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good afternoon and welcome to the work session for the board of education for Evans School District 6 today is the 24th of March 2025 this meeting will now come to order lindsay didn't even recognize that you
were there i'm sorry will you call the role for us please absolutely director Aari present director Bentley present director Campus Fitzy director Mash present director Matthews present director Norwood present director
Sullivan five members present thank you first on our agenda tonight is our calendar review and community engagement and so if you would just take a minute and look at the calendar that's in front of
you we have a few more work sessions and business meetings taking place in April but as we said last time April's pretty pretty clear for our calendar and that's because all of our all of our students and schools are pretty busy with
testing and then the first big thing on our calendar is our retirement celebration on May 7th and then the Frontier House breakfast on May 14th and then we get get into
graduations and so I'm sure that we'll need to get those to Miss Lemon pretty shortly which graduations we can attend but do do start making plans because it's we're getting close we're into to our last nine weeks of school any
questions comments thoughts on the calendar i have one to add yes sir president um April 22nd at 6 PM is the Northridge Marine Corps Jerotc Awards Program okay april 22nd yes 6 p.m 6 p.m
all right i'm sure we probably got an invitation to that somewhere yeah I think so amy we'll just add that for people she may have sent She just missed it on the list invites yeah
oh I did miss a school visit to Jackson Elementary sorry guys on May 8th so we have the retirement celebration on the night of the 7th and then early that morning 7:45 we'll go to Jackson Elementary anything else somebody else had
something I think um tenatively I probably won't be here to the 14th meeting okay thank you for letting us know not sure 100% but as of today it's scheduled for the 14th okay for my trip anything
else all right we'll move on to board member comments and reports and we'll start with you Mr rosari thank you President Matthews like many of my fellow board members I had the opportunity to to attend the Success Foundation uh breakfast on March 11th
and I just like to thank everybody for the support of our schools and specifically at this event the uh opportunity to raise money to provide musical instruments for our students throughout the district i think that that's just great i also again my fellow
board members to attend the negotiation sessions and I appreciate the invitation for board members to join in on those discussions i know that this does not happen in many districts and I appreciate being in a district where
board members are welcome to participate in that process and finally this was spring break uh so not much else to report although I did have the opportunity once again to be the MC at the annual Kuanas Club Stars of Tomorrow
talent show that's hosted down at the Union Colony Civic Center we have students from all over the county uh compete and then participate in that show and um I was happy to see
that many of our students uh did very very well and in fact we earned the runner up in the first place awards and one of our high school students won the highest award that evening so uh that just shows that our district is still
out there strong competitors in the arts that's all I have thank you Mr ozari mr bentley yeah about the same for me uh negotiations u went well it was it was probably probably the strangest one that
we've had just with the uncertainties in the in the in the government with the funding and stuff so that was just kind of right we'll wait and see so that was that was just different that that but I think it went well and and I was glad to be a part of that also and then on that Friday I also got to go to the community council on education um it's just the
chamber of commerce puts that on between Ames and um UNCC and D6 and it's just kind of the community focusing on relationships between the three and the and the community to to better educate and and see what they can do to help us so um always enjoy going to that it was
kind of fun to hear the the three different entities and and how they're kind of working together so thank you Mr norwood well I've been on the IR so I haven't had a chance to get out much um so I did get a chance to
catch up with some of the um Northridge Hall of Fame inductees had a chance to uh sit down and visit with them when they uh got inducted to the first class of the Northridge Hall of Fame and that's really about it so kind of been laying home he eating up so all right
Vice President Mash um yes very much enjoyed the success foundation breakfast again um it was wonderful to have um perform performances from each of our high schools I believe and um and I think it really helps folks when there's
a a focus it helps them to wrap their mind around where exactly their dollars are going so excited for our students not to have to share their clarinets with each other anymore um and then yeah negotiations i guess it did have a little bit of a different vibe just
having new folks in the room which I really appreciated new ideas new energy um and yeah uh usually we're not worried about our federal funding or even our state funding to this degree but we know we have the best minds in the room to to
figure that out so Yeah not much to add um always the success foundation breakfast is wonderful event i do like how they they take a different focus every year last year it was on elementary sports and this year on on instruments and getting
instruments into the hands of our students and I I can just say our students know the difference in we we have great some great musicians in our in our district and they know the difference in in good instruments and
and not so good instruments and so we're very thankful that that the success foundation has chosen this to uh to prioritize and to put in front of students and so that our students know that when they when they want to sign up for orchestra or band that they they're
going to have good instruments to play on and and that they're they're not going to be limited by their instrument so so thankful for the success foundation also uh negotiations always um smooth and encouraging events always
I appreciate the people that that take time away appreciate you guys for taking off of work to be there appreciate uh our our teachers that write sub plans and take so much time out of their week uh to negotiate with us and to meet with
us and um and doing that on behalf of everybody else so we certainly appreciate everyone who was there and it was a very smooth and rewarding week so next on our agenda is our portrait of a
graduate so I'd like to invite Mr osmus to come and share we've gotten a report already but so this I think will be our second report on a portrait of a graduate but love to see where you are at this point what's been accomplished
in the last month or so yes sir all right thank you President Matthews members of the board dr pilch um you're right this is an update on where we are this is a big project that we are um undertaking as a system to identify
working for graduates so just more than just academics but what are all those um different attributes that fall underneath there and so I um am going to go through just very quickly the work that we've done to this point and so if I'm going too fast just feel free to stop and and ask a question but but I've
already presented this to you once and so I just want to you to know kind of where we are and then at the end I'm going to give you an update on um how we've synthesized this work down into actual language and that I'll give you a chance to look at today and give us some feedback as we go forward so this is our
work with portion of a graduate um grounded in our mission and our vision district as well as our values um this work is in our strategic plan and um one of our f focus areas mainly
our student learning and achievement so objective for this is align our system um to meet grade level requirements and meet our graduation competencies through personalized learning and getting to know our students and and specifically our
outcomes will know are successful when we see scores um for our state math and English language arts assessment improve annually as well as increase on time graduation and also um have our personalized learning plans include career career college pathway work or
academ doing course um work to meet their individual goals in this project um just a reminder we are partnering with the Colorado Education Initiative the CDI you probably see the CI quite a bit we do have a nice relationship or partnership with them
um to help us with this work they are doing this around the district i think when I talked to CDI last about 50 districts they have worked with personally and so we are we are one of those and what is portrait of a graduate it is a tool that we as a school
district um can use to communicate those cognitive personal and interpersonal skills that that students should have when they when they graduate and we try to do this with our community so this is not just something we're doing but we have reached out um to our students to our community members to our teachers to
our parents um and trying to build this together as as a whole community and um once created this will be our guide this will be our guide for teaching and learning through all of our um all of our schools and it will provide that shared language um that we need
additionally you know um this will help us create a unified vision in our system on what we want our students to be able to learn um yes acchievement and academics but also um those other skills that they that they possess and then um
such as critical thinking collaboration resilience and then u knowing that those are things that we need to be college and career ready and then most importantly I think is just an opportunity to get our community together to talk about our students and what we want for our students we um I showed a few examples
of what a portrait of a graduate will be upon completion we don't have the picture part done yet but that part is coming and so I'll be able to share the graphic with you the next time we're together we have worked on what's on the back side of this and so what's on the back side of these is language and so
when you think about all of the surveys that we have done we collected those we put them into themes we took the themes and the words and what people have want and we created what goes on the back side of this and that's what I'll show you today but these are just examples of what other DS have done and then this
one down here with Littleton you can see that they put their language um in more detail on the front side um I think we're probably going to end up with maybe more of a front back unless you tell me to go a different way on this one just a reminder um what we've done here for creating this process we um we
have already gathered the information we sent the surveys out to parents to our community um to our students to our teachers and we've gathered um all of the data and we've actually themed the data and we've analyzed the data um just reminder the questions that were in it
were something along these lines they were tailored specifically for either students or community um or our teachers but it's essentially it's one of our hopes and dreams what skills do you want our our children or students to have in our district um if you could go back in time take back when you were in school
like what did what would what would you have like to learn in school or what would what would be different about your education if you could predict that in today and then what are the most important skills um that we need to to live in today's world it's so much different than when I was in school or when we were all in school
themes um so once we and then we collected all of the data and put that into a program came up with some themes and so some of the themes that came out were achievement so achieve a achievement scored high student well-being personal growth and independence values and character
overcoming challenges belonging and inclusion support and advocacy and then language and communication and all of the different uh comments that fit underneath there as well were themed and kind of brought together so then this is new information and so what we've done
is we had a workshop not too long ago where we invited community members teachers students um we have members of our GVA that were there and we we sat and we took all of this information so we said "Okay we we've got all of this
these attributes let's try down we need to narrow we can't have 12 and so we need to narrow this down just a little bit and when you think about all the different things that our community is saying we've got to try to um condense this into just some bullets that live
inside here but we also don't want to just eliminate something we want to make sure that our community feels heard and they've got to find their responses inside of this and so we were there about two hours and in those two hours we um helped create what a visual might look like but we also looked at all the
themed responses and um you can see here this the uh some of the students and the teachers and the principles and the community members working together and then we presented we presented what we think um what what represents district 6
and so we had six different tables and six different ideas obviously so we'll work on creating the graphic based on all of that but we were really close on what the language might be and that's what I'm going to um that's what I'll have you look at today in the language
and um just know that we today after before you share the language let's see if they have any questions about where we are so far in the process sounds great and then do we do next steps or we'll save that go ahead yeah let me finish this one here so so next steps
because this is not done this is this will be multi-year and so this is just year one so what we'll do for this year is we'll take these themes get some feedback from you uh feedback from our deck we've already got feedback from our uh chamber when when the went out and
then we'll also get uh some graphics done and then we will continue to bring you along and and then um gather more information and then this then once we finish up this year is we we want to make sure that we go into next year it's
are looking at how we can roll this into um some of the work that we're doing districtwide but we um we're just scratching the surface next year so what does that look like inside of our classrooms how does this fit in with our lessons um with some of our our small group work and our large group work and
then um and then probably that third layer of making this um how we do our business inside our classroom so happy to take any any questions that you would have and then I want you to see kind of where we are here and get some feedback from you yeah I've got a question uh
real quick um so we've we we obviously are acknowledging that other school districts have already moved forward with this um do we know how they have measured the success of all this within
their schools and classrooms yeah there's actually part of our work next year will be to create rubrics that will um gather some baseline feedback and and the growth of our students in these rubrics and so we'll need to continue that into next year that's why I said we not sure you'll see a lot of this next year other than the graphic but um so
that will get our community on board with this and we'll continue to spread that um that good word but within our classrooms we'll need to pull more people next year to create the create the rubrics um those connections in the classrooms um and then look for those those ways to track growth of our
students over time i think Mr rosari is asking though of those districts that have already done this do they have outcomes that they can now report do they believe it's that what you're asking actually that was exactly what I
was just thinking as he was presenting the material what since they're ahead of us in this process I guess the biggest question is has it made a difference have they noticed that
their work that they've put into this has resulted in positive yeah our according to our CI um person that's helping us with this she has um led this work and some districts are down the road 5 years and they have some they have some positive data and actually have some of that data and would happen
to even share that with you sometime in any week if you'd like that would be great yeah I will share that thank you i have a question you said on there that you've uh sent surveys out to parents and stuff what kind of response are you getting back from parents percentage just rough
i mean I realize we're a district like any other survey so it's um I'm not sure the exact number but we had um we had mostly student responses and then we had teacher responses then short behind right behind the teacher responses for parent responses but still still a good
number good yeah so here's what I would like for you to do here is you just take one and pass it on surf so this is the result of our workshop and so remember this is about
um 30 or 40 people in a room and trying to condense and synthesize um all the responses and try to work these into themes or attributes and um cleverly the groups um that night came up with six
and they said what if we call this the district six so um so when we think about the district six um six of the of the major themes that came out that night and then what will our graduates be able to do at the when they graduate with us um and
you'll see that on the slide and so I'm just going to read just the themes but the lifelong learners engaged problem solvers confident communicators contributing citizens courageous courageous change makers and well-rounded individuals and then what we did on the right side is we tried to
condense all of the different um language that we've collected into just bullets to make sure that we captured all this and so if you just want to take a little bit of time and go through each of those Anthony and this is this done or are we still taking feedback this is our feedback we're still gathering feedback
so the board has an opportunity to give feedback on this tonight yep and then I've got I'll get feedback from Dak um next week as well okay and other groups how does some of this tie into what's already being offered in the district for instance in the IB programs at West
I know they do a lot of this and also in AVID throughout the district we you'll see this a lot throughout the district what this will do is it will just give us some common language and so we'll have IB and we'll have AP and we'll have AVID but um this will help us with just
that con that consistent and common language through all of our programs but that won't change what's being offered in those other programs it's just is it over bringing it together yeah anthony where does this where will this primarily reside and forgive me if
you've already answered this but but I think when we were talking about um financial literacy well we already have that and it resides here and it resides here and it resides uh here at high school in in history US history right so
where when we're getting this to kids like where does it primarily primarily reside which teacher says I'm responsible for making confident communicators or is that is that every teacher and then how do you do that yeah I think it resigns in a lot of different places and so when you're up in front of
your class and you're giving a speech like that's that confident communicator but I think it lives in our some of our social emotional lessons that we would have and so our counselors and our small groups and um in our middle schools and high schools during um during their home rooms and their Grizz hours and I think it resides in the classroom and so this
is not just one place where it's just it is just going to be taught in one area but we would like this to be infused um with everything that we do okay mr ross will there be specialized curriculum or is this just going to be built right into what's already there
yeah a lot of it lives in Yeah sorry a lot of it lives in our in our curriculum already um it it's just it we will need next year as we create rubrics and that alignment we'll just need that time to pull it all together and so you'll be able to um see that um work grow as well
over the course of next year for like communicators confident communicators i'm have a lot of friends that run businesses in the business world and they they say that's the number one issue they'd rather have the C student that can can communicate rather than the straight A student that can't so and
then when they take the time to create a a rubric that has all of the criteria of what a confident communicator looks like so stand up straight people use your use your strong voice i do think that out of this will come additional programming and
additional standards possibly um or why do this other than to say to our community this is what a graduate looks like which is a big part of what this is this is what a graduate looks like but I do think there will be I think we're naive to think there won't be any impact
on programming or curriculum standards if we really mean that every graduate is going to match match these 18 bullets it'll force us to look at what we have and what we need
well each one of these areas are focus there's a focus on each one of these areas throughout our system for instance when students take a speech class for instance or if in in all our math curriculum throughout the district
we we tackle several of these in in our English language arts so I'm just wondering what makes it different you know what is it just another added thing or or does it really
stand for something that is unique and special that we haven't done before that's just my overall Yeah I like what you're saying with all of these because we do have these live in different live in different areas what we don't do is we don't assess it and so
what what we will try to do is then create the rubric that gives more detail in each one of these and so we can actually then have conversations um with parents and with students around where you are and where you where you still need to grow and I'll share that
data with you too on the eweek on what shared with me from CI with other districts and what they've done and even examples of rubrics that they have that they've done with other districts they might help you see that um kind of where we're going okay i think my my feedback is that I just
speaking as a parent I think my children have experienced um encouragement and teaching in all of these bullet points um I think maybe this will help us to expand it
um like certainly there are students who gravitate towards these things they're maybe more motivated or they find their niche in school better and therefore they're going to be stronger at these things whereas the student who doesn't
gravitate towards a leadership position or maybe an extracurricular activity it will help us to really ensure that every student fits his portrait and not just those that kind of maybe take a lot of
those steps for themselves so just be a question of how do you see it playing out in the district that's the big uncertain question if you will it is and when I think about about this
store and I I think that it's um it's multiple years of work and I mean it it even could have an impact on bringing folks together to look at graduation requirements i mean so I'm not saying we're doing this but some districts as a result of something like this have
implemented a a community service requirement for their students um so that's just an I you know an example of there you know it could have a greater impact than these 18 bullets here to ensure that every student
is is is truly a portrait of a graduate what we said um I I think the the brochure um that you see other districts have adopted they're attractive and they're um interesting to
look at um and I think at the end of the day for decades we've said so we know that a graduate means you've met these graduation requirements but what else does that graduate have that we we promised our community besides those graduation requirements
the ability to communicate the ability to meet you know work with the public to be able to speak publicly um and I I think that's at at the heart of this and to be fair the the idea is we're developing who we believe a student should should
be what they should look like and be able to do in terms of their skill set when they leave District 6 and then there is still work to come around how we do that and how we measure that um I I
would not I would I I believe that our strategic plan has been the guiding force for that um you know for many years of what what a student looks like we look at the vision the mission the vision of the district that's been our
our our the guiding post for what you know we should be putting into what a graduate looks like and what a graduate is able to do and um now we're we're looking to go a little deeper on that and to codify that more in terms of
feedback from our community i think I think Dr pch do some other schools still have community service projects or there's some still in the district that do yeah there are yeah and it's still a part of
capstone for for many graduates yep what other questions are there for Mr dossmus i'll just say similar to what Rob said Kyle and I were at the community council of of education and this was presented
and they we heard very much uh similar comments to what what Rob was saying that we we'll take the C student who can communicate who can look people in the eye and who can um who's not just attached to their phone all all the time
rather than than the A student um so so I'm excited that that we're doing this work and so thank you and I'll take any feedback that you have it doesn't have to be today but just take this with you and you can give that to Dr belchure is the QR code for feedback still open or
if we stop that phase of that was more for the question to gather all the information so that we could theme and then come up with the descriptions thanks sir next on our agenda is our legislative update so I invite Mr
fall to come and bring us this update thank you sir you Thank you thank you thank you thanks all right thank you President Matthews and board directors Dr pilch um my name is
Nate Fall i'm in House Legal Counsel for the school district and we are doing a legislative update um I just want to share that since the last meeting um at least according to our bill tracker which I do trust that Ann Barkcus uh is including everything
that's relevant for our purposes there really only were two new bills added to the bill tracker um one of which had to do with AEDs and another one had to do with dyslexia requirements i didn't include them on this document but if you do have questions about that I can provide you
with more information later um so we can start with board priorities uh the first just so you know that financial literacy bill um has still just been referred amended to appropriations and we just haven't seen
any further progress there were a number of amendments that were passed uh during the House Education Committee um and it's just kind of in limbo at this point so we're continuing to monitor it at this point uh it's my assumption that we can
integrate financial literacy with um another subject at least my reading of the law um and so whether or not we actually have to implement or add a full class I think is to be determined um but we know we at least have a full year if
if that's the case we'd have a full year to prepare for that so are they saying that you have to teach these standards because they've already said the standards won't change right so the standards it's it's the same standards so there's already a statute that includes the financial
literacy standards and right now it's recommended that we have curriculum that includes these financial literacy standards now it's no longer a recommendation it's a requirement and so whether or not we can integrate that into one of our current subjects we're already doing that yeah so I think we we
may be okay and and I think we just need a little bit more direction from the state board of education because ultimately they'll be charged with developing curriculum for meeting this financial literacy requirement so it's not actually now it's not
proposed as a financial literacy course no just a a a requirement it's just a grad requirement that you have to take you have to get at least um le and I can just read the language so I don't mess this up so it says that um satisfactory
completion of a course on financial literacy as defined by 2232135 that's the financial literacy uh statute I was describing which incorporates the standards on financial literacy developed by the state board of education is a condition of high school
graduation in in the public schools of this state so it's a little ambiguous isn't it whether it's going to that first sentence sounded like it might be a course requirement but then the rest is not
can it be a mini course inside of a course i don't know did that satisfy it i I I think so if the if the stand if the state board develops standards I think it's possible that it could be incorporated in a current course like uh economics I think was the one you were
talking about earlier um and then and that students can earn that credit in 9th 10th 11th or 12th grade so they don't have to just earn it in 11th or 12th which is another amendment that came forward i get confused personally because I was under
the impression that we already have standards surrounding financial literacy embedded in other curriculums um in within the state standards so when we talk about writing standards for this I think that's just
going to be duplicating what already exists out there i don't know but it could very well be the state board of education just checking a box and saying you know if you meet these things then you're good to go that this this would count towards your financial literacy requirement so I think we just need to
wait to see what the state board has to say about that but it it still could open the possibility that we do have to develop a standalone course for financial literacy if it can't be embedded in something else is the FAFSA still a part of it the
FAFSA is still a part of it um it has been substantially amended um essentially that students can decline to fill out the FASA if they affirmatively decline to complete it or authorized school personnel determines it is not feasible for the student to
complete an application so which is pretty flexible students can just decline or or a school official like the principal can say it's not feasible for this student to complete the application but it's still expectation that all students would complete it so now you just have to affirmatively
decline it as a student any other questions on that okay the cell phone bans um that did pass the House so it's been moved to the Senate Education Committee on 326 i should say communication devices in
schools not cell phone bands um and and just know that we are already in compliance if that law were to pass or that bill were to pass um I do want to spend some time though on federal law um it's possible that you have read the news it's possible that you have seen
that the uh president issued this executive order that's at bullet point two improving education outcomes by empowering parents states and communities um President Trump released that last week on March 20th um and
President Trump directed the Secretary of Education which is uh Secretary Linda McMahon to take necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education we know that later that day uh Secretary uh McMahon released a
statement on that executive order um essentially stating that education is fundamentally a state responsibility and that you know they're going to begin the process to close the Department of Education uh they made some promises or when I say they uh Secretary McMahon
made some promises that they will continue to fund schools they will continue to fund students for special education services pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that they will continue to support college student borrowers uh and others
quote who rely on essential programs end quote um that through the end of the fiscal year September 2025 so yes it sounds like that will be happening within this next
within this year um and so and then if you go back to the first page that uh dear colleague letter on February 14th I had I had kind of briefly mentioned that at the last board meeting they also issued a an FAQ uh on this dear colleague letter uh all this is linked
into and I'll make sure that you all get an electronic version if you do want to read these uh but this is just another area that um this administration is really eyeing is discrimination on the basis of race preferences and stereotypes um which came through these US Supreme
Court decisions around um racial preferences for admissions into universities um and the US Department of Education has essentially taken those decisions and applied them down to K12 uh that we can't be treating others differently on the basis of their race
um we need to be looking at them as individuals um and that race cannot necessarily mean something about you right um and so that is they they have mentioned that they're going to issue additional guidance on this um but really what it seems to look like is uh
reverse discrimination or kind of the types of programs that they're going to be reviewing um the US Department of Education is on so um again still a little unclear um unclear about how funding will
continue to move forward um and what the world looks like without a Department of Education i will say that it is one of our newest agencies in the federal government um it is important but um without it we'll just have to kind of figure out how the
states are to address education i mean this really brings us back to local control which we often um argue about wanting more of so um I I just I I don't know if you have any specific questions about this but what I can do is I can start to put together kind of a memo of
all of the executive orders and kind of their alleged impact kind of moving forward and I can share that with this board um and it can kind of be a living document ongoing um but other than that I just don't know if you have any specific questions or concerns about kind of the state of the union
well I just have an operational question that I'm sure other folks in the community would wonder about and ask who may not know how is funding accessed for our schools is that through the state or do we go directly to the federal
government and will these changes in your kind of vision uh superintendent and the folks in charge of the budget will these changes um truly cause some hardship potentially
down the road or do we or or does the federal government really play that big of a concern for us as an individual school district i'll have Miss Sponsor join us at the microphone so everybody can hear it cuz it's pretty confusing
it's very confusing it's very complex it is complex and I will say it depends yes so we have many grants from different agencies and so each agency handles their grants differently our big grants like title one um all titles and then
IDA currently go through the state so the federal government allocates money to the state the state then calculates through their magic calculation how much each district gets and then we have to work through the state the state then works through the feds and back and
forth to get the money there are other grant programs though that we do work directly with the federal agency um some of the safety grants for example we work with those agencies directly so it kind of depends i am preparing for disruption
in the process i think we need to just go into this next fiscal year knowing that reimbursements for federal grants might be slow i think that we will still get reimbursed at some point but I think the process is just going to take time
so I think we as a district just need to be prepared that we might have to float some of these grants for a while we currently do that because grants are a reimbursement basis anyway but we might have to float them longer than we
currently do megan what about USDA school food so that also goes through the state um and I'm looking at Danielle she's going I don't know i think that's the question
i don't know that anybody really knows um there are some programs through the USDA that we know have already been cancelled so we know that there will be some things that we won't be able to do i think um school meals which is
obviously the biggest grant that we get through the whole district really I think that will continue in some form or fashion i don't know that we know what that looks like going forward but I think to make a change to a program like that will
be challenging but it is possible megan what about title one so title one um because title one is written into law I believe that they will have to
continue to fund that what has happened in the past is the rules around how we spend that money is have been changed so it'll be interesting if these are kind of given to the state as a block grant will the state get to have more control
over how the funds are spent or will there be certain asurances that the state has to sign to get the federal money so I think and my grant team and I were just having that conversation this afternoon it's possible that we might
have more flexibility in how we use our Title One money it's also possible that we might have to sign that we promise to do X Y and Z and we might actually have more constraints on how we spend the money it's I think it's too early to
tell but I think we are anticipating there will be a change in how that process works so and then the other big one that I remember is IDEIDA yes that one I think will probably have the least amount of
change at least I'm hoping um I think that even if the program is moved from the Department of Education to Health and Human Services I don't really see the program itself changing significantly
um I think the the hoops that we have to jump through to get reimbursed for the money might change will change um but in terms of that program getting cut or changing
significantly i I don't see that for that program that's just my own hypothesis from what I have seen in the past i think that program would be really hard to to change that one's also a law right yes but it has never been fully funded
correct so in general in some cases the district may have to assume some added um responsibility prior to seeing the money coming back to us that's what we have to
prepare for yes I believe we should be preparing for that okay can you respond about Medicaid at all and Medicaid reimbursement Megan i know there's a lot of worry about Medicaid statewide because of the state Medicaid
budget right um and that we're over spent in Medicaid and will be over spent significantly next year statewide right so and we do receive Medicaid reimbursement um for services to directly to students
right i don't know that we have a lot of detail yet i think there is some concern that certain services may be no longer funded um I know Tom and I have had some conversation about um private duty
nurses for example um currently those are covered through Medicaid but those may not be in the future and so if a student needs that level of support does that mean that we as a district need to provide that support um so there may be
additional costs that we would have to incur just depending on what services are still covered and what services the ch child really needs so um I think in terms
of funding we're planning right now on level funding for next year in terms of how much Medicaid money we would have um we right now use our Medicaid money primarily to pay for a lot of our nurses salaries so if that funding goes away
then that would be a huge challenge to overcome the other um kind of kind of significant bucket is our after school programming called 21st century so we have we have 21st century programs at many of our
schools how many do we know 11 11 of our schools um and those are federal dollars that flow through the state of Colorado um so that's you know another a big bucket of money we're watching and
looking to to see what the decision will be made there i have not heard anything about 21st century so I hope that that one is safe but I don't know i I think we'll just have to watch over the next few months and see see how this unfolds
and see what kind of guidance we can get and to add on to that the JBC did finally release their revenue forecast and uh they're looking at potentially a $ 1.16 billion gap so we're facing budget constraints from the state
too i've heard that school finance act may be introduced by the end of the month fingers crossed end of this month the end of March yeah well such a challenge that like when we get
our budget and we have to and then the federal fiscal year and there's I mean I guess that's why we have to do the it doesn't line up perfectly i think it would be able to take May off i wish so what So right now we're filling those
hard to fill in critical positions um but really holding on the hiring of other positions in the district so let's say you're a you know a a subject area teacher I don't want to name my middle school that is not a a
world language um or special education position and you're retiring we may not be ref may not be filling that position at this time so every position is being looked at before we we post it to fill it just because we just don't know we
just don't know enough um schools are very anxious to hire i'm very anxious to have their staffing to be able to hire do you want to add anything to that Miss Sponsor well so just for my own internal
budgeting work I have kind of used a proposal that has come from the speaker um Julie McCcluskey and her proposal is basically to go ahead and implement the new funding formula but at a reduced rate
so really according to the current law the new formula would be introduced at 18% so they would calculate what you get under the new formula and then take 18% of that instead of the 18% they would do
10% so it would still be an increase in funding just not as much as we thought under the current law the law that was passed last year um so that does help us because given our demographic the at risk students and those different
components of the new formula gives us additional funding so I am kind of proceeding using that proposal i think that is likely to be introduced i'm hoping um there has been some disagreement though that some
of the triggers for pausing the implementation have been met so I don't know where that's really going to go but from what I'm kind of gathering if the speaker of the house has got a proposal that she's ready to introduce then I
think that's probably what we'll be moving forward we have in the past planned for growth um as we built the budget we won't plan for growth for next year we're we're going to budget flat flat number of students um at this point we
just there's just so much unknown to really be certain that we will see growth um with with so much so much confusion right in the comm community around um just really where things are
what other questions around school finance this is the time of year I wish that I had a crystal ball that actually worked but I do not you're pretty good this one's Yeah I got added challenges
yeah well I usually forewarn Miss sponsor when I'm going to call her out on the spot like this but Dr pilch is the one who did it too so it's not my fault thank you thank you uh the rest of these bills um are
just bills that we have talked about um there hasn't really been much of an update just know that the accountability bill will be reviewed by the House Education Committee on Thursday they did have kind of a listening session last week just to get a little bit more information about what this bill does we
haven't been a big player in this bill um I quite frankly just don't think it does enough um but you know I think it's a step in the right direction but we just haven't been super involved in this legislation um the housing development on faith and
educational land has been assigned to the Senate local and government housing that did pass through the House and um actually a few school districts ended up joining in support of this bill including the Colorado Rural Alliance which I thought was pretty interesting um and then the other
proposed legislation that we have the the data reporting requirement uh did pass through the House uh it's onto the Senate it has been fairly substantially revised um but nonetheless they're going to try to create a streamlined approach for all of the data collection and
reporting that we are required to do and then the last the modifications to the Colorado Open Records Act that did pass the House second reading or I'm sorry the House second reading was today i didn't check and see uh where the vote came on that um but by all accounts I
can assume that this bill will be passed um I did update all these hyperlinks as well just so you can see the most recent amended version of the bills so you kind of follow along and see the changes that have been made um I don't know if you have any other questions about the
remaining bills or other bills that are out there or just questions generally for me any other questions guys on these bills is there a bill regarding um charter school charter schools being
able to enter districts without board approval mhm uh is that the Boseies no they would be direct they would be d I don't know if it's Boseies but they'd be directly chartered through um the League of Charter Schools which they can
do now anyway so I don't know I don't know what the difference is um maybe the way it's currently written is you have to approach your current district initially and then if your current district isn't interested in charter and you go to the league i don't know but that's what it already exists i
thought so yeah so I don't know either but there is some there is something there's been some media about that Natalie you're right about charter schools being able to go to be directly chartered without going through the local school district which um frankly unless they change the funding formula
that the league offers that has not they they pay they they recoup more PPR from our local district than they would from the league if they went through the league or the institute i'm saying it wrong
right Regan it's the Charal Institute i apologize it's CSI it's not the league the league is the group that supports charters csi is a chartering school institute charter school institute i will um I'll get some more information on Okay
are there other questions about legislation you all are wondering about anything else guys good okay thank you thank you Mr paul we are for a debrief of the work session
and we'll start with Mr norwood it is enlightening to see that we have such great leadership uh not only in finance but in our legal council that keeps us updated um it's uh every every time I come to a board meeting it's it amazes me how much
that uh they can really help the district and help us mr bentley yeah thanks to everybody um you know from my seat it's just frustrating to to have you guys be in this i don't know and I know it's not your guys' fault but it's just it's hard
it'd be hard if it was me running my business so I can't imagine how hard it's making your guys' job so just thanks for being dedicated and keeping up to date Mr ozari yeah uh thanks uh to Mr osmus and all the folks that have worked on the
profile u of a graduate it's not profile portrait portrait uh kind of similar words in a lot of ways but portrait of a graduate and and uh I agree with uh what some of the other folks around the
community have said that regardless of GPA all our students are are um looking at those six bullet points and being successful in our schools and then finally once again um thanks to Nate and
Megan for all the work uh surrounding school finance it is very frustrating but I'm glad that you folks are in the trenches working on that for us very much appreciated Vice President Mash yeah I really like
the the district six bullet points and um it's I was looking at that and I was like "Wow I I hope that I could achieve this for myself someday." So that's really encouraging if that if those are the the values and the skills um that we
instill in our students the the future looks bright so thank you for all that work um I was just looking at the bullet point that says create measurements and metrics to bring the portrait of a graduate to life and that seems like that's the next really big work so yeah thank you for for working on it it seems
like a a good compliment or added piece to our strategic plan and thank you for helping us to try to see into the crystal ball but again as as Mr norwood said that we've all we're just so blessed to have such um
knowledgeable people it it doesn't feel like oh how are we ever going to figure this out i have confidence that we will um no matter what we have to do to make the balance the budget balance but yeah nothing nothing much to add again
thanks we do have excellent people working on on these things and we thank you all um and thank you for for keeping us updated keeping us in the loop on on all the different things so Mr matthews if I may I have um a couple of updates
I'd like to share oh absolutely go ahead thank you since we time will Yeah we've got time uh first I would like to introduce to you all I I think a lot of you know Mr jeff Curtley um but he uh you approved his hire here a few weeks back and he wasn't able to be at a schoolboard meeting and then tonight I
am actually sending Mr curtley and Mr henson to another meeting which I'll tell you about in just a moment so he won't be in tonight's meeting but Jeff Jeff is our new hire as director of just facilities just director of facilities um so uh he oversees um a
significant part of the work and as I understand he has hit the ground running um and he he'll sit in in our meeting tomorrow president Matthews and Vice President Mash um when we meet tomorrow he'll sit in as well and and and in our
later meeting as well so welcome to Jeff we're glad to have him on board he may be a familiar face to you all um he should be a familiar face to you all as uh he was the lead on um our bond issue as our outside manager so in that
outside manager so welcome John and then the meeting I'm sending uh Jeff and Kent to so they won't be on our schoolboard meeting is the county is hosting the last of their listening sessions around the um where the their justice center
should be rebuilt whether that should be downtown Gley or out on O Street and so there the last um open forum for that is tonight from 6:00 to 8 and so the two gentlemen will will go on behalf of the district to be a part of that that forum
and to hear the conversation that that goes on there we're still um the county is still in uh listening phase with the community trying to before they make a decision on where they might rebuild the justice center whether that would be downtown or out on O Street and the
other county offices that are downtown as well um so we're we're still engaged in those conversations um we'll bring you in in the next couple of days and show um more detailed information with you all and give you a chance to ask the individual questions you might have and
then we'll bring that to the full board for public view um here either at the next board meeting or the following board meeting depending on where we are with the city and the county and conversation then we'll be able to bring it forward to the public so looking forward to sharing that information with
you all that's it all right well thank you well our work session is adjourned and we'll see everyone back at 6 o'clock for our business meeting
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