to graduate and go into college and have to take a bunch of classes because they can't keep up agre this will be a heavy focus at the elementary and obviously son of the Middle School to catch those students who were already mov forward um our high school our high school is doing pretty well said we can do better and we'll continue to focus on that most
of what parents will see will be sh find things to do that support them but but my my hope would be long term that we'll see increased achievement the high school level as children arrive there ready to read and learn versus struggling to read
them and seem to be very intentional about capturing all that data over the years absolutely so are do you proceive putting in some intervention programs in the high school to try and catch the kids we we will we will continue to look at you know our population of the high school who are reading significantly below grade level and and continue at interventions many of those students have been identified on IEP so it's working with Kimberly and her team to say okay what else are we doing
to make sure that those students are closing that Gap so um most of our students in the high school who are struggling that significantly to read AR typic students who haven't identified either before an I plan and then we just need to look at what's our instruction for those kids in there so that would be pretty much our high school focus is it possible we may miss some yes oh clearly I think not every student with dyslexia needs take flight I want to be very clear to parents because
needless to say you know take flight is very intensive and you can do five or six students in a group at a time so you can't have 40 kids and and take flight with one teacher you've got to do very focused because it's very much about building the code for students who are struggling to break the code um so not every dyslexic student needs take life those students who are most severe the lexic students need take flight and so Aspire which you've heard that word
a couple times tonight's fire is a research based program that shows High success with dyslexic students who are not on a severe side of the spectrum one five adults one people of for the main one in five students need take FL they just need good quity direct explicit instruction uh to be successful and then those students who typically
a dyslexic student will Plateau at third or fourth grade and not be able to move beyond that read level and so when we get a a middle schooler who's at the third grade level and not been able to progress that's a pretty good sign that their dyslexia has gotten in the way and we see students who are on IEP we've seen a student who we've dismissed on an i d dyslexic students often get labeled as lazy you don't see the disability you think well just try harder if you just try harder you'll do better dyslexic students uh
we I have a program we'll do um later in the spring called experience in dyslexia which is a simulation that people who attend will actually understand how a dyslexic student because you actually are put to simulations where you will have the same learning challenge that a dyslexic student so it's it's pretty eye opening and and parents who have gone through that in districts that I've had dlex program typically come away crying because they've been on their child
for not learning when in fact they understand how frustrated they're trying to so that's a that's a training for parents it's a training for any it's we're going to do it with teachers next year too so teachers understand what that dyslexic students experience in their classroom because again dxic students often do get a label of you're just not trying hard enough if you just tried harder you'd be fine and that's sad the love of learning out of them is
good good plans we'll have more changes to those and we'll get those to you early and like I said make sure that they comply with the read LA exced and then the IBC and R those those those are the ones will align to the react that's we haven't done that yet look at casby policies make sure that there there were changes in the react I think since those policies were looked that
so that's why we didn't try to rush through those we really like they need more time and I'm comparing class it's they have a class just know anything you get and I'll try to figure out once I have one that has vot a way to this goes back to the law changed too long ago
so yeah def need to update those good this was great um so with that business so our next board meeting is going to be February 24th 2025 here in the boardroom um representation so um people that don't know so I am teacher meetings
the TCH meetings um throughout the remainder of this school year Y and classifi classified is the first Tuesday of the month at 9:00 in the boardroom here and that's uh of our classified staff our uh office staff our custodians our food service staff
bus drivers um and again both of these organizations are a chance for staff to bring forward concerns ideas questions um the TAC is working with us on a cell phone policy we're have that discussed this week and probably come to the board at your next meeting but it's just a great chance for you to hear concerns or ideas or issues are happening and how we're dealing with those it's it's
our opportunity forward issues bring ideas forward of how they might be able to do them more effectively so great organizations great people um so and this is something as well as if you can't commit for the remainder then every
meeting certain but obviously can I know that means a lot to them they've been very impr I will if you can send me the dates for sure but I should it's first
and then February 27th is our Q&A at the high school that we had to reschedule from our snow day so 7:30 to 8:30 and um just let us know if you're going be able to join us and we always have refresh February 27 day it's a during a late start on teacher Gathering so this will be our last school and then we want to think about maybe after spring break
see if we want to get each school and I've done a calar invite and refreshments on behalf of
you kind of like the treasury we take of that you ured it was done like tell me to do it can we pay the bills yes okay we got it all right um anybody have anything else they want to bring up with that I will call this meeting adjourned at 7:42