Speaker 1: Wednesday, September 24th at 5 35. If we would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and then stay standing for a moment of silence afterwards. Got it right here. Scott, would you mind leading us? Sorry. Speaker 2: I pledge allegiance Speaker 3: All Speaker 4: To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty Speaker 1: And justice for all. Okay. If you would please remain standing for a moment of silence. Great. Thank you. Alright.
Okay. I would like to, we just need to make a motion to approve the September 24th, 2025 board agenda. Were there any changes? Speaker 3: No, Speaker 1: There. May I move to Speaker 2: Approve the September 24th 25 agenda? Speaker 1: Thank you. May I get a second? Speaker 3: I second that. Speaker 1: Okay. Sharon, may I get roll call please? Speaker 3: Yes. Aye. Ask aye. I a please. Oh, Speaker 5: I point, point of order. Oh, point of order. We do still have Louisville area. Speaker 1: Oh, listed, Speaker 5: So we do have to remove that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay. I apologize. I thought it was okay. Oh, Speaker 2: Take him off. Speaker 1: Okay. So I will take him. So we will be removing from the governance discussion items 11.1. Lou Valerio, Garfield County. Sheriff, may I get a motion to approve the agenda as amended? I'll Speaker 5: Make a motion to approve the agenda as amended. Speaker 1: Thank you. May I get a second? Second. Thank you. Sharon, may I get roll call again? Speaker 3: Aye, ask. Aye a Aye. Jenkins Aye. Speaker 1: Aye. Okay. And then onto the consent agenda.
Were there any changes to the consent agenda? Speaker 3: There's Speaker 1: Oh, missed that it wasn't highlighted. I'm sorry, Speaker 3: I just, the action items. Speaker 1: Sorry. I apologize. I we're off to a great start. Right? Can we're all amped up about the betting. I know. Can we just start over? Let me Speaker 5: Get off drafting so long. Speaker 1: Alright, so we do actually the last few meetings we haven't had public audience, so I'm excited to say tonight that we do so. I would like to do just a few welcoming notes. The board's meeting time is dedicated to its strategic mission and top priority focus areas.
Public participation is an opportunity to present brief comments or pose questions to the board for consideration and follow up. Each person is asked to focus comments to three minutes. The boundaries are designed to keep, to help keep the meeting focused and in no way should limit conversations beyond the board meeting. Please be aware that any individual student or personnel matters are considered confidential under Colorado law. It is out of respect for the individual students and staff that we ask for those conversations to be held in executive session. Insights are needed and welcomed and the board encourages you to meet
with the most appropriate person among the district's, many leaders. So the first one that I have is Mendoza. I don't know if that was, I, I don't know if that was a current response or if she, if it was a current email or I, Speaker 3: I don't see her on line. Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Speaker 3: There's somebody in his number, but I, yeah, I, I have asked for hands, Speaker 1: So, okay. So I will go ahead and move on to the next person and then we will circle back.
Theresa, is that okay? Perfect. Awesome. The next one is Kyla Helme. Did I say that correctly? I don't know if she will be in person or online. She's Speaker 3: Supposed to be in person. Speaker 1: Okay. So we'll circle back to Mendoza. Alright. We will go ahead and move on with the agenda and then if and when Kyla appears, we will allow her her three minutes. Okay. I'm waiting to see if anybody else is walking in the door at the time. Okay. So
after public audience, we've got the consent agenda. So we've got the approval of the September 10th, 2025 draft board minutes. May I get a motion? Speaker 3: I make a motion to approve the September 10th, 2025 draft board minutes. Speaker 1: Great. May I get a second? I Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 1: Thank you Sharon, may I get roll call please? Speaker 3: Aye. Asco. Aye. A Aye. Jenkins Aye. Speaker 1: Jen. Aye. Okay. And now on the consent agenda, are there any changes to the consent agenda? Speaker 3: There is. Speaker 1: All right.
May I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Speaker 3: I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Speaker 1: Awesome. May I get a second please? Speaker 3: I second. Speaker 1: Thank you. Sharon, may I get roll call please? Speaker 3: Blanco? Aye. Ask aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Jenkins? Aye. Jen. Speaker 1: Aye. Okay, Speaker 5: Assistant superintendent report. Speaker 6: Goodie. So in the last several weeks I have had the privilege of attending the taste of RMS rebooted at Rifle Middle School along with Megan, and it was amazing.
Great community engagement, engagement, delicious food, electric or whatever, mechanical bull riding. It was a, it was a great event. Went to the Greens celebration at Wamsley, the assembly with the kids to rifle high school Coleridge and Rifle middle school football to rifle high school soccer, Cole Ridge Academic Achievement Breakfast. And the reason why I'm so excited to share all that is if you worked with me for any period of time, you know, that I was fond of saying in middle school where things are a little crazy that at any given moment,
hundreds of kids are doing the right thing and a few kids might be making bad decisions, and that's really normal. Hundreds of kids enjoying their experiences and opportunities with proud parents in the stands and sitting by. And so that has just been a joy and a privilege. I met with, I've been to the district accountability meeting and I think Mel's here to report a little bit more on that. We had excellent conversation, mainly reviewed the vision and mission and revised it. Then we reviewed and discussed the family engagement policy
and Kirk shared a little bit more about the UIP process. We met with all of the family liaisons to begin to plan for the first families in RE two of this school year. And for our strategic planning visits to all of the five 10, we've been on strategic planning visits to five of the 10 schools where we talk about, you know, what they're doing towards the goals of the strategic plan. And then the, the other five are coming this week and into next week. So the number one question that I have gotten since July 1st has been, do you like your job?
And I'm gonna say it's hard to believe that I am getting paid to watch what goes on with kids because of the investment of this staff and these schools and this school board. And I am very, very proud. So thank you. Thank you, Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 5: Superintendent MCC court. Awesome. Gimme just a second. Hold my notes. So just a couple of things that, that I wanna hit on the board has been getting my weekly reports, so lots of great stuff that's been going on.
Couple things that I'd just like to highlight since my last report to the board. I really wanna throw out a thank you to the City of Rifle and their staff. I know the board got, has gotten a couple emails lately, but for those who don't know, there was a pretty major water break in rifle last night. And the, the Rifle City staff did an amazing job getting that fixed overnight. They also had a city cleanup, so the same staff that was scooping up trash throughout the city of Rifle then had to turn around and go fix a water main. And part of that was
because we were putting pressure on them because of course it's homecoming week for Rifle high school and there's events we could not have a building without water. And so they worked tirelessly. And at four o'clock this morning, I got a phone call that we had water up and running. And so we were able to have school today and then all the homecoming events that are going to follow are gonna follow. So once again, I just wanna publicly thank the public work staff in RIFLE for doing that because they did an incredible job. Also wanted to inform the board that we, the CS survey
that went out, asking our staff parents and students around thoughts around four and five day, we've gotten an incredible response. I think we've over, we've had over 1100 responses to that survey. And so that as that those results come in, we'll be working with the CS team on that. And of course, bringing that back to the whole board as we're requested to look at calendar, we'll be bringing those results in and talking it as part of, of that their work and bringing that forward to the board. But I know that you all had been informed that
that survey was going out and so we got a a really good sample size across the diverse things. We'll also be probably looking to do community focus groups as well with that, for those people who don't use Parent Square. So we'll be reaching out to those as well. As we talked about last month, we were doing a lot, and you heard from from Riverside about their process around what we're doing for continuous improvement. Last Friday was a, a workday or a in-service day for all of our schools, eight
of our 10 schools using the process that you got to hear about. The other two actually had already done it. So they used their day actually for other work, but that was because they had used, they had done it within their work, their PLC times to do it. And so the work that you got to hear Riverside talk about was happening in your other eight schools as well. And so very exciting that that process is going on. Also wanted to highlight that we did find out this week that GOCO funded our, our Generation Wild program for five more years.
So as you guys all know, part of our strategic plan is to make sure that our students are exposed to the great outdoors. And so we partner, partner with that program to make sure that all of our students get exposure to outdoors activities. Example, like river rafting, snowshoeing, those kind of things. And so that partnership is, is wonderful. So to find out that we've got five more years of funding with that is a fantastic component to that piece. So that was, that was really exciting. Also wanted to talk about as we amended it in the,
in the budget, met with the sheriff, he was was gonna come talk, but with all the, all the things going on in the world, he unfortunately had to cancel today because he needed to be on a national call around political violence. But part of why he wanted to come was to talk about our SRO positions. There was some talk of at the county level of funding issues with the SRO position. And luckily since the time we first talked and today our county commissioners have supported the sheriff in continuing for that position here in the areas.
If, as the board knows, we actually have three different law agencies that we work with for our SROs, rifle, silt, and the, and the sheriff's department. And that, that funding has, has altered, so it doesn't look like we're gonna have issues with that component. Now we do pay a majority, almost 75% of those positions, but that other 25% makes a pretty big impact on ensuring that we have that safety. So I just wanted to touch, he wanted to just touch base with, with you all on that position, but luckily, like I said,
from the first time we talked earlier to now that has shifted in IT and this funding and the finance will continue to do that. The last part I wanted to touch on is that we had a wonderful day in the district office because we got to celebrate a birthday. And so we actually have a very dedicated staff who decided to throw a birthday because someone refused to take the day off and chose to show up not only to work, but also to a board meeting on her birthday. And so I'm not going to mention said person's name,
but she is sitting at this table. So I just wanna acknowledge that when people show up, how much they're dedicated to their job that they love so much that they get to do that they still show up to board meetings. I took yesterday off, she did take yesterday Speaker 7: Off Speaker 8: That counts. Happy birthday. So Speaker 5: We had, we had a great day. It was fun. Best cake ever. That is, that is, that is my board report for the board. Any questions that I can help answer? I don't think so. Speaker 7: Go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. Does the GOCO grant or the funding, is that, is that a specific dollar amount
or does that fund a specific event regardless of the dollar amount? Like what does that funding look like? Speaker 5: So it, it funds two positions for a partner organization and then also funds, activities that we fund with that. I don't, I apologize, I do not know the, the numbers off the top of my head. I have the press release that they gave me, but I didn't, did not memorize it. Think it's Theresa May have it off the top. I think it's 1.24 million. Okay. Speaker 1: Over five years. Speaker 5: Sizable. Yes. It's very exciting because they, those, the two individuals
that are in that position are highly trained and, and wonderful in helping support our schools in working with the staff in making sure that they really implement our strategic plan for the outdoor ed component of our strategic plan. So it's a, it's a wonderful partnership that we have going. And so we know in our strategic plan that we're asking, not our high schools have some actual certifications that they're working on or elementaries. We ask the strategic plan that they, they have at a minimum one, one day
and some of them do more. We have one school that has an entire pathway built up at the elementary school. And so we're trying to expand that. And so the, those individuals really help all of our schools make sure that we're getting all of our students out and exposed. Some kids in our community get lots of exposure to the outdoors, but we also know that we have many kids who, we live in an incredible place and they never get exposure to, to our environment. And so this program allows them exposure to it. So it's a great program and that that that GOCO and our lottery dollars back to, to our gaming earlier
making fun statement, but, but those gaming dollars do come back to our students in a way that really does make an impact for in a great way. So That's awesome. Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes. Any other questions? Okay. We do have, Kyla is here. Do you guys mind if before we do our board reports if we allow the free minutes for public audience? Sure. Okay. Hey, where do I go? Come on up to the table. Okay. All right. Just right here? Yep. Okay. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Yeah, the floor is yours. You've got three minutes.
Speaker 9: Okay, great. Yeah, I just wanna thank everyone tonight for letting me come in and I am just speaking just kind of to get some ideas on why we're using some of the curriculum we're using in the schools and kind of inform some parents of what's going on. So a week before school started, I was told that the science and social studies curriculum was not being taught at this at the district this year. So in general, meaning that we're just not teaching science and social studies. And like most parents, my jaw dropped.
I wasn't even told that the science and social studies standards would be taught in the new CKLA literacy program the district has implemented. And if I had been told that I probably would've been a little bit more relieved, I started questioning if the state of Colorado would even allow that. Can common core standards the state has adopted not be taught at all in short, no. They, they should be taught, parents I don't think have an idea of what's going on with this at the district level. And I think that they are just trusting wholeheartedly that what's happening in the schools
is the best thing for their kids. And I'm having a hard time seeing that. This year I digger, I dug into the CKLA program and discovered that not only is CKLA program pretty much recommended for K through three, not K through five their units, that, and science and social studies are not matching up at all for the upper grades. The question I have is, why was this allowed? Why are we being reactive and not proactive and in making sure that those are met? I'm also, I have met with Simone, I've met with
the superintendent in a meeting at the district and they were awesome. They sat down and talked to me. So thank you for that. But I feel like my kids are being Guinea pigs again. My son's gonna have gaps in science and social studies. Really the idea with the standards is that they should be able to go to any school in Colorado and they should be getting the same content from my seat. As a parent, I feel like we've spent a lot of time talking about social studies the last couple of years. And right now I'm feeling like that was a waste because they're not even being taught in the schools.
So the fact that we are fighting for social studies content and then I'm finding out that they're not even getting it is very frustrating. I also just wonder, you know, how many of the board members are educators understanding what's going on in the classrooms. If you haven't spent a day in the classroom, I encourage you to do it. I think the decisions, you know, that we're making are at the expense of our children's education and I'm just, I'm really sad that we're just not aligning with the state. So I hope that we can look at that a little bit more. Okay.
Speaker 1: Well thank you. And then Kyle, I just wanna make sure, is this a valid, this is the current email I have for you. Yes, that's Speaker 9: The Yahoo. Yes ma'am. Yeah. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Theresa, we'll circle back to Mendoza as well. Speaker 3: Do not see, do not see anybody. Speaker 1: Okay. I would like to just put it out there too. That public audience is available at every meeting and then our emails and contact information is also available on the website. So if there are any questions or anything, please feel free to reach out.
With that, we'll go ahead and move on to our board reports. So we'll go ahead and start Megan. Oh, I don't have anything at this time. Okay. I think this is the first time you've had to do, did you go safety? Oh, I did go to Safety, yes. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. We'll do that with the committee reports. Oh, Speaker 10: That's Speaker 1: The next one. Yep. So Speaker 10: I always get on Scott. Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't prepare one. Sorry. That's quite all right. So Scott, do you have anything for a board report and request? Speaker 2: No request, but the one thing I just, I'm looking forward
to the meeting on Saturday, getting together, going through some board norms and policies, things like that. Put us all on the same page and, and working with all of you and getting to know Megan Moore and putting that all together. Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you. Scott. Cassie, Speaker 10: Board report, I went to Coleridge High School today, and I'll go again tomorrow, but for their academic celebration. And they have a ton of kids that get a 3.5 or higher and then a handful that are honored and recognized for straight A's.
And so that was fun to see that junior class would've been their sophomore year that they were recognized for today. And the seniors that were recognized yesterday were from junior year. So they had, you know, great community support. McDonald's donated all the food Oh wow. Yesterday morning and today and then again tomorrow. But it's really fun to go and celebrate that with the kids. They're all excited and it was fun. I am also looking forward to Saturday and yeah, hopefully we can
get some questions answered. I think that's it. Speaker 1: Okay. Chance? Speaker 11: I just have to, I, I'm just amazed at how, I mean, this is a big wheel, you know, it's a lot of gears moving and there's always gonna be issues. I'm just amazed at how overall seamlessly it runs. There's a lot of people involved, there's a lot of staff. There's a lot of teachers. And like I said, there's always little bumps and things that we need clarification on, the community brings up, but the processes are there. I, you know, I have a feel good about all
the processes that are in place. I trust our staff, our directors, and building admins. And I just, like I said, I just can't say enough about that in the Coal Ridge. A couple, I'm usually at Coal Ridge or Riverside, so that's kind of me. Do a lot of high middle school football games. Been to a few high school football games. And I wanna say how awesome it is to see building admins, adss staff, how they support their, their athletics, whether it be equipment, logistics, transportation.
I mean, there's again, a lot of moving parts to get kids from here to Fort Lupton or here to, you know, golden for rifle. A lot of hotels, a lot of food, a lot. I mean, it just goes way above and beyond. And then it brings into the parents and, you know, there are booster clubs or the prospective schools, they go above and beyond. So at to Jenny's point, there are thousands of people doing the right thing. There are a few people that can make better decisions, but there are thousands of people in our community that are doing the right thing every day.
So I like that perspective, Jenny. And if you're ever interested in forfeiting your wage, because you said you can't believe we pay you, I'm, I mean, I'm open. Thank you. I'll, I'll keep that in mind if it comes. Other than that 27th, I'm looking forward to it. This has been a long time coming, so maybe we can be hashtag consistent with Kirk and what we expect from him, you know, as a board and norms. Other than that, I'm just overall very optimistic over the years. So thank you guys. I, I, this isn't a dread to be here every other Wednesday anymore, so thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay. I have got, I, I have sat down several times today and I typed out a board report and then I deleted it and I typed it again, and then I deleted it some more. And, and I have stated several times that there are three sides to every story, typically, yours, mine, and the truth. And it takes work to get there and work that people here and in the district and the community are not afraid to do There. And I knew that coming into this position, it wasn't gonna be easy that there was,
we weren't gonna make everybody happy 'cause that is practically impossible. But I do want to recognize the people that do come and they do talk to us. They do let us know about the things that are bothering them, the things that they would like to bring to the table. And I want people to know too, that we may not be able to respond. We may not be able to answer, but that doesn't mean that we're being complacent. That doesn't mean that we're not listening to our community members and we're not listening to the parents. This community is amazing. This community is strong. And sometimes that's good and bad
because sometimes you hear the negativity, but yet when you try to bring it forward, nobody is willing to step up and tell you there are things, there are 10 schools within our district and there are 10 building administrators that I will stand wholeheartedly behind and I trust. That doesn't mean I always agree with them, and that doesn't mean that I always like necessarily the way that they do it. But the thing that I like and I respect is that I am able to ask 'em those questions. I'm able to take them my concerns and I'm able to listen to each other.
And we have that respect and that communication and that is, is imperative to making this district work. I also trust in the process and I believe that everything that we do at the building level, at the district level is for the safety and the wellbeing of our students. And I want to appreciate the community and I love how they come, come to us. I appreciate those that come to us. Social media is, is a blessing and a curse. And sometimes I wish social media people would come
and talk to us as opposed to, to typing it out. I have said several times, we are here, we are listening, so please bring us your concerns. But I do want to thank everybody in this room, everybody in our district, and everybody in our community and everybody at these tables because the trust and the relationship and the partnership that we have built within this community is unwavering. So thank you. With that, we will move on to committee reports. Megan, you had a committee report?
Speaker 7: I do. I attended the safety committee last week or Monday recently, I don't remember the date. And kind of got a quick rundown and briefing on some of the activities that they're working on. Amazing work. I was really, I was really pleasantly surprised about how detailed they were about everything that they're doing for each of the schools to protect staff and students. I, it was, especially from my law enforcement background, it was just, it was very inspiring to walk into a room
and see a group of educators who did not get into education to physically protect a child, if you know what I mean. Like law enforcement, Donna Vest, they put on a gun every day. They know what the mission is. But I, I know a teacher did not go through the education, the schooling to wear that hat. So I, I very much appreciate the fact that, that that was taken on and it was not, it was not shoddy work. It was, I I'm very, very impressed about how well the committee works together
and the effort that they, the great lengths that they have gone to make sure our buildings are safe, the great lengths. So some things I'm happy to report on is the lockdown specific devices. And I don't know how much has actually been shared with the community. I'll just say the lockdown safety devices, there's been 300 of them purchased districtwide and there was a lot of talk about making sure that there was enough to go around. There's a, there's a few more devices that are still needed. Those are in the works and being taken care of. I have no doubt that that will be addressed if it already
has not been cameras. Were re-iterated again about how that is a priority and it really becomes a little bit of a, not a little, it becomes a stumbling block for ensuring the safety and wellbeing from a bird's eye view. Not just literally, but figuratively as well. And their, their request back to us as a board is that we figure out how to, how to make that happen. That we prioritize that funding so that that is no longer a conversation
that needs to continue to happen. I was briefed on a project that one door is working on with the Office of School Safety, which if you don't know is a, a, a state office and the office of school safety and one door in partnership with districts from Vail to Meeker are working collaboratively. And that is huge, huge. And the reason why that that is so important from a safety standpoint is that if you haven't really followed some of the,
the swatting quote unquote swatting that has gone on in some of the districts, some of our neighboring districts, it's just a matter of time before, you know, other districts are targeted, hopefully not, not us, but other districts. And the level of sophistication in which those are kind of changing and morphing is something that we should be concerned about. So I'm glad to see that there is a collaboration geographically for districts to be able to say, this worked terribly for us, don't do it. And this, this has some potential to,
to be beneficial if we could all adopt similar policies. So there's a, there's a a great opportunity for collaboration there. That was, that was good to hear. There was a conversation at that meeting about what worked well in Evergreen and the school shooting in Evergreen and really it, the, the bottom line was it was locked doors. So we can't overemphasize that locked doors, saves lives. It's unfortunate that we live in that day and age, but that is exactly where we're at. And those doors being locked are imperative. Josh Ellison, the SRO at Rifle High School, updated on a project that he's been working on
to label the doors in the exterior. And that is common practice. It's, it's a good standard. And he's, he's, he's done that appropriately. There was a few more doors that needed to be labeled, but if you don't know that, that also allows a responding law enforcement to be able to enter the appropriate door and not wast any time. Because seconds matter RMS had some complaints from the community about the sound of their PA during a lockdown. And I say, sorry, but our school safety is important.
And it was three minutes. So I'm sure you guys feel that some of those complaints, sorry, not sorry. Thanks that the PA is that loud that our community can hear it because that means our, our kiddos can hear it too. Speaker 11: So just, sorry, just to clarify. Yeah. Or they're complaining. The school siren was too loud. Speaker 7: When the lockdown goes out, the, the siren goes over the PA so that if you are on the field, this is how it was explained to me, if you were on the field during PE or extracurricular activity, that you could hear it and make the appropriate action.
So some of the community in the area was a little upset that the, that the repetitive nature of the lockdown was kind of invading their three minutes during the day, which it maybe had not been so loud. I get it. But it's, it's three minutes for Speaker 11: Okay. Speaker 7: Short period of time. I think that's all I have. Okay. Speaker 11: Scott, we haven't had any finance committee meetings Speaker 7: Yet, so nothing Speaker 11: To report. Speaker 10: I have not had any committee meetings, so I have nothing to report Speaker 11: Chance have not had a capital projects meeting,
although I know we're still working on the last one and I've spoken with Kirk about it briefly was the cameras as that's gonna have to be a capital expenditure to give you an update on that, as of a couple months ago, we've, I believe we found the, found the funding. Now it's just a matter of applying what we have, what the WASN grant and now we have to wait for the federal mineral lease. Yeah, we're waiting, waiting on another grant that we'll know Speaker 5: October one and then, we'll we have a federal lease grant also out and so we're waiting on those two to know
what is the remaining budget that we'll be looking for to find, to finalize that project. Speaker 11: But we were able to, to on the best grant, we're able to move those funds around different years, different projects because it's a, most of the grants are matching so we, we are upfront with the cost and they reimburse up to a percentage so we can, that gives us flexibility to be able to use that. Where do we need it? I think this year the big capital project thing for, we're trying to get the cameras and then there's a roof at rifle middle
schools that apparently it's 110 years old. It's huge. I know that there's a lot, there's a lot of surface area on that thing. So that's all I have for capital. Speaker 1: Okay. I don't have any committees either. I am looking forward to Saturday's meetings that we can get our committee schedules up and going. So it'll be nice to get those, those going again. And with that we've got Melly here from DAK to give us an update on dak.
Thank you for coming. Hello. Speaker 12: Thanks for having me. Alright, so for those who don't know me, I'm Mel Ian. I am one of the co-chairs with Hannah for our deck this year. So I'm just gonna go over a few of the items that we discussed at our meeting. So we reviewed our vision and mission and during that conversation I think we decided that, you know, we are re two, right? We are a Garfield RE two, we believe in our current vision. So we adopted the district's vision as DAX as well, right?
We're, we're trying to support the same, the same thing, but with our mission it's a little different 'cause we don't do what the teachers do day to day. So we changed our mission to fostering trust, communication and understanding between the district families and the community in support of our shared goals for the success of our students for, so that's what we, we are going. Nice. Another item that we had was, we discussed our welcome packet. So we are trying to create a, a place where that stores all of our DAC information
and we've had some really great ideas. So we are going to somehow come up with a QR code that'll get people to this web or this welcome page for dac, right? And it's going to include our bylaws, our responsibilities of D members contact list for our vote, current voting members, strategic plan snapshot, some flyers accomplish our accomplishments, and then our agenda overview. And that also was passed at our meeting. So I know Ms.
Nipper and Teresa are working hard on updating that information on the website. We also had a presentation by Mr. Being Hart on the UIP and the school performance framework. So with that, I think our takeaway or our action with that is we're gonna connect with the school accountability committees to see how we can help those principals in the administration, in the buildings come up with their goals or if they do have goals, how we can help in, you know,
making sure that we're accomplishing them and what we can do as a school accountability committee to help us achieve our goals. I guess we reviewed the parent engagement policy. That's just one thing that I think is important for us as DAC members to just review every year. Not necessarily, we didn't make any changes, we're not bringing any recommendations. It was just so that we, all of our members are up to date on what the policy is. There was really great conversation around
what parent engagement is. It looks different at every single level. And you guys know that, you know, the high school is so different compared to the elementary school and you don't have as many volunteer opportunities at the high school. But what does that engagement look like there? The middle school's just that weird age where, you know, your kids really need you, but they don't want you, they, they don't want you to think that they want you there. But anyway, Brandy had mentioned that there's going to be an event at Riverside Middle School
that was born from a conversation that she was having with somebody else during a PTO meeting or a PTA meeting. So she, you know, somebody asked her, so how are your kids doing? Kind of thing. And she kind of just went, oh, so I'm going through this, this, and this. And she was like, you know what? So have we, it'd be nice to have that conversation with more parents because I don't know if you guys know, but in our parent engagement policy it does say to provide appropriate avenues for parents and families to find support in their role.
So that meeting that was born from that small conversation really just aligns with that policy really well. So she'll report to us next meeting on how that first event went for them. So it's just gonna be more of, you know, what kind of struggles are you having? How can we help? I know Michelle mentioned that I think Coleridge is putting out some open-ended questions that you can ask your kids to get more information from them. You know, it's nobody, there's not a handbook on how to be the best parent and every parent's gonna have some different thing that they're,
they think they're the only ones going through that. But you know, once you talk to other parents you can bounce ideas off of each other and it's just that support. So that was pretty cool and we're excited to hear what Brandy brings back from that. She says the event right now they're kind of just having it for Riverside, but hopefully it grows into something bigger And, sorry, I wasn't prepared with something, I wasn't planning on being here tonight, but I think that's pretty much all we talked about at that meeting. But we we're having great conversation.
I can't stress how much I appreciate all of our DAC members. Everyone's so re respectful in that room and allows everybody to speak and share their ideas. So I'm just, you know, proud to be part of that committee. Awesome. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 12: You guys have any questions for me? Speaker 3: Nope. We appreciate the work You do. Speaker 1: Thank you Melly. Thank you. Thank Speaker 3: You. Alright. Speaker 12: I'm headed to Speaker 1: One at the game. Thank you. Speaker 3: Onto the next thing. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 1: Advocacy. I don't have anything Speaker 3: Do, don't have anything. Okay. Speaker 1: And then now onto the governance discussion items again,
11.1 was removed and now onto 11.2. Rob Stein with the early childhood. Hello. Speaker 13: Sorry to disappoint. I'm not Rob Stein, Speaker 3: Neither am I. Speaker 1: That's all right. I'm sure you guys have just as much information. Yes, Speaker 13: We do have slides. Speaker 3: Yep. Okay. You, Speaker 13: While we're getting those up, we can introduce ourselves. I'm Maggie TAs and I've been leading the Confluence Early Childhood Education Coalition for a couple of years now.
I grew up in Glenwood and came and moved back in 2018 to raise my family here and came to this work mostly from the, the parent perspective. At the time my kids were six months old and two years old, and now they're two and four. And just struggling to, you know, navigate the challenges of needing to stay in the workforce in order to live here, to have two household incomes and being able to secure reliable, affordable childcare for my kids.
And then, you know, I've learned so much from the coalition, which is a really a cross section of leaders from education to businesses, non-profits, parent leaders from parachute to Aspen who've been working on this since 2017, working to improve access and affordability of early childhood education for our children. Ages birth to five from again, from parachute to Aspen the fly. So yeah, just really have learned from this coalition the incredible and critical importance of, of this window of birth ages,
birth to five and in their, in our children's developmental years and setting them up for success in school and in life and just how, what a critical educational investment this is. And of course for the infrastructure of our communities to be able to function and thrive. And so I'll let Paul introduce himself as well. He's been part of the coalition. So, Speaker 14: Hi Paul. I'm Paul Mentor. I live at 6 7 2 Cedar Hills Road in silt. I'm president of the Early Childhood Network Board of Directors.
Early Childhood Network is a Glenwood Springs based nonprofit that supports c childcare providers in the Roaring Fork in Colorado River Valleys with education and coaching for providers. And we've been doing that since 2008, I believe. So been out, been around for quite a while and so we're big supporters of this initiative and happy to be here to chat about it tonight. Speaker 13: Next slide. Speaker 14: So just jumping in, you all are, you know,
involved in education, leaders in education. So there's a lot of support, a lot of research has been done over the decades to support the benefits of early childhood education. It's not just daycare. There is an educational component. Y'all can read the, the list of things that make it better. It's good for, of course for families that require it. We live in an economy where most families have to have both parents. If, if both parents are in the home, both parents work
and that's become necessary over the, over our lifetimes. And, and it's very beneficial for them. That's the intersection, but it's also very expensive. And that's kinda the intersection of the, where the, the public element and dimension of this in the, and the tax measure comes in to provide support to help cover some of that cost. But as you can see from the list here, there's tremendous benefit to children of families, whether it's compulsory for the family or whether it's a decision that parents make
because they want their child socialized and to be really ready for, to enter the primary school system. So we can move on to the next slide. Speaker 1: I love that picture by the way. Speaker 14: Yeah, it's a good one. The, in our region, less than half of the slots that are needed are available for kiddos, zero to five currently. That number's always changing, of course. 'cause the population's always changing, but that's a reflection of the fact that being a childcare provider is not a, a huge profit making endeavor.
I'm also on the board of a childcare provider of Faith Lutheran Church in Carbondale. We provide, we've got a daycare provides full-time childcare services to 39 up to 39 FTEs. We've been doing that since 2015. I was looking at our year end financials for the last couple of years, and it's a little bit skewed because of the COVID impact in the last couple years, but we've kind of settled back into, into our normal, and I think we had net income last year of about of 5%. So, you know, and that's, and we're a very tight run ship
and most daycare providers are childcare providers are, and it's, and so it's really expensive and, and it's, and it's not particularly profitable. And so this makes it really necessary to evaluate ways to support both providers and parents. It's about $17,000 a year on average for a family to have a child, zero to five in daycare per year on on average if the, if the parents work full time and, and they require five days of, of, of childcare. So we can go to the next slide.
So the first slide reference this a little bit. There's a, a lot of, there are a lot of economic impacts of of, of having safe, affordable childcare for, for our education. There are two studies that have been done multi-decade studies that, that really demonstrate this. And I brought a little bit of research with me from James Heckman, who's a Nobel Prize winning economist who's made his from the University of Chicago, who's one of his primary studies was on the economic benefits of, of affordable childcare.
There's another study that was done in North Carolina by the University of North Carolina. And, and I always have difficulty pronouncing the name of it, it's the Arian project is what it was called. And, and it went for 40 years and it tracked children who were in effective childcare and those that were in not as effective childcare. And it tracked their results over time and it demonstrated that the kiddos that were in high quality childcare, they were more likely to have higher grades, finish school,
have higher wages when they, when they were outta school, have better healthcare outcomes in the immediate, their parents obviously were able to maintain their careers and, and maintain their economic benefit and value in the community as well. So there are, there's a lot of research that demonstrates the value. And so we really see this tax measure as an investment in the community and in our, in the future. It's a, it's a family friendly proposal for taxation and you don't always see that.
That's not always what, what people talk about when they talk about tax measures. But that's really what this is. And, and we think that we, we should be able to expect economically a return on investment of about 13% according to Dr. Heckman. That's the average that's been, that's been seen. So there's a lot of value there economically. Speaker 13: So the, the coalition's been committed to taking a regional approach to this issue because we know that our working families are crossing municipal and county lines every day on their commutes. And we wanna see improved access throughout the region so
that families have more options and choice for care. We see different needs and preferences when it comes to where families need care. A lot of families we hear from prefer care closer to home because that's where their social networks are, that's where they have more flexible hours and, you know, a preference not to, to be commuting with with their children for safety reasons or time in the car or bus. So we really wanna see that access improved throughout the region. And here in the Colorado River Valley is where we have the,
the biggest capacity gap. We have slots for about 29% of the kids ages birth to five. So we really wanna see that access improved. Next slide. So the way that we identified to be able to do this in a regional way is through a new, new type of special tax district, an early childhood development service district that is a type of TA special district that was authorized by the state legislature in 2019. And it, if this passes, it would be the first early childhood service district in the state of Colorado
and it would encompass all of Garfield County, all of Pitkin County, and then that portion of Eagle County that's in the roaring for school district on the roaring for valley side. Next slide. In terms of what would be funded, it would really be designed to tackle the problems that we discussed, AC accessibility and affordability. So it would include a tuition assistance program to help families afford care on a sliding scale based on need. And then a grants program to childcare providers to increase the number of slots available
to increase teacher and our early childhood educator and staff wages because we know that many of our, our early childhood educators are not making livable wages and it's incredibly difficult to keep classrooms at capacity open and expand when we can't retain and attract new, new educators, outreach and navigation of services to make sure that families are finding the care that meets their needs. And then evaluation of the program and admin costs. And that the proposal is really to keep the, the admin cost
as low as possible, as close to 5% as possible. Because unlike other types of districts like a school district or hospital district, fire district, this is not intended to be infrastructure heavy. It really is. It won't, you know, establish and operate childcare programs, for example. The, the proposal is really to support the mixed delivery system that we have in place of the incredible diversity of providers we have for this age group because we know that, that that meets family needs better than, you know, providing,
providing a one size fits all solution. So we, we would support, you know, church-based, school-based, center based, home-based programs. So all of the different types of childcare providers would be eligible. Next slide. The, the plan proposes a 0.25% sales tax to fund the program and that would inc exclude all of the, the state exemptions of groceries, gas, medications, diapers, feminine hygiene products, utilities.
So all of the, those everyday essential items would not be included in this tax. And it would raise an estimated $10 million annually and the district would be overseen by a five member voter elected board of directors, each of whom will represent a, a different geographical portion of the district. And those that the seat map is kind of small there, but essentially seats one through three will be parachute to to Glenwood, kind of into Carbondale. And then the eagle portion is seat four and then pickin county is seat five.
Those are drawn based on the statutory requirement that each seat have as near as practically possible. The same number of registered electors. Next slide. So thank you so much. We really wanted to be sure that we shared this information and heard your feedback and questions. So really this is a, was an opportunity to, to share information and we really appreciate the, the opportunity to, to do so. Speaker 1: Thank you guys very much. Yes. Are there any questions? I know I've got a few.
Speaker 11: I've got some, unless anybody else wants to prefer Go for it. If I mentions the five member board that's elected, what are the terms of those board members? Speaker 13: So they will be four year terms, but the first board will have five, seven. Yeah, three will have, so seats one, three and five will have four year terms and seats two and four and four will have two year terms, although they're not exactly, because they'll turn into, what is that? May election spring elections. Yeah, so, Speaker 11: Okay. Yeah, Speaker 14: The initial election's not in May. Right.
Speaker 13: The initial election is on this November's ballot, right? It's on Speaker 14: Ballot. So it's on November's ballot. So the board will be elect if the, if the ballot measure passes, the board will go into place contemporaneously with the approval of the funding. Speaker 13: So those candidates are already, they are on our website too. Speaker 11: Okay. And they were put forward by the coalition? The coalition? Speaker 13: No, it was a self-nomination process to the designated election official. Okay. We, Speaker 11: We Speaker 13: Had public, yeah, they were public notices. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 11: What is operation like in, in the district? We have a superintendent to handle operations.
That five member board isn't gonna handle operations. So what, what's that organization look like? Speaker 13: Yeah, good question. It'll be up to the board to hire staff, so likely a director and some, a handful of staff members to manage the, the tuition assistance program and the grants program and any, you know, auditing requirement, well the auditing will be a third party, but rather statutory requirements in involved in collecting attacks and, and being responsible and accountable for that. Yeah.
Speaker 11: Is there anything in the proposition that limits this taxable district, statu statutorily to like what it has to award for grants and outside services as opposed to payroll? Does that make sense? Like what I'm getting at is, there's a lot of charities, charities have been kind in the news lately where you donate to 'em and then they come, people come to find out, you know, 60% of that money donated actually goes to the cause where 40% is just overhead. So how do the voters know what they're paying for is going to, how does it get to the,
how do we ensure it gets to the child? Speaker 13: Yeah. The, the proposal is to keep that overhead as low as possible. It will be up to the board to, to approve the budget. The goal is to get as much of this funding to families and, and our childcare providers as possible. So, and it really, it's, you know, designed to give the, the district flexibility to meet needs as they arise, but it is clear that it will not be operating childcare programs. So there's not a whole lot of,
there shouldn't be too much overhead. Speaker 14: That, that's a really good question. The, the, this is a, this is a government agency, so it's a, it's a corporate, so it's a corporate entity, right? So it's a government corporation, it's not a nonprofit. So it's accountable to the voters. So the elected officials are, who are elected or accountable to the voters. You'll have all the instruments in place that you guys have in place for transparency to those voters. The opportunity for financial reporting, out communication tools, audits, all those kinds of things are on the table.
It'll be up to the board to make the final decision on, on kind of how they want to structure all that. But, but that's a really good set of questions. Speaker 11: You spoke about audits. So the CDE audits us financially, who would be then tasked with auditing your district? Speaker 13: It's an i as far, I don't have the, it's an independent audit, right? So I don't know when the, which entity does that? So like Speaker 11: Some, some county contract out different accounting firms Right. Audit their books, right.
So is it would be something similar to that? Something like that? Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Whatever the statute requires for that. Speaker 14: It'd be probably, my guess is, is it's through the department of early childhood at the state would be kind of the, if you want kind of a governmental catalyst. Yeah, yeah. That, that, that would be the conduit. But, but the auditors aren't from the state. Right. The, the organization would be just like, like when I was at the city of Aspen as the finance director, we hired a, an, an independent auditor to audit our books and then we submitted that to the state auditor and the Department of Revenue. So it would be similar to that.
Speaker 11: And then last question, I won't filibuster the entire section. Sorry. I was noticing in the map, and I have to say this as you're gonna move up Valley, we all are aware of socioeconomic differences between RIFLE and Pickin county. What, how, how, how is this district gonna address the differences in just pure cost when it comes to offering the same amount of childcare in Pickin County or eligible as associated the parachute? Because I feel like that's where a lot of voters are gonna feel disenfranchised. So just give them that out there. Speaker 13: You mean if, if it's giving more money to
where the cost is higher, is that what you're Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah. So like how do you, how, how do you plan on addressing that or keeping that? I don't wanna say fair 'cause I mean cost would've cost but historically, I mean, everything as you move up Valley is more expensive. Yeah. So how, how do you address that? Yeah. Speaker 14: Well I have, I have a comment to that, which I think is, is on point. I think that one of the things that I really like about this proposal is that it looks at the region as a region, as an economic and and societal system. 'cause you have people that, you know, live in Rifle
and in SILT and New Castle and they work in Aspen and, and you have people that go the other direction. And so these folks are all part of that same social and economic system. So it's gonna be incumbent upon the board to take the information that's available about what the demands are and where they are and allocate those funds effectively. And so, so, you know, I don't know that there's a specific plan in place at this point that's really gonna be the board's responsibility to come up with that. And it should be data driven.
It should be driven by what the needs are for the entire what for the entire district that's being created. And so those, those individual district or regional representatives are gonna have to negotiate based on data and information, how best to allocate those dollars annually. Well Speaker 13: That's what I, and what's in the, yeah, I just wanna add really quickly just what's in the service plan. So what's, you know, in the would be, you know, required is to follow a, a sliding scale tuition assistance pro.
So in terms of the tuition assistance side, sliding scale based on income and family size. So that the goal really is to meet, to, to serve our, our families who, who need this financial aid the most. So, and then obviously in terms of capacity, we also have a priority here in the Colorado River Valley to increase capacity. Speaker 11: And I, I would like to say that's what I do like about the proposal is that it does encapsulate the entire kind of closed economic system that we have hitting this area. The same one that we curse when it comes to needing to pay teachers and all the, you know, the, the pros
and cons with that come with it. But that's, I, I really do like the fact that it is its own district. So thank you. You're Speaker 2: Welcome. So the, along those lines on the allocation, that was my biggest, that was my question too, was, so the funding goes to the actual families, not to maybe the geographic locations of the early childhood education. Speaker 13: It would go facility. Speaker 2: It's kind Speaker 13: Going it through the providers, but based on where the family wants to place their kid. So it, if a family decides to move to another
provider, then that funding would go with them. So wherever they are in the region, preferring care, it would move Okay with them. Speaker 10: Thank you. Thank you. So is there not already something similar to this already out there? Like, I mean, I, I've been out of early childhood for 20 years now, but when I was there, and I mean I've had one in the last 10 years in the same program, but qualified for assistance. Yeah. Speaker 13: So there are different, and you can jump in. Speaker 10: So how does, how is this different from that? Speaker 13: So the, the idea and the term
that is used most frequently is blending and braiding funding streams because there are supports at different levels from federal to state. Some, there's a municipal program in the city of Aspen, and then the county of Eagle has a fund that's for teacher wages. So there, there's kind of bits and pieces and we need to stack and layer them to increase the, the amount of support and fill the gaps because there are big gaps. So we have CCAP from the state level, and I'm sure you can speak to this as well, that, you know,
funds a certain, at a certain income level. And you know, primarily we see I and I, I don't have the, I think Kelly sent me the, I think it's $5,000 a month family household income to qualify. So it has, can't be higher than $5,000 a month. And so we wanna see an extra layer of assistance there because that's not reaching a lot of our families. But we also wanna use those dollars first. So families who would qualify for that would get
that funding and then families who are falling in at different, or coming in at a different level would qualify for this. Okay. Speaker 14: Yeah, there's, there's state funding I think you're probably remembering is the regional coordinating councils that, that are around the state. There are some 20 regional coordinating councils around the state that allocate state level funding to organizations that support early childhood education. And that's, and, and those regional councils meet and they prioritize
and they allocate that funding at the state level. This is a kind of a local, if you will, tax that's dedicated to our region that is not dependent on the state. That that is an another layer as Maggie said, there's Speaker 13: Also, yeah, Speaker 14: That can be prioritized and utilized based upon what the part, what the needs are in our, in our region. Speaker 10: Yep. And then my second question would be, you noted in here that our region has 44% of the slots that are needed. I know of a couple preschools
that have openings, they're down in numbers. So can you kind of touch on that a little? Like is it because they're more, that's not just in our area in re two right. That's probably a valley that they're needing more spots available. Speaker 13: It's throughout the region and it is birth to five and we have the biggest capacity gaps for infants and toddlers. So, so there may be preschool programs with openings. We are also, you know, when, when new programs open
and then we see, you know, especially because we need the preschool slots to the, the way that childcare providers can, can operate is they use the preschool slots to subsidize infant and toddler slots to be able to operate. But that means that we have more preschool slots than, Speaker 10: And this is only good for licensed preschools, not in home care. Speaker 13: In home. In home. Licensed and licensed. Licensed exempt in home care would, would Speaker 10: Where I got one more
if everybody else is done. I've got some, go ahead. I Speaker 7: Think I pulled your service plan off the internet. It's pretty extensive and I appreciate kind of going through it. But I have some concerns and some of them begin with staffing and not just your program, but if there are qualified funds to staff your program, then you are pulling from pools of potential employees here, possibly even taking district staff to fund your positions. And that causes concern for me because the district already at times struggles to,
to fill those, those paras, permanent subs. And this potentially creates a pretty significant staffing difficulty for us. There are only so many available people to fill those spots and they are going to, to go where maybe the, the work is a little bit more convenient or easier pays better. I don't know if that necessarily means you over us, but we now are in direct competition of the same five bodies to fill 40 slots. And, and that causes me some concern as
a district representative. So how do we get past that? Speaker 13: Well, I think that, so if you're referring to staffing the childcare programs themselves, so if we expand capacity, then we need to have the staff to do that. Again, the district wouldn't be directly, you know, hiring or staffing. It's the providers who will, they're already earning way less than a K through 12 educator. I don't think that with this amount of funding, they will get to that point where it would be more attractive than
Speaker 7: Maybe not a teacher, but some of our permanent subs. Okay. And, and some of our, our support staff. Speaker 14: So a lot of, a lot of, there's a lot of that kind of need in childcare as well. A lot of the providers are short teachers. The, so coordinating with CMC, making sure that their educational courses are available. What we see at Faith Lutheran is we see a lot, not all, but probably seven of our 13 teachers are parents of children that are in the school
because they've, they've gone and they've gotten their certification and their children are between zero and five. And it allows them to further themselves professionally in the school while and while their child is there. And they, they do get it by our policy, they, they get a discount for their child if they're, if they work for us. So there's an opportunity to bring more people into the workforce that wouldn't otherwise be in the workforce as well. I think that's another, another tactic, but it's the, that's a very, as you know,
that's a very common issue throughout the roaring Fort Valley is the availability of, of workers, skilled workers for jobs that are necessary, not just in this field, but in every field hospitality in, in education, in, in the professional fields. It's a, it's a real challenge and, and it's a, I think it's, I think you've, you've touched on something that I think is a, is a much larger challenge for the region is, is having, having an economy that allows for people to be able to afford to live and work
and work here, that that will permit them to move here. And I think this measure actually helps with that in the long run. I think this will be a net benefit to the issue that you, that you're framing, but I don't disagree with you at all that it's a, that it's a concern coming outta the box. But, but in the long run, making early childhood education available for kids, zero to five, freeing up parents to be in the workforce more completely, that's going to actually add to the workforce I think over time.
Speaker 7: I potentially, I I see your point on that to that, how long do you think before there are dollars available to actually put this program in place? Speaker 13: So the, the tax would start being collected if this passes January 1st, 2026, it does take the state and we're, we're having some conversations with the state about, you know, they were kind of pushing back on being able to set this up that, that quickly. But we, we were confident that it will start being collected January 1st and then, but you, you have kind of a six month lag to get the funding
and so the, the proposal would be to, you know, get things up and running through, you know, financing to get things started. Whether that's through, there are different opportunities for whether it's grants or a loan to get things going in terms of getting the district going. And then the programs, I think the, an optimistic goal and would be to start in the, the fall of 2026 with programming. Okay, Speaker 7: Perfect.
Thank you. As I'm reading through the service plan, I was looking at some of the verbiage and I'm, I'm trying to understand why specifically healthcare, healthcare best practices are even mentioned on four and how does that relate necessarily to early childcare? Like what is the district providing as far as healthcare? Speaker 13: I, I'm not sure what that refers to, if you don't mind. Yeah. Giving me the context Speaker 7: Top of page four, it says the coordinated approach to expanding access to early care and educational program will strive
to provide better academic and life outcomes for children in the region using education, healthcare, cultural and linguistic best practices to maximum program reach and impact while seeking equity for community members. I'm trying to understand why this taxing district has anything to do with healthcare. Speaker 13: I think that's referring to, you know, having nurses available for the early childcare providers. There's usually some coordination that can go into that and mental health as well.
Speaker 7: Why does a child zero to five need mental health? Speaker 13: It's the, the most formative socio emotional development developmental years with 90% of the brain development happening. And we, we do see needs that young for, for mental health support that helps them, you know, if early intervention is, is well researched that that helps later development. Speaker 7: I'm sure there are a handful that probably need the services that we're,
we wouldn't disagree on that. I just don't understand why that would now be the responsibility or, or why the district a taxing district would take that on as an authority. Speaker 14: I don't know that it's an authority. I think, I mean, just from a practical standpoint in our, in the, in our daycare or childcare at the church, we've had instances where we've had, I can't speak about, but they, we've had instances with, with, with children that have required the intervention of healthcare professionals and we wanna make sure that those resources are available when they're needed.
It's, it's like any other school setting. You know, your kids are there for 40 hours a week, they're, and they're interacting with each other and the teachers and they're going to be circumstances that are gonna require some sort of healthcare intervention. Speaker 13: And it doesn't mean the district would provide that Right. Intervention, it means coordination with those community partners who do that work. Speaker 7: Okay. Right. Okay. I thanks for con clarifying that. I'm trying to understand really what a parent's resources are if they,
if they're, if best quote unquote best practices don't align with family values and how a parent still receive some of these taxing dollars if they are in a disagreement with a particular provider who is legitimately providing these quote unquote best practice standards. What, what resources a parent has because it almost feels as if you're gonna follow X, Y, and Z to receive taxing dollars. What is, what, what does that look like? Speaker 13: So we, we really want the, the families to have the choice
of providers so that they can choose the care and the provider that meets their needs. And we do have a, you know, a robust diversity of, of providers who can meet different, I think different family needs, family values. So I think we want also to support those providers in expanding their capacity if there's not enough space for for kids. But we really do believe in family choice, Speaker 7: But the board sets the expectations for what those best practices
Speaker 13: Look like. No, I mean best practices and all of that lives at the state level. It's all established. Yeah, that's the, yeah, all that stuff. Is this already Yeah. Department. So the district won't Yeah, it's, it's just based on licensure. But the district could help providers navigate the licensing process for example, which can be Okay. Tremendously cum, difficult, cumbersome. Yes. Speaker 14: It can be cumbersome. Speaker 1: Daunting. Yes. Okay. Megan, did you have Yeah, go ahead. No, thank you guys.
I will definitely agree that that childcare is definitely a hurting market in this area for working families and it is, it, it is tough having been a working family with two kids in daycare. It was tough. And I do appreciate too, the majority of my questions I had reading through your guys' presentation were, were answered. I do have one question on the ballot language. So it, it's, so shall taxes in the proposed Confluence early childhood development service district be increased by 12.1 million annually?
And then it says, and by whatever additional amounts may be raised thereafter to fund the district to reduce the cost of and provide more preschool and childcare. So increases annually, will those be voted upon? How will those happen? Speaker 14: That's standard Tabor language. Okay. To it kind of Deb Bruces the measures so that the, the tax rate won't go up. The tax rate won't change, but if economic activity allows for higher growth in the sales tax collections than the,
than Article 10, section 20 of the state constitution permits, then we'll be able to keep that money, that money won't have to be refunded to the taxpayers. So it's a standard bruising language. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. 'cause of course Speaker 13: I read that any tax increase would need to come back to the voters. Speaker 14: Right? Any, any change in the tax rate would've to come back to the voters any increase in the rate. Yep. Speaker 1: Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And and then I Speaker 13: For all the great, great questions Speaker 11: A couple minutes, sorry, you guys talking
Speaker 1: And, and, and I do have just one more clarifying question too. So, so this tax increase will not fund the, the building and facilities, it will fund programs that are already in place. Is that correct? Speaker 13: It could fund a provider. Let's say a provider wants to do a capital Yeah. Project expand a classroom or at some stage it, it could also help, well an example would be, you know, the in in parachute they're looking at
or they're working on establishing a, a program through a, at the butler building between the Garfield 16 school district and the rec parks and rec district. And it could help fund some of that, for example, if the board deemed that that was an important capacity enhancing way to do that. Yeah, Speaker 1: Perfect. And it and it is the childcare facilities, it's not coming, we're not gonna, the schools are not gonna house zero to five preschool year olds. Right. So like our schools will not house
these infants? Speaker 14: No, not unless, okay. Not unless district, unless you want to school district. Unless, unless you choose, you choose to open a childcare center. Speaker 1: No. Well no, I just, I just wanted to clarify. Yeah, yeah, no thank you. Chance Speaker 11: Brought up a whole lot. Heather, quickly, sorry, come back to me. January 1st, 2026 if it passes is when the assessments would begin, right? Would that be for this revenue year? Speaker 13: No, no. It will be as it starts being collected.
Speaker 11: Okay. So it would be for the following? Yes. Will be. So payment wouldn't re be received until 2027 Speaker 13: About June Speaker 1: Midyear. Speaker 13: Midyear, yeah. Okay. It's a lag of about six months, up to six months. Speaker 11: Okay. And then the state will, the state assesses that they'll collect it, they'll collect it and then dis distribute it to you or to the district? Speaker 13: The district, not us. Speaker 11: Is there a fee that the state will take for Speaker 13: There is a fee? Speaker 11: What is that? Speaker 13: That is in our the financial plan. That's in the service plan.
If you have that by chance because it's a yeah, it's a fee that the state Speaker 11: Assesses is Yeah, yeah, I get it. Speaker 13: Yeah, it's its Speaker 14: Own. Yeah, because you can, we Speaker 1: Gotta take your money and Speaker 14: We need to be paid. You can do your own collections or you can have the state collect and they chart in, in Colorado is a home, Colorado is a home rule state. So, and, and you know we're, we're small district regional just starting so we want to have the state do Speaker 11: The collections. Sorry, I don't have that in front of me. No, it's fine. What is your projected revenue for the first year if you were to base it off? Last year's revenue for this region? So it would be an yeah, an estimated 10 million
in off last year's fiscal year. Yeah, Speaker 1: I think, yeah in in the financial plan it has 10 10,516,433. Speaker 11: Thank you. And collection fees? 210,000? Yep. 210,000. What's the percentage? So two 10th of two 10th. Yeah, its not percentage wise that's not bad. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Speaker 14: It's like a credit card fee. Yeah. Speaker 11: But it goes to state. Okay. That's perfect. Thank you Maggie and
Speaker 1: Paul, thank you guys very much. Thank Speaker 11: You so much. Thank Speaker 14: You very much. Thank you. Speaker 11: Appreciate, appreciate your time Speaker 1: Curriculum and grant update. Speaker 11: Can I have a bathroom break? Yeah, Speaker 1: We have, we'll do five minutes. Sorry Simone, you you got so excited. Sorry guys. Speaker 11: Yeah, you're probably five minutes Speaker 1: C Speaker 11: CK a Speaker 1: Curriculum and grant update and then CKLA implementation board update. Speaker 12: Okay. So the curriculum update I'm bringing you is CKLA. The grant that we'll talk a little bit about is the council core grant and then is impact cycles lumped into that one
or is it a separate bullet? I don't, I understand. Okay. So the other piece of the curriculum update will be impact cycles and Jenny was a part of that team that lifted that great adventure last year. And so she's going to do the presentation on that CKLA. Oh my, oh my. What an adventure it has been. And there is a lot to celebrate and no doubt there are always some struggles. So as the coaches, the academic coaches from all six elementary schools have
come together throughout these first seven weeks, I think we're launching into our eighth as we've come together, they're, they're able to absolutely support the concept that the teachers are doing the hard work, they are very invested in the program and wanting to do a good job. They are recognizing that there is a ton of opportunity embedded within CKLA to assess our children and where they're at with foundational reading skills and then some more complex comprehension skills.
And they are reporting out that students are very engaged. And I'm gonna tell you a little story about that. A mama that I know who has a kindergartner and a sixth grader, the sixth grader was at home studying for an assessment on the human body. And he was the, the dad was actually trying to help and he was coming across words like esophagus complex vocabulary words, digestion. And the kindergartner is telling the sixth grader all about how that system in the human body works.
And the sixth grader went to his teacher the next day and said, I'm a little upset. I am in sixth grade and I'm learning about the same thing that my kindergarten sister is learning. And it just speaks to the level of number one, authentic text, number two, science being embedded in the program we're teaching. And then number three, the vocabulary this kindergarten student was able in front of her dad and mom to regurgitate the word esophagus without any help. That's pretty cool. So there's a lot of engaged students just simply
because of the topics being covered, the stories that they're being exposed to and the activities that we're doing in their classrooms. And then the other celebration as we implement this program is that they are following their scope and sequence that was designed throughout last year while we piloted. And how great is that because we're already a year ahead of where we would've been had we not piloted like we did and found the holes and found the places where we needed to think deep about what's being put in front of our kids. So that's kind of exciting as it relates
to their implementation in the classroom. As with any change, there have been a few growing pains. That's the graph that I put in front of you throughout this whole implementation. We've kind of thought about the system of change. This was a big one for us. And brief summary of that chart. In order to have effective change, you have to have all five of the items listed at the top in place. And as we are now reflecting on our first eight weeks, we're realizing that we do have a couple holes
that we're gonna work to fill. And they're listed under where it says growing pains on your handout. One of them is resources. Here's the why. We ordered some of the materials and supplies last year because teachers wanted it in their hands and we had some budget money set aside for that. We ordered some of the materials and supplies this year. And when you wait till the next fiscal year to order resources, sometimes it doesn't always arrive in time. So we're still waiting for some of our materials and supply student consumables to filter in.
The other one is there were some changes in the system of CKLA online from the second edition, which we piloted to the third edition, which is new this year. So teachers are, are trying to learn a little bit how to manage some of those new resources that look different than they did last year. And, and you'll see if, if you are lacking in resources, it causes frustration. So there's definitely been some frustration that we're working through the other
growing pain, which isn't a surprise. We knew it would happen. We expected it was skill and not, because our educators don't have the skill, they just don't have, they feel incompetent because they're, they're frustrated with lack of automaticity and instruction. So they don't know the program potentially as well as they want to, to feel like they're being effective. And so that's causing some anxiety for them because they're not sure they're doing the best they could be or could they do better? Or what is this really supposed to look like? And that's normal in the first year
of implementation of any program. It is very mechanical. They are turning the pages in their manual. And so that I think is causing a little bit of anxiety in our elementary schools and we just keep walking around going, it's okay, you're doing really, really great. Don't worry. And and we have been reassured from the schools that piloted come December, you'll have a better understanding of why that first half of the year was so uncomfortable and how all the work you put in in the first half of the year carries over to the second half of the year and then teachers are going, I get it now.
So I think some of it is normal and some of it will continue to work through. But overall all six academic coaches for ELA felt like those were the only two places. Very minimal where our implementation is breaking down. So I overall, I think that's a great celebration. And then some of our next steps include, we will put together on the next strategic, not the next one. Yes. 'cause we don't on in November when we have our next strategic planning day, we'll do district collaboration again from eight to 10.
And at the elementary level the priority will be kindergarten, CKLA teachers are all locked in a room. First grade CKLA teachers are all locked in the room all up to fifth grade with an academic coach in each room. And they are just hashing out problem solving, what's working for you, what do we still need to take care of? What, what is, what are we lacking guidance in on our scope and sequence. Just two hours of where are we at now with our implementation as it affects our grade level across the district. So we're excited for that opportunity in November.
Part of CKLA is a section called Language Studio. You may or may not remember it from the pilot last year. And that's the section that provides intervention to our ELL students. So as we get CKLA up and running, again that's been a little slow because we want kids to understand the routine and procedure of the core program. And teachers are now beginning to learn how to use CKLA as a small group intervention so that they're providing
to their English language learners some supports around pre viewing the stories and what are you gonna be learning about. And then in the moment of reading, providing scaffolds for language and then after reading, providing some review of what they just read to try enhance comprehension. So that is just starting I'd say in the past two, three weeks. And we have professional development coming to the district to help them with that even more. And then resources, this is another place where
resources are, are percolating to the surface to help us through some frustrations on the portal for CKLA, there are coaching, there's a coach's corner for lack of a better way to say it, which gives our academic coaches support on how to help our teachers. And they just learned about that when they met with the program, I guess support staff that's helping us a couple weeks ago. So they're gonna start digging into that to see what they might find is useful.
And then this Friday actually we have a group of teachers from every school, every grade level. And in fact Kyla who is here tonight has been invited to join us because we are taking the social studies scope and sequence and the science scope and sequence and we are taking CKLA and finding out where it aligns with those two content areas. Please remember that's a perk because we do not have an adopted science pro program in RE two right now.
Right. We do not have a social studies program in RE two right now. Right. And if you remember as we piloted last year, we're like, huh huh There might be some alignment, but that wasn't the work that we put all our eggs into that basket because we needed to make sure we had a good reading program. Right? So now we're sitting in a place where we can start that alignment. And I'm gonna just do a quick walk of history here. So my year one was all about learning and deciding where we needed to take our first steps. Year two was math pilot. Year three was math program implementation, ELA pilot.
Year four is ELA implementation. And now we're in a place where we can do some social studies and science alignment. So you'll start to hear more about that. And then another next step is a lot of work around data and the coaches have dug deep into our analytic system that we use for the district to start talking about how can we bring forward for what's happening daily in the classroom with our teachers at every grade level to look at how the kids are doing. And so that's the next step as well. And we're gonna talk more about that.
Jenny is gonna talk more about that really when we get into the impact standards. 'cause that that is these last is all that work is represented on these last two flaps. And so we're gonna start digging into that for CKLA. And that's a big summary of where we're at right now. Do you have questions for me? Speaker 10: Congratulations. Way to go Congratulate Speaker 12: Teachers. They are doing Speaker 10: It is up and running. It is. I'm excited for you guys. And they're doing for the kids. Speaker 12: Yep. Speaker 1: Is there certain, so the resources
that we're still waiting for, is it, is it a certain grade level? Is it kind of all over the board? Speaker 12: It was all over the board. We as of last week, pretty much had, everybody has what they need. Our poor fourth grade is just, where are my workbooks And I, all I can say right now is they're on four pallets at the warehouse. That's where they are. And our warehouse guys have worked tirelessly. The amount of curriculum they got in this year was unbelievable. Just almost insurmountable. I'm impressed they got out what they did in the manner of which they did.
But I talked to Zach this week and he's getting through those last four pallets and they will be in the schools and then everybody should have what they need. There are a few shortages here's in in there. That's not uncommon. But we will fix that. Speaker 10: Well I have a fourth grader and he's coming home with homework and reading every single week. So, so I don't want people to think that they're not getting what they need. What they need 'cause they're doing something to make sure the kids are still learning. Yes. So they're still doing work even though they don't have the actual workbook.
Yes. It's copies and staple together. Speaker 12: Yeah. And that, and I know that's hard on the staff for sure. It's just a little more time on their part. Sure. And then, you know, schools became worried about their copy budgets and I've reassured them we will replace the paper. I was actually surprised how much paper is at the warehouse that we can use to replace the paper that they've used, which is small in the scale of what a school uses in a in a year. So all of it is constant conversation and we're working to make it work. So for Speaker 11: Clarification, we are in fact teaching social studies and science.
Speaker 12: We are in fact teaching social studies and science. And I'm gonna provide empathy from a teacher's perspective because it's the one area at the elementary level where they now have the least guidance, probably the least instructional time, which has always been true. If an elementary school is lucky, they maybe have 20 to 30 minutes in a day to teach one or the other. They have no resources. And right now we, we have schools that are using funding to get resources offline.
For example, give me a minute. Mystery science is one that's not uncommon to use, but it isn't a district vetted resource. We did have amplify science. Some schools are still using that in a few places at some grade levels, but it's pretty much dissipated. And then social studies, again, we've never had a resource. So I think from the teacher side when when I hear someone say we're not teaching it, well I'm sure they don't even want to 'cause they don't even know what to use. But we absolutely are lifting those content areas. And we have a few schools who have chosen
to not set aside specific time yet until they know exactly what their teachers need to focus on outside of CKLA. And I have worked to reassure some parents and, and I've met with one school in particular and their parent group to talk about that process with them. Speaker 10: Okay, great. Speaker 12: Any other questions for CKLA? Speaker 1: When is that continued scope and sequence work meeting? Friday, is it this Speaker 12: Friday? It is this Friday and then we, we actually have 16 hours from now until the beginning of December set aside.
And in those 16 hours we should have a standards alignment in both content areas. We should have a clear picture of where we're lacking resources for standards at both content areas, all grade levels. And then we can start to have conversations with schools and teams and grade levels about, well let's collect what you have right now that you do use and make sure they are vetted at least at a district level so that we can say here, here, when you teach Colorado history here, this is what you can use. Speaker 10: Okay, thank you.
And you already have a lot of that scope and sequence done. Well, I mean you were working on it. Speaker 12: The standards. Yeah, the standards have a scope. We understand the standards at every grade level in social studies, right? Science hasn't been touched for eight years, so it needs some work, but at least we can get social studies definitively organized, we'll be able to align science. But I think we're gonna have some reorganization that has to happen in that content area. And I, I'll be honest, I haven't even really looked at the science standards to make sure they're the current ones.
So we have a little work to do. Well, Speaker 10: And remind me if I'm wrong, but at Elk Creek Elementary, didn't they test on science on their sheet? Or was that social studies that they were Speaker 12: All schools Fifth, Speaker 10: Yeah, fifth grade. And they did great. Yeah. So, okay. So Speaker 5: I, I think the board needs to understand that part of this is a little bit of, of semantics when when we as curriculum people are talking about it, we have state standards. And so if we're talking KK through five,
those standards are laid out developmentally for, from our itty bitties through our fifth graders. And so the way they were built and have been since standard space education started in 1993, is really broken down to be developmentally appropriate for those legis for those ages. So I think a lot of us, when we think science are thinking like physics and those kind of things, it is more of a secondary concept versus an elementary. Elementary, we're talking about things like the water
cycle, right? So we're, we're thinking about very broken down scientific theories and how that that can build for they're ready at middle school and high school. And so a lot of those concepts, and so when Simone talks about they're embedded in C-K-K-L-A, that's where a lot of this takes place. So another example that I'll give you is parts of bodies is life science. The life science standards for elementary require ask us to begin to introduce
the human body as in you know what your toes are, you know what your ankle is, you know what your knee is. You go on to that. So the example that she gave is that example. So we do in literature do that quite a bit. And so kids get exposed to those, those components. So a lot of what our, our resources do is actually do those concepts. The question is, are we doing it in a scope and sequence way where as many of us we're all taught
that it says it is now social studies time. Yeah. Take your, take your book out and start reading. That's where the disconnect for a lot of a lot of our parents are is that that time is now embedded into the reading component. So we are not neglecting social studies and science, it's embedded. The question that I think that we're doing now is saying how much is actually already done by this resource that we purchased last year? And let's double check what's missing so that we can tell our teachers what comes back in one
that we can guarantee right now is fourth grade Colorado history. Because of course this resource wasn't built for, for Colorado, it was built for the country. So do we think they're going to have baby dough tabor in there? No. But we also know we're not hurting our kids at in fourth grade because by the time they do their work, we still have second semester to work with our teachers and the resources that they already have in our classrooms to re-implement that. So the plan that Simone and Jacob have come up with to work through this is,
is taking into account that that when they'll be able to circle back and take these missing pieces that the team's gonna identify and ensure that those are getting into place. So they're looking at it saying, well let's hit what our curriculum or our resource already has and then we will supplement with what we see is missing to do that now, unfortunately, because we haven't done that work yet, when people are coming to us and saying, well what is missing? We have to go, we don't know yet. And that's a really little frustrating for us because we always want the answers.
We're getting to having the answers, but we know we're not just ignoring those subjects, they're just embedded in the work that our teachers are already doing. And it's already happening pec, especially at the primary grades because it's what we know is that the non-fiction component of their reading and writing is a major component of how this program is written. So expository text nonfiction is a big part of what they're asked to read and write. Expository text is a big part
of social studies and science reading. So they're, they're forced to pull those out and put them into it. Now we just have to look at where the alignment is and where the holes are. And that's the work that she's talking about doing with Dean. So we are not ignoring those, we just are, it's the timing that she just talked about for math, we're doing the same thing for ELA and it's how it's gonna play out. We have the second semester to make sure that we're plugging the holes and how that works of what they didn't get in first semester. And what we don't know is gonna naturally happen
through this resource in second semester. But using my example of Colorado history, those are state standards. We know that they're in there. We have resources within our system. We're gonna come back and work with the fourth grade team to say, Hey, let's talk about baby do Tabor, what resources do you have in your system? And if the answer is no, somewhere that disappeared, well then we're gonna get those resources. We have those within our, we have the resources within the system to make sure our fourth grade classrooms have what they need to fulfill that. So that's part of that. So I just wanna make sure
that we're not ignoring those subjects, it's just the route in which we're getting there by using the, the curriculum that, that you guys all purchased for your staff last year is how we're doing that. So if that helps kind of explain that. Did I? It Speaker 12: Was great. And and the bottom line is I, all of us could rush and say, just use what you have to, but I would like to do it right the first time so that we are not continually redoing and redoing and redoing. So we are moving a little slow, but it's for the right reasons. Speaker 10: But, and then they're all aligned,
all the schools are aligned. Exactly. And we're all, it's time. So if a kid moves from one school to another, we're getting the same stuff. Speaker 12: It's time. Yeah. Yeah. Great. And how cool is this outdoor ed? So Scott Parton and Charlotte are joining us on Friday to do this alignment because they would like their programming as much as possible at all grade levels to align to social studies and science as well. That's great. So how cool is that? Yeah, it's great. I'm pretty excited about that. Yeah. Speaker 10: Yeah. Great. Yeah, Speaker 7: I think it's amazing when we can tie in
multiple facets of the curriculum. It, it one supports the other. Really it solidifies learning at all grade levels when you can do the, the textbook, the hands-on practicals. Perfect. Good Speaker 12: Job. Thanks. I agree Speaker 11: To speak to Megan's point, it's, you think about all those kind of pointless sentences you read when you're in English class or reading like in first second grade. If you can make those incorporate science or you know, social studies or like yeah you're killing two or three birds in one stone. Yeah. And it's just getting them exposed to those ideas
and those, those concepts. So yeah. I like it. Yeah. Speaker 10: Cool. Yep. Speaker 12: Okay. The next, I was asked to give you an update on the counselor core grant. And I gotta tell you, I was with these women today and over the course of my time working with them, it's, it has been a chore to get them to have the same conversation about the same things at the same time. It's been a chore to get them all in one room together and find value in that. And today was amazing. Every counselor was there and it was conversation
around academic achievement. How cool is that? Because that's the work that they are tasked with. That is their number one goal is to support the achievement of our kids. And so some of the work they've done with the grant is to reflect on the goals that they set last year. And I just wanna remind you that all of their goals are either academic or behavioral. And right now we have four schools who have a goal to decrease the number of read plans through the support of the counselor. We have five schools who have a goal
to decrease behavior referrals through the support of the counselor. Two schools decreasing the number of FS through the support of the counselor. And one of them was sharing today that their teachers have never ever looked at how many Fs were given in the school. And they looked at their data last Friday and they learned that they had 168 Fs and they're like, Uhuh, oh no, no, no, we're not gonna stand for that. And as early as this week, they're pulling groups of kids because of that. How cool. And that is with the counselor guidance.
And then we have one school who is focused on increasing the number of students enrolled in TE courses. And I think that alone speaks volumes to the power of the work that they can do when given the right direction and guidance. And thank goodness for this grant because it has brought them all together with that direction and that guidance. So far this year, the conversations have been around those goals, how they're gonna collect their data, how they're gonna do the work they need to do to make sure the goals are reached, how are they gonna structure their calendars?
Because really their job is to provide a tier one support. In other words, if you breathe and you are a student in a school, you are benefiting from that support. And so they have to figure out how they are gonna get in front of every single kid to give that kind of support. And then they also have to figure out how they're gonna start providing some tier two supports on skill building or academic behavior. So what are you doing that you are getting, what's happening be that you are getting these Fs, this fly? I know it's aggressive, it's whoever's talking,
whoever is talking the fly gravitates to. So really what what's happening is embedded in the work they're doing throughout the year is accountability. Because now they have to come to the table in just a few more weeks when this is quarter is done and they have to have a piece of data for the goals that they set for each one. By the end of the year we'll have 16 data points at every school, eight data points for their academic goal, eight data points for their behavior goal. Never before has that happened with this group of professionals. And really they're also working to align standards
to the work that they're doing. And then they're starting to identify real deficits and, and two have come to the surface for their programming. One is a knowledge base on executive functioning. So how, how do they really use that concept to help kids be organized and manage their time? And how can we get parents to understand that kind of work the brain does so that they can support their kids as well. And so they are asking for some resources to help us help parents
and to help them help students with executive functioning. That's one. And the other one is they want an ICAP system and they want it now. And so Jacob and I have talked because through the funding of the grant schools were asking for different systems. We've learned from our gal who is guiding the work on this grant that the state budget was cut. And so no longer will the state be adopting an ICAP system and it's up to districts. And so Jacob's gonna keep pulling them together and focusing on what kind of ICAP system is best
for Garfield re two. And then October 21st is our next professional development with the state. We'll be going up to Steamboat as a large group working on goals, data collection, collaboration with other schools in the state and how they're problem solving some of these problems we have. And then the whole afternoon is all about college and career readiness and post workforce readiness. Great. So yeah. That's awesome. Lots, lots flying in that area too. Speaker 2: Amazing. Speaker 12: Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. They're fun. They're fun. I didn't used to say that and they know it, but they are fun now.
Speaker 2: Okay. Any questions? Yeah. Anybody else? Just a real quick one. Yeah, go ahead. With the grant, with the beginning of the year and when we talked last time, the, you know, staffing was really tough. Has that improved at all? Speaker 12: No. However, we've learned a few things. So the gals at the state, Brooke is one, Jen is another. So if I use their name, you know, they work for the state. They have been phenomenal. So if we get a candidate who's interested, they will meet with us and that candidate in a, in a group of three to talk about how we can get them in these counseling roles.
We have a teacher in house at one of our schools who wants to be a counselor. Now is the time friend. Now is the time because not only will the grant pay for your education, we can get you doing grant work, you can get a, it's called a TEE, it's just another alternative license to work as a counselor while you're in school. And then we're working with HR to come up with what kind of commitment, because we're using funding that otherwise would've come to our school to pay for your education. So what kind of commitment do we expect from you in the end?
Or you have to pay that tuition back. So we're starting to have those conversations, but we have two candidates that may come aboard in December to fill two of those counseling positions, which is exciting. And then it's use it or lose it funding. So the gals at this state are also helping us recognize in what other ways can we use this funding to support academic achievement behavior and college and career readiness. And one of the, for instance, rifle middle school is going to fund their Friday school and their summer school program
through counselor core grant. 'cause that's an option. It's all about academic achievement and the counselor just has to be involved in that work. Cool. Thanks. Alright. Speaker 11: I need some help with some definitions. What, what is an ICAP system? Speaker 12: Jacob Speaker 15: Can utilize career and academic plan, but they are in the process of changing the p from plan to portfolio because they recognize that starting down in elementary, it's really a series of activities that kids are doing that are supporting them in creating their academic
and career based pathway in their time in public education. And so the p is changing the portfolio because they recognize that you should have some kind of evidence or outcomes from all of those activities. And what does the compilation of that, Speaker 11: So what, I guess, what's an ICAP system then? Does that just compile all those for every student? Speaker 15: Yeah. What what what they're really at. Yeah. What they're really looking for is a, is a software based platform that helps us to facilitate the creation of the creation of those portfolios.
The housing mechanism that have en enables career based exploration enables individual skill based understanding. So that's, that's really what we're, that's really what we're looking at when we talk about, not necessarily a system, but a platform. We've been doing some work with the group to identify what, what is the system of activities that we run elementary, middle, and high that really fit into the icap. And so that was the work that we did last year. And so we really did solidify that.
I'm working with Chelsea to try and get that information along with a good description of ICAP up on the website so we can reflect some of the work that we did last year in aligning what is happening at elementary versus the right. It's whoever's talking, Speaker 12: You keep talking. Speaker 15: It has not been back here all night that fly. Anyways, that was the work we did. And so realistically the goal is now what kind of, what kind of platform? 'cause there are a lot of platforms that are out there. Like Simone mentioned, the state used to have platforms, college in college in Colorado, Navi, there were a lot
of different state supported platforms. And then it kind of went all over the place and there really wasn't one specific one that everybody was using anymore. And everybody's been kind of begging the state to say, Hey, tell us what we should be using as the platform. And they're just not doing it. So, so yeah. So we've gotta kind of figure that one out on our own. There are some different options that are out there that we need to explore as a group. That'll be the big challenge because what some people, like, other people like the other thing and other people like this one that they used before. And so no,
Speaker 11: Make a decision. Everybody will love Speaker 15: It. Speaker 6: Well we're Speaker 12: We're really lucky too. Our, our consultant Lori Sson, you may have heard her name, I know you met her. She's got that blonde hair. She's very well versed in, in everything that's out there. And as, as we were writing for grant funding, we, some of these names came up and she's like, oh, mm. So I think she'll be a big help as they start to look at this versus this versus this. Speaker 15: My big help was that CKLA was gonna come, it was gonna be embedded in CA. So one, Speaker 11: One more definition, sorry. Executive functioning. Speaker 12: Oh, okay. Good one.
So the best way I can describe executive functioning is Speaker 6: Back over to you fly Speaker 12: How, how someone organizes the work in their head. So how are they organizing their responsibilities? How are they organizing the work they need to get done for school time management? Those, those would be the two big areas that in the world of school that we try and focus on with kids. You have, you have these three things you need to get done tonight. How are you gonna manage that? Or you're in school, the teacher just gave you five directions
all at once, what are you gonna do? Teaching them how to manage that in their, in their head. Speaker 6: Awesome. Speaker 11: Help with adulthood Speaker 12: Too, right? Speaker 6: Right. Can all use that? Yeah. Somebody Speaker 11: Else have static in their executive functioning. Speaker 6: We could talk about that all night. Are you ready? Okay. Speaker 12: You want me to be your dad? Speaker 6: Yes. Yeah. Be my band. No, you won't need, you can just sit for now. Okay. So I'm so lucky to have Simone and Jacob. I just wanna say that you guys, I'm telling you what, one of the things I've gotten to do in this position is
to appreciate people who I already appreciated but appreciate them more and in a whole new way, right? That's the truth. And so I don't know if you guys ever go home and your brain hurts. So right now, if you would, we're gonna talk about this in a minute, but if you would just put it face down so you're not tempted, right? Because we know that sometimes we can do two things at once, but if I'm giving you background information while you're looking at this and trying to understand it, then we'll probably be here a lot longer with questions.
Not that questions are bad, but I just, I really thought through where this is the last item on the agenda besides the policy and how do we talk about such a big thing and give a summary of it so that I'm gonna do my best. I, this is gonna be my best summary. So the thing that I've watched the school board do more in the last five years than I've ever seen is you guys are learners and you want to understand lots of things about the work in order to make the best decisions that you can. And, and we appreciate that. And so, and as you've dug into it, you can see
how complex it all is, right? I, I hear you guys talking about that. Like, it's just really big. And sometimes in education it can be like a big bad science experiment. So if you, if you have done science experience, you're supposed to have a control variable, right? You're supposed to, you're supposed to change one thing and gather the data and then do the next thing. But in education sometimes we go, well, I'm gonna do this, but I'm gonna, it's gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do 10 things and then we're gonna get our data back and we're gonna try, if we had good results, we're gonna try
to figure out what caused the good results, right? And so I hope that you hear in these recent meetings that what we're trying to do is to align and focus everything that we do, right? Whether it's our UIPs or the work that we're doing at these impact cycles, we're really trying to not just go from one, the, the flys here. You guys, can we take a five minute break and get this fly? Sorry, we are all I know. I mean, I know this meeting is publicized on television, but we really gotta pass out some fly waters. Can we use this? So, but he is, he's literally right here.
So anyway, we are trying to not just make change for change's sake because there's enough people doing that and we don't wanna be those people. And we saw in our school performance frameworks this year that we are getting aligned and we are having results with all kinds of kids. So here's here's the bullet point breakdown. Kirk introduced you to the data-driven planning process known as the unified improvement plan. And in that you heard the phrase continuous improvement cycle. I'm making an assumption that the phrase continuous improvement cycle isn't new
to anybody because it's really all over. So the district's instructional framework known as WHHW has been in place since 2016 is the date that I calculated, okay? And it's also been called the teaching and learning cycle. And it is based on a continuous improvement cycle. So last year we convened an invitation, went out to all of our educators to volunteer if they wanted to, to look at our instructional framework, which is the WHHW,
and decide how might it need to be updated for the work that we're doing now. Now if you google continuous improvement cycle, you will probably get something like plan, do, check, adjust. And that's why I'm assuming you guys know what a con, a continuous improvement cycle is because it's going on around us in organizations literally all the time. You make a plan to do something, you do the plan, you see how the plan worked, what the results were,
and you decide what you need to do to do next. And that is what teaching and learning is too. Now, in a lot of places it's about improving systems, but when you apply it to teaching, the ultimate goal of teaching is learning, right? And so that's why we have to have a cycle where we, we know what we're gonna teach, we have to decide how we're gonna teach it and so on and so forth at WHHW. So then we knew we needed to do this. We convened some people, we reviewed all
of our school performance frameworks data from the recent years for a long time. And the data revealed a couple of things. One, overall there were increases in growth and achievement for several years following the implementation of the WHHW. The data also revealed that growth and achievement were negatively impacted by the pandemic. And recovering from that learning loss has been slow, right? And there's also one more point of data, been a great deal
of staff turnover since we implemented WHHW at the same time we did the pandemic. And so those who started around those times were not as deeply trained and invested in WHHW. Does this make sense? Okay, so, so the team of educators led by Simone who I just got, I have it at the moment. The bottom tribute to Simone and the educators because they showed up, they were passionate, they were dedicated. And these are not easy conversations.
So we took a whole lot of instructional frameworks from other districts and we looked at 'em and do you know what we found? They all represented some kind of a plan, do check, adjust, and there were a lot of words and a lot of colors and it was a little overwhelming. Some of 'em were, I mean, just to try to start putting it into our own. So, so here's what we decided. Teaching is incredibly complex and we wanted to better represent the continuum of a teacher's journey of learning from the most foundational elements to
a more advanced ability because it is a continue a continuum of growth. And so, and it's also the way that the state model evaluation system works. It is foundational to the ultimate level is students' own the learning. That's where you wanna get to as much student ownership as you can get. We also wanted to produce an artifact that was more practical for our teachers to use. I know he's here and, and so now you may look at this knowing
that history, okay? Because at first we were like, Pete, plan, do check, adjust. So simplified and then it all gets so complicated. And it is complex. But the thing I want you to notice, I'm gonna explain a couple things on the front. Prepare is big and yellow because there is so much a teacher can do to prepare and you can infinitely grow in your ability to consider different things in your classroom. What's the standard you're gonna teach? What instructional strategies are you gonna use? Which learners do you have in your classroom? What levels are they at? Are they ELL?
Are they special education? Are they gt? Like that is all in this planning cycle. And if, can I have Speaker 12: One thing? Yes, go ahead. The other thing we wanted to emphasize was you can't do any of these other things unless you prepare for them. You have to do these ahead of time as well. Speaker 6: Yeah. And then if you just flip this one over, you're going see on this top, you're gonna see randa. So we actually took some of the state model evaluation system elements and put them in here to say, this is
what it looks like when you're doing this. And some teachers were really excited about that. And then if you look at this little brown right here, across the top it says foundational impact. So as a teacher starts out, this page represents, these are the foundational things we want a new teacher to learn to do. And just a side note, our mentor and induction program led by Justin Banky is doing an incredible job with our mentors, getting people
to develop these foundational elements. Okay, so if you, I'm gonna add one thing. Yes, I'm sorry. You don't. You just go right in. I'm van. Speaker 12: Another place. The foundational level comes in is when you implement a new core program. Speaker 6: All of our veterans Yeah, it's kind of like go back to go. Yeah. Speaker 12: Are feeling the frustration because they're right back at the beginning of learning how to teach. And that's this whole foundational level. Speaker 6: And it causes such dissonance 'cause it's like, wait a minute, I know how to teach. And now it feels all slow and awkward again. Sometimes it's okay to get slow and awkward again when you're trying something new.
It can be really effective. And that's part of how we grow. And so if you flip all of them back, right, you're just gonna see foundational impact all the way across. But you guys, each one of these, it's a lot. It's a big complex process, but people do it. And some of them you don't have to. If you look at the next level, you're gonna see strengthen and refined impact. So in some of these you can spring forward, you don't have
to do them in a linear order, except we have to have some foundations, right? With our planning and preparation. And then there are lots of areas in here where people might not go in a linear fashion. They might be really good at one thing early in their career. They have a natural ability for it. And then there's some other areas that don't feel as as natural and they need to go back and learn those things or learn from their peers, I would say. And then the last one is mastery impact. And if you look under mastery impact, you'll see that all
of it says student ownership of learning. Okay. And that is the thing that really skilled teachers are able to do. And sometimes we don't lay it out very clearly. And this was an attempt to help connect it to how they're being evaluated and lay it out more clearly. And then I wanna point out that we used the word impact. 'cause this is something really important to understand. Teachers, our evaluators of student learning,
that's not a strange statement to make. Kids are learning. We look at their papers, we monitor what they're doing, we do this, we do grades, we do evaluation of learning. The standards. Teachers also are evaluators of their own impact on student learning. Learning can be slow and difficult for kids or it can be greatly enhanced and affected and sped up by a skilled teacher. And so that's why this is called impact
cycles of learning. We wanna keep that mindset that we as the educator, impact how our students learn from us. Does this make sense? Absolutely. Okay. So we're gonna, what else do you wanna, Speaker 12: We're gonna patent this bad boy. Speaker 6: I would. I Speaker 12: Would, well I wanna add that just like teaching is a cycle of continuous improvement with the work they do with kids. This is in its first year. It is also going to be on a continuous cycle of improvement. We will come back, come back, come back. What's not working? Where do you see room for improvement till we get more of a complete final product. So while these were, these were published as inexpensively
as possible because what we knew was next year when we roll it out, it might look a little different. It might have some things taken away or added based on the work everyone does with it this year. Speaker 6: And we did presentations in each of the schools, different people from the committee presented. And I got to present at one school and I wanna share the feedback. 'cause this really kind thrilled me. And it impacted you. What? It impacted you. It did. Thank you. Yeah. It's give her bonus points, right? Yeah. She's still paying attention after all this information.
And so of course one of the things is a brand new teacher. There was a girl who came through our system, went away, went to college, was deeply impacted by anxiety during her experience during COVID in college. Took a break, came to be a paraprofessional at the school, and turns out she's a natural teacher and she's rocking it. And so she said, as a new teacher, she said, this feels really practical to me. This feels like I could use it. And I was like, score.
And then a way veteran teacher said, I love the connection to the RANDA rubric. That is so awesome. I'm so glad. Not the whole rubric, but connecting it. So our conversations when we do those can be connected. That was like bam. And one more long-term educator said, she said, I, I just think that this is gonna be such a useful tool in guiding planning. And she's a veteran teacher. So I was like, okay, so what questions do you have after all that?
Speaker 10: Well, the digital copy that came through was a little, I was like looking at it, I'm like, it's almost like this needs to like flip or something. I was looking and I was reading it and then I was like, wow, these graphics are really cool. It was like very like us. Yeah. Speaker 6: I just, Speaker 12: I just brought to life what they drew on paper. That's Speaker 6: All I did. But she did bring it to life. Speaker 10: But no, it's very well put together. I'm excited to see and hear back moving forward how it all works. Speaker 11: I think that that whole cycle of plan, do check,
adjust is, I mean that's, that's consistent throughout life, I think with everybody. I think everybody does it. Everybody should do it. Yeah. Naturally. Yeah. Because it's very important to have those to look in the mirror and analyze, you know, what you did, right? If it's correct or if you know, and, and you can apply that to your relationships. You can apply that to career, you can apply that to everything and, and just getting kids in this executive functioning. All right. Right. I like that. It just sets 'em up. Because life, if you, if,
if you'll just analyze and make the adjustments, I mean, nobody's perfect. Nobody. And man, everybody's just, I think it's awesome. And teaching, I can't even imagine how hard it is to teach a classroom of 24 kids from different backgrounds, Speaker 6: Different levels, Speaker 11: Different levels out of a textbook, and expect 24 outta 24. And I'm just using that number to comprehend it equally. Right? Yeah. I I don't, you're Speaker 6: You're really hitting a big nail on the head right there. Chance, because something I didn't mention that is
that we both got to be with our new teachers in induction recently and teach different things to them. And one of the things that I talked about that you're really hitting it on the head, okay, you are born and your brain starts developing and you look at all that's going on, you hear the noises, you see the people, you, you live your life at birth and you start developing, well, just think of all the different environments that kids experience. So if they're not, if there's not a whole bunch of pay attention paid or if they're left alone for long periods of time, if they experience a lot of, you know, random noise
or they have quiet periods of study. So when they arrive at kindergarten, they've developed inside their head at different rates and they come with different skills and then school happens outside your head. But you have to use your cognitive growth from a birth to do school. Sure. And so that just underscores that they really are at different places and yet with a skilled teacher, they can, they are so many things that you can use that are gonna bring all kids along. And that really is I, but I also guarantee you if,
and I don't use that word lightly, I hardly ever use that word. If we had a room full of educators, what they would say is, yes, it's hard, but boy, when they learn, there is nothing like it. Nothing like it. And that motivates them. So Speaker 12: I'll add to, in our life with WHHW, we really did get stuck over here and we had a hard time moving past this. But in our life with this and, and the work that Kirk is guiding us in to foster looking at data every 30 days, we're moving over here and this is
where the bang for the buck is. And that's exciting. And not only will you hear impact cycles, you'll hear impact standards. And those are the standards that have been identified as the most essential for mastery at each grade level. And those are the ones that are coaches will be bringing forward with their teachers as they work on these last two flaps. Speaker 6: Thank you. I'm Speaker 1: Excited. I'm excited. I'm excited too. I'm excited to see how excited you guys are about it, for lack of a better Speaker 11: Word.
I'm, I'm excited about this time next year. Yes. Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Speaker 6: Just Speaker 11: Because, and that's a hard thing. It's takes so long. It's such a delayed, delayed gratification, you know? Speaker 10: Well, I was thinking about that like a year out. Like it would be interesting when we have our, our almost end of when we voted on CKLA to have a year review from some of those people that came in presented to us. Wouldn't it be fun just to, when you were presenting, Speaker 12: Because it was there year two now that's a good point. Speaker 10: Yeah. And just kind of have like a fill in, I was gonna bring that up in the meeting debrief
and future agenda. But like, just seeing where, you know, you guys put so much work and time into this kind of stuff. Like, or I mean, you're reviewing data every 30 days. Not that we need to review it every 30 days, but in a year, like we've been doing it a year. This is working, this isn't like, I mean it's, it's good for us to hear and see that, you know, adjust. And Speaker 11: One thing that's refreshing to me is that your guys' enthusiasm over it tells me more than just the information.
Like, you, you guys are enthused and, and, and Simone's always happy, but you're super enthus. Well, Speaker 6: It, the, I believe wholeheartedly in plan do check, adjust because it literally is, I mean, what is parenting besides plan check. Right? And I just think once we've put it in that framework of it's always happening, then the standards can change. But you still know what you're doing. And then we may change a resource, but you still know that you're doing a cycle. Yeah. I love it. So Speaker 1: Parenting is organized chaos. Speaker 6: I thought parenting was by the you plan
to check adjustments you organized? Speaker 1: No, Speaker 10: Like when parents show up late, like moms and, Speaker 1: Alright, mommy, yet thank you guys for that standard, like Speaker 10: There, Speaker 1: What did you now onto governance action items. We've got, which a standard policy focus. So we've got our first reading of policy jra dash jrc, which is the student records release of information on students. So reading through it, there wasn't much changed.
Speaker 10: Capital DS per district will, will shalls taken out Must instead of a shall. Speaker 1: I did have a question, just a question on page three. It says all signed consent forms will be retained by the school district. Just outta curiosity, is there a timeframe that those are to be kept or, or are they resigned annually? Speaker 10: We ign stuff every year on parents here. Speaker 1: Yeah. But like I know it's archive, Speaker 10: Archive almost. Speaker 5: Like what, what is the, Speaker 1: Like do they have to be retained for seven years
for audit purposes? Speaker 5: That's a good question and I actually do not have an answer for you on what it is for this policy. I'll have to look into it. Okay. And I can bring that back next time. Okay. Speaker 10: Okay. Thank you. Speaker 5: Let me look into it. Speaker 1: Are there any other questions or concerns? Speaker 10: No, this one's pretty straightforward. Yeah, Speaker 7: I have one. Yeah, one a page three as well. I, I'm just trying to understand there, there's a whole list of quote unquote school officials. And I could understand specifically how each, a lot of these people had roles in being deemed a school official.
But what about health and medical staff Speaker 10: Right here? Speaker 1: So like our, our school nurses would, would fall under that Resource officer, resource officer. I, Speaker 7: Well, I understood those. It was just that the health and medical staff and, and what information would they need specifically, I guess is what my question is in official capacity, what information from the school record is and is not available to a health assistant.
Does that make sense? Yeah. Speaker 5: I apologize. I wouldn't track him with you. Say it one more time Speaker 7: For me. In, in the one a under the list of school officials, it says health and medical staff. And I'm trying to figure out like what is and is not essentially provided to a health assistant as far as the school record is concerned. So here's where I'm framing it from Kirk, is that I know that as a school resource officer, the whole FERPA file is not available and usable to law enforcement.
What is and is not available. Is it full read access for everybody other than SRO for these files? Am I, am I explaining it correctly? Yeah, Speaker 5: I don't, as far as per permissions, it's another good question. I'm not sure if we do, like we have permissions on our SY system and I don't, I I have not do dove deep enough to know for that particular question what we would have, what we would have delineated that someone would
or wouldn't have access to. We have that power to do that, right. For different components. I don't know, sitting here tonight what we would would delineate that for maybe something we Speaker 7: Wanna take a look at because we would be in violation of some of these FERPA provisions if we are giving full access to the educational file to various entities. Speaker 5: Yeah. For, I mean it would be if, if they needed you're, you are absolutely right. And I think the, the question would be if there, if we,
if we have people who have access and don't need access to that to do their job is usually the question or Yeah. Speaker 7: Specifically a health nurse doesn't need to know what the attendance is for a student. They need to know emergency contact information, some demographics, medical history, if it's applicable, they don't need to know referrals to the office and, and same in a limited capacity or run into this or law enforcement. Is that providing all of that creates and,
and I just know the law enforcement aspect Yes. Correct. It creates, it creates sticky points for all of our partner agencies on like, Ooh, I have access to that. But legally I'm not supposed to, I'm supposed to turn 'em blind eye to that, but I've already seen it. I, I think it's something that we probably need to review. Speaker 5: Yes, you are correct. And I, and I think what probably most likely is what we've done we do is that we can, it's, I would say that it's probably best that we look at it as far as application to this policy. And we can do it, we could look at it as far
as regulation versus put it in the policy because that again would be one of those things that then we'd have to change every time that we would, would look at it. Sure. And we can look at those pieces. But I think you bring up a, a really valid point as saying, I haven't looked at the clarification on all of those listed positions to say where it is. So I appreciate you bringing it forward and it's definitely something we can look into. Speaker 2: I was kind of thinking paragraph B has some of the context to that, if it's necessary for that official to perform appropriate tasks. That's where I read things like that, that would pertain to
that person's role in the district. Speaker 5: And then I guess yeah, that Speaker 11: Kind of helps putting some of it in context, although you as a super are the one that decides, is that, I mean, ultimately yes. What, what the definition of appropriate is. Yeah. Right. Yep. So I guess Speaker 6: My experience working in the schools as an administrator for 14 years was that paragraph B was very much how it's operated within my purview. That we are very,
very specific in what permissions are given to our power school system for certain purposes. We're very conscientious when we're in conversations with what people need to have as it's, it's information has not been handled casually. And I do understand some fears that people maybe have about information being shared liberally or carelessly. I'm just speaking to your question, from my experience that B has been very, it hasn't been a challenge to necessarily decide what's appropriate.
It's usually more obvious from the context that, that we're talking. Speaker 7: Sure. And, and I, I haven't had any, yeah, I don't have any specific concerns. I'm, I'm learning these policies, I want to know how they work in the, in the district. That was something that just from my life experience, I was like, huh, how is that necessarily handled? I understand. I, Speaker 1: I do see, and one thing, and this is probably where I got it from what Scott said too, and B number three is the information that is given to those people has to be relevant to what
they are researching or handling at the time. Yeah. So, Speaker 7: Sure. So I, my question though is really like, how is this actually being implemented? Not necessarily how is, how is the policy written, but how is it actually physically being I Speaker 11: Yeah. What are the on what are the on site? Right. Speaker 5: And I would say, you know, one of the things that we find with our SIS system, just so you are all aware is that, like I said, we do have permissions ability. One of the hard things is that we cannot control all
of the areas because it just becomes honestly an overbearing ability to say, like in those examples is like, what would just a health clerk clerk need versus, you know, all of the information. And so I think the other things that we do as schools is fall back on asking what is appropriate for people to access and then what is overbearing for the data of people to then be able to control. And so we have to, we have to say as a professional, use your judgment if you don't need that part of the data system to be able to do it.
And I think unlike law enforcement, most of that is not going there. There isn't gonna be a negative consequence Yeah. If someone were to use it. But I think it's, it's all a fair thing that we need to be aware of as a system because we Speaker 7: Do law enforcement specifically is the, is the bigger issue. And it becomes sticky for the district as well as the, the agency providing the enforcement. There's legal ramifications on both sides for those violations. Yes. Speaker 5: Yes. And for, for our SR as ros, you're absolutely correct. And then, which this I think also lends
to the next policy we'll look at, which is then sharing which we can discuss, which is we don't, so then it can be share out for that. Speaker 7: And I do have another question is that there's, and, and maybe it's not necessarily a policy question, but, but maybe it's, are there any files district wide that would not be available to a parent? Any, any notes, any, are there any files that would not necessarily be included in the, the academic record
or the FERPA record that if a parent went in and said, I want my child's record, they'd have to know to ask something specific. Is there Speaker 5: Teachers, teachers individual notes are not part of a student record. Sure. So they wouldn't be kept or passed on as a student record. So those are not part or kept as a student record. But no, anything that is considered or record that would be passed on to another institution
or on into another, to another education educator. Those are all at, those are all accessible to any parent by request. So report cards what, what people think of, of, of a student file. Those are all accessible to parents upon request to be student teachers' notes are not because they aren't pa they don't get passed on. Okay. They're kept, they're kept as as teacher records and they hold them. Speaker 7: And that makes perfect sense to me. I guess maybe what I'm thinking about it is maybe an
instance or two that I was personally involved in where not all of the information was relayed from a school as, and not in this district, but as a child progresses, moves from one school to another. There are mental health issues, sometimes psychological concerns. There, there are stuff that maybe is not specifically grade related or achievement related in that purview that is not passed on. So what I'm asking is if that is the case from school to school in some cases, would
that potentially also be the case from school to parent? Speaker 5: No. Okay. We would, we would pass those on. Okay. We do have cases where files are withheld in, in transfer, especially between parents and schools, mostly between states is when we see that happen a lot. So when parents are coming in from out state and so they, they're bringing their files from another state and so we'll have parents withhold information. That happens a lot to us. Okay. Parents will withhold and it, and then it's unfortunate
because a lot of times I would say the case in point that we see it mostly is they will withhold special education records because they think that, my assumption is that they're assuming they're helping their student. The conversations that I've had is usually they believe it's a fresh start. And in my experience as an educator, it's actually a detriment because we then have to explore what happens. We end up then finding out that the child has a disability. It takes us six months a year before our teachers undergo everything.
We have to restart the testing and then all of a sudden we get a, oh yeah, no, I knew that. And, and we're like, would've been nice day one, we could have gotten 'em into the program and this sort that helps. And so that, that does happen. But no, as a, as a school, we release all records at a parental request. That's not something we withheld. Okay. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 7: Thanks for having me understand. Speaker 5: Yep. Absolutely. Any other questions about Speaker 3: This policy Speaker 5: Clarification? We are under policy where we can only read, we don't have to read it twice, correct? Yes. We passed it. So this is, this is just the first reading. Yep.
And we can, we can bring it back as a second. So we don't, at this point, we don't, you're just doing the, the first reading and then you'll, you'll pass it on second reading on your new, new governance. Speaker 1: Also the first reading for KLJ relations with state and federal agency. G I'm just having a problem speaking tonight. Yeah. So yes, policy, KLG relations with state and federal agencies. Speaker 2: Three. Number three on the first page.
Just SHALLS crossed off. Should we put a will in there? Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I can do that. Thank you. Speaker 2: I didn't know if that was, Speaker 3: I probably should have stuck that in here and catch. Speaker 10: And then four a at the very end it says that, do we already have a klg dash r? I didn't. Speaker 5: No. Our, this the regulation should be a new We need to do that. Yeah, I will, I will draft a regulation and bring it forward to you all. We did, we do not have a regulation in our policies yet, so it'll be brought forward to you all.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And this is in response to Speaker 5: State law, state statute. Yep. Change, change in. So there, what was interesting about this one is that this was not change in procedure as far as what we do. So just so the board and community knows we per procedure right now, we do not share our records with any outside entity without a warrant. That's been operating procedure for many years. But the state did, did pass a law. And so that's what is precipitating this in
some of the language changes. And so then they're asking now the, the legal is asking then for a regulation on that, which we're happy to do, but that's why we don't have regulation. It's just been operating procedure. And so we'll continue with our, with our normal COP, which is that we do not without without legal recourse consent being compelled legally Yeah. Mean thank you. That's the best way to put it. And so we'll write that up and, and present it to the board, but that's why this is coming forward at this time. Okay. But it is just normal operating
and so that's just what we're doing. Yeah. Speaker 10: So I didn't have time to look in our stack, but I had it noted on here, so thanks. Speaker 3: Good. Pretty straightforward. Okay. Any future agenda items? Speaker 2: Well, way down in the future I'd like to see her, whatever, it's gonna be probably past what I'm doing, but something about the counselor core grant, how the counselors are, what kind of results they're seeing for those FS and for the referrals
and how that program is working now that it's implemented. I would Speaker 16: Recommend towards the end of January end Speaker 3: The, Speaker 16: From the beginning of January, they'll reflect on first semester and adjust January. Speaker 2: Yep. Speaker 10: We're a future of gender s right? Yeah. Okay. Finance we have, yeah. I we need some finance. Yeah. Speaker 5: Yes. Finance coming. Yep. We will have, we just got the state report on finance and so I'll be working with Jason
and his team on that because that just came out on Monday. And then Jason and Kathy are at a CDE conference in parachute tomorrow and Friday. So they're gonna have a whole lot of new information on what the status of the state looks like. So they're gonna have some good info for you. All. Speaker 10: Good. Speaker 5: Well Speaker 10: Find some Speaker 5: Money. They're gonna have some new information from the state when they come back. Just Speaker 10: Checking. They might impact us a little. It probably will. We might have to adjust and stuff.
Forgive me, but when I think of conferences, I don't think of Speaker 5: Parachute as Speaker 10: Destination. Speaker 5: Luckily they, so they've moved to regional meetings, so that's nice. Speaker 10: That's Speaker 5: Nice. Yeah, they do, they do them in region, so that's good. We've kind of like, CASB was for us. They, they, they do us as the Western Slope region and so they, I think they're being kinda in the Speaker 10: Middle. Yeah. Nice. Speaker 5: Yeah, they're being nice to not make us have to go to Junction something they're having Meer and Steamboat come this way. So we seem to get, we're getting more and more in our area. So
Speaker 10: I Speaker 2: Would you expect the finance stuff to come to the meeting on the eighth? Speaker 5: That first Speaker 2: October or maybe another one. Speaker 5: It may be the next one, but let me, let me look at that and, and talk to the team and just see where they're ready. They may be ready by, by the eighth. Speaker 2: I know it's a lot to digest and put together, so Yeah, Speaker 5: They, they're, they've got a lot going. I mean, it's gonna be a balance to be honest. We're also in audit season. Yeah. So let me balance with them. They may wanna pull it that fast because I'm not sure when the auditor's actually gonna be in town. So let me, let me talk to the team
and see what they're, what they're willing to, not willing that they're willing to do anything but what's, what's best to make sure that the other parts of their job get done. Okay. Speaker 10: I believe Speaker 6: The quote Jason used on Monday was, I'm gonna dig into all 144 pages of this tonight. Speaker 10: He was Speaker 2: Sorry. Yeah, I can only imagine what that's like. Oh man. Speaker 10: What else? For future agenda items. Oh, alright. Speaker 2: Any other policies? Speaker 10: We're gonna at Catherine Senior. Casey next door. Yep.
I was trying to think. Okay. Speaker 3: Yeah, Speaker 5: You do have a couple legal ones that we'll be adding to the, to it, but Speaker 3: Okay. A few. Okay. Speaker 11: What about getting some of the high school student councils to come maybe tell us about what they're doing or to make their schools better? I don't know. We've talked about getting them involved for a while now, so it'd be fun to hear
Speaker 2: Sometime on a meeting that is not shine the light. Speaker 11: Yeah. Speaker 3: Or have it be as part of the shine the light for the high school Speaker 2: If we're doing it at high schools Speaker 11: Time. Yeah. Yeah. When's our first high school meeting? Speaker 10: January 21st and February 11th. Speaker 3: Oh wow. Speaker 10: Ridge then rifle. Speaker 11: So one, bam, bam. Speaker 3: I Speaker 10: Think you could still do a student council, some sort of student council at an elementary school. Yeah, Speaker 11: We could, but I, I can point
Speaker 2: It gives 'em a semester or two to have it all under their belt. And then Speaker 11: Here's what Speaker 2: We did the first semester and here's what's coming. Speaker 11: We could just say, yeah, it's a, i I like the semester break is, Hey, this is what we got done. Yeah. Speaker 5: Yeah. I think that that would make the sense. That'd Speaker 11: A good idea. Speaker 5: I mean, to be honest, I I think the, the finance is gonna be a big, Speaker 11: Big Speaker 5: Discussion, so I would Speaker 11: How many ways can you tell you, tell us we don't have money. Speaker 3: I think there's different, lots of different parts. Finance to discuss nuances.
My friend nuances like are they tomato, tomato, are they, are they gonna tell Speaker 11: Us we're broke? German, Speaker 3: French Speaker 5: And Italian? Speaker 3: Like, God, okay, whatever. Mine. That's what they're gonna say to you. Meeting debrief, chance. Speaker 11: Good meeting. Starting from, lemme go back to start of my scribbles here. I thank you Mrs. Jensen for allowing the speaker. She came in and kind of adapting to that. I like that. Trying to adapt to people's availability.
And then just everything, the seven A or prop seven. It was great learning about that, being able to ask him, que ask them questions and being able to now go back and digest all that. I think Megan had some great questions as far as them potentially tapping into the same workforce and that was very insightful to the presentation from Simone and, and Jenny. Just exciting. I'm good meeting. Learned a lot. Yeah. Go on to the next one. That's all I got. Okay.
Unless you want me to keep talking? Nope, Speaker 10: Just kidding. Cassie meeting debrief on Riverside. Great job. It's always good to come here. I was a Viking at one time, so it's fun to come here and see some staff that I had. Anyways, the, the scores are just proof of all the heartbreak your team does and puts in and I, it's just really awesome to see. And I keep hearing the word excitement and everybody's excited
and it's like this momentum that we have going right now is pretty amazing and it's gonna be hard to stop. And I think I said that the last meeting as well. But you know, the bigger the momentum, faster it goes. So people better be ready. But it's exciting times and thank you for hosting us CK la I'm so excited. Can't wait for year two update down the road towards the spring months end of year school year. It's been fun night. Next.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Appreciate being here and you guys hosting this and all the work you're doing and how the, how the numbers and all the evaluations look. That's great. Like the idea that, or the expansion of the curriculum and how you put that, because a lot of people do have the impression that we're not teaching everything that we should be or whatever, and how it's incorporated into the CKLA and the, and the elementary school kids get it. So that's good to have it out there and have it out so that people get to hear it
and know that it is there. That's important. And then finally, the counselor core grant. I'm glad we took it. I'm glad we accepted it and I think it's gonna be great over the next four or five years. It's, it's a very key component to what we're trying to do, educating the whole child and making sure the kid is healthy, safe and learning. So Speaker 10: You guys were, so thank you. Speaker 7: I think the word that I've got is cohesive. I am so enjoying watching different facets of the district really come together for the,
the United Purpose of Education. And it's so refreshing to be able to see so many different entities supporting one another for a mission that is greater than any, any one person in this room. So I have to say thank you because there's nothing that's been presented tonight, even, even the seven A grant that wasn't done with love and intent and desire to really better our community. So while maybe some of you know the, we're tweaking some of the nuances or trying to figure out exactly
how it works best, it, it's not lost on the amount of effort that you guys are putting into all of this to, to really increase educational opportunities for our kiddos. So thank you. Speaker 1: I I think it was a great meeting. It was very productive. This is definitely the longest meeting we've had since beginning of the school year and it's still not that late considering, but I really do appreciate Riverside for hosting us. Thank you guys again. It's always fun. And again, i I I look forward to next Friday's update when Chance is having
to wear rifle cub gear. So just had to throw that out there. And I really do enjoy the work and seeing all the hard work and the dedication that everybody in here puts in and, and not only the, the people in this room and the staff and the team that we have in the district, but the community as well. So for example, Steve, thank you for the table and the bookshelf last year, so very well done. Anything else anybody else would like to add? Do we need to sing Happy birthday to Jenny. Ms. Strong bully. Was your so good. Nice, nice segue. No, and Speaker 11: I would like to add, I didn't say it Mrs.
Satter, if you, you touched on it in your shine the light. If you didn't know if it was this your last year, I'm asking you for it not to be. But I understand you've been a great leader at this building. I know you have a great team, but community appreciates everything you do. Speaker 1: Cassie, are you doing the board update on Friday? No, it is. Or is it? It's Megan, September 24th. Is Megan okay. Yep. Speaker 7: I think I'm gonna need some help walking through that process. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Give us figured out. Yep. We'll be happy to help you. Good. So with that
meeting adjourned on Wednesday, September 24th at eight 40.