Heat. Heat. --------- Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Thank you. Thank you. Heat up here. Happy
birthday to you. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Good afternoon and welcome to the work session for the board of education. of
Gley Evans School District 6. It is January 12th. This meeting will now come to order. >> Um, Miss Lemon, will you please call the role? >> Director Ozari, >> present. >> Director Bentley, >> present. >> Director Campos Spitzy, >> present. >> Director Edmonds, >> present. >> Director Lemos Garcia, >> present.
>> Director Mash, >> present. >> Director Roi, >> present. All board members, present. >> Thank you. Our first item on our agenda is to review our calendar. Looks like we've got a full second semester starting off with lots of
exciting um events. Let's see. Our first school visit will be to Christa McAuliffe on the 20th. And then um for new board members, we can highlight a few things that we school visits always try to attend. Those are
um the some of the best work we get to do. We get to see what our schools are excited about. We get to interact with students. Um but also the success in six awards is kind of like our Oscar ceremony. Um it's really fun to get to um acknowledge all of our amazing educators.
Um I see GAP winter graduation and just a reminder to always give your RSVPs as soon as you can to Miss Lemon for some of these things requires how many seats for the board are they gonna have out there. Um, a few of you are planning to attend the winter
legislative session with Casby. One, two. Oh, Doran, you're going to Okay. And do you know that, Amy? >> Yes. I have three um submitted RSVPs. Um, legal counsel is going to attend as well. >> Okay, sounds great.
um you'll get to potentially, you know, go down to the Senate floor, the the House floor with the legislators that we got to speak with today and kind of see what they're working on and see how the process goes. Um Matt Cook, who is the CASBY lobbyist, leads that, you know, a
lot of that work. There's also special speakers as well, but it's yeah, it's a really rewarding um little session. Um, other highlight is our recognition of Nicole Peterson, middle level principal of the year on the 3
and then I'm sure we'll talk about February again at the next meeting, but um I would like to bring up if that's okay um on February 12th, we have two events. One just um was added to your calendars today, the Casby Student Day at the Capitol and the Gley Central High School Better Together Culture Assembly.
And so I need to get the student day of the capital RSVPs finalized. We have three students going. Um two chaperones I think um Nathan Paul is going to go as well. Um so we just need to I need to make sure I get RSVPs solidified. So because we have two events on that same
day. I just want to make sure everybody realized that. >> So for the student day at the capital right now um director Zari, Director Lemos Garcia and Director Roi have um RSVPDS. Director Bentley was a navy. Um and then for the culture assembly, um
directors Garcia was a question mark. Um and director Bentley was a question mark as well. So um within the next day probably I need to get those um tickets for the student for the CASBY student day at the capital. >> And just I thought I would give a little
overview about graduation gap graduation since we haven't had a graduation yet with all of you all. Um, so, uh, we will typically meet, um, they'll typically watch for you in the lobby and then take
you, uh, backstage. Um, and then, um, we'll walk in together probably with the staff, but they'll we'll all be there to give Anthony and I'll be there and there'll be other staff that give you guidance and then, um, they'll have seats assigned for us on where we sit on
the stage. Then we sit on the stage. So you want to dress um business professional. This one we do not wear gowns or caps to >> um is it you Weston? So they'll give you the speech. You'll have it. So you don't have to prepare a speech
>> of any kind. It's you're accepting the class on behalf of the board of education and the school district. >> Um and basically declaring them graduates. >> Yeah. >> Um that's us usually a pretty quick graduation. um and a pretty intimate
graduation and a really exciting time. These are some of the students who struggled the most in our system and we're actually getting a diploma. So um at that graduation we will also have
um GED completers from the next program and so you'll the administrator from next which is a a contract program we have um you're doing GED completion and um their program administrator will be there also as a part of it and those
students will be recognized as well. >> Do you have any questions about the graduation? >> I would just point out they're the gap gators and their color is green and often if you're amazing like Doran Nazari, he will wear a green tie. I assure you.
Are there any others that you need an RSVP um in the next before our next meeting? >> Well, the chamber dinner is we're probably okay by the next meeting, but that chamber dinner fills up quickly >> and so I need to know like do I need to get another table or is one table going
to suffice? So that's when we need you to RSVP to >> pretty quickly because it sells out and it's on February 19th. All right, moving on to board member comments. Um,
and I just wanted to say we're also going to spend some time actually having a discussion and a conversation about our CASBY experience. So, if that's what you were primarily going to speak about, you can you're certainly welcome to, but you could also save it for the CAS. I would recommend waiting because the students are going to join us really.
>> Okay. Gotcha. Cool. >> Okay. So, talk about other stuff. >> Okay. Um Okay. Let's go alphabetically just for fun. Mr. Go first. >> Sure. Be happy to. A very very short
report. Uh had a good uh holiday break and I hope everybody else did as well. Uh with the exception of some family issues. Um but uh for school board I I attended two events uh
involving legislation uh legislative affairs. Uh, one was the CASBY legislative re revolution resolution advocacy committee uh, orientation meeting that was online and u, pleased
to um, you know, represent our school district uh, in regards to some of that. And I also along with several of you attended the UNCC legislative preview today and it was good to hear that school funding is in a good place right
now. Although I know that a lot of uh work needs to be done ahead and I'd like to thank our state legislators for their ongoing support of the school district. So that's all I've got. President Mash want to go next
>> I can. Yeah. Uh not a lot on my plate either. Uh holiday break took up the majority of of everything since you guys have last seen my glowing face. I did get to go to the community council education Friday.
Um we had a an update on the career internships pathways right part of the career pathways program. So that was pretty interesting. Um she uh she did a really good job on that. And then we went right over to Brentwood and got to see our
middle level principal of the year. Always fun to be there. It's a great school and a great program. So that's about all I had. So, um, I wanted to start my comments by honoring Bob Twiton, who passed away since our last board meeting on December
27th, um, at age 92. As you know, he and his wife Betty were champions of the city of Gley. They were champions of education. They were champions of downtown. Um he founded the Twiton Institute for Educational Change at UNC
which continues to um help train our school leaders and giving them high yield skills to be effective in their schools. And as we all know uh because of his commitment, our very own Twit Academy of Pre-Engineering was named after Bob who was a civil engineer. Um
the school opened in 2022 with an emphasis on increasing underrepresented populations in engineering. And fast forward to 2026, we see that 63% of the students at Titon identify as non-white, which reflect the diverse demographics of our region, and nearly 60% of the
students at Twitton qualify for free and reduced lunch. Um, so I think that's such a testament to to Bob and his legacy. On a personal note, I got to sit with Bob while I was campaigning for school board um at his dining room table. Um, as you can imagine, I talked
his ear off. Um, and whenever I saw him at gatherings and events, um, after, he would always remember me as the girl who talked a lot. Um, on a different note, more for students, just reminding you that you have 18 days left to complete the World
Community Foundation scholarship. It's one scholarship application and it gives you access to over 65 um, opportunities. So definitely worth doing, but a difficult application to do in one night. So 18 days is just enough time to
get your letter of recommendation and um and all the other documentation required for that one application. Um let's see, I had some CASBY comments, but I'll skip over those. Um this month I did get to enjoy the middle school art show at the Riverside Library. Um so our
kids artwork is displayed um from all of our middle schools. It's really impressive. Different media. There's like the black scratch art. There's like ceramic 3D stuff. Um, you know, black and white sketches and and just beautiful, beautiful artwork. It's open
until February 13th, so you still have time to check that out. Um, and then earlier today, as director Azari mentioned, um, I was able to attend the UNCC legis legislative preview. Um, our three legislators that were on the panel
were Representative Ryan Gonzalez, Senator Scott Bright, and Senator Barbara Kirkmeer. Um, and our lobbyist uh for District 6, Anne Barkus, spoke. Um, they spoke of the financial challenges the state is going to have during this legislative session, although they reassured us that K
through 12 was safe from cuts. Um, that said, Anne Barkcus did point to a few areas of concern. Um, she talked about uh 504 plans, which are specific learning plans that are generally enforced by the federal government, but whether they were going to be able to
enforce them correctly and whether the state needed to fill in that gap. And if the state were to parallel the 504b enforcement, whether then the district would have double work to comply with the federal um mandates and then to
comply with the state stuff. So it sounded like that could could be difficult and challenging in general. Um Ann Barker spoke about um questions in K through 12 as to whether the state will make up for federal
budget cuts, if there are f federal budget cuts, whether the state can make up for those. Um questions around title funding with the current administration, um whether those dollars are safe or not. Um she spoke more locally about
well actually it's not that locally it's an early policy that's written into HR1 which would allow states to opt into a tax incentive which would open the door for funneling of public dollars into private and parochial schools. Governor Jared Polus has um opted into this uh
but the question was whether the state legislators will step up and uh form some guard rails around around this in order to protect our public dollars for public schools. Um she spoke about changes if there were to be changes to parent contributions
and the way health insurance is done, how that can impact the D6 budget because such a large part of our budget is our personnel. And then interestingly, while we were being told that um K through 12 was safe, um there was a question of the total program funding. And so total
program is education talk. um all it means is the total amount of money each school district gets from um local and state. And so it sounds like the state is trying to push a little bit of that uh more into the local share so that the
state can pay 3 to5 million less to us and whether we can actually make that up locally with our local ownership tax revenue is is questionable. So that could mean a reduction in our um total program. Uh the good news as uh doc or
director Azari mentioned the governor is respecting the current finance law funding and the budget stabilization factor is not being put in place this fiscal year. So for now those things are things um that are highlights. Um they talked about other things that
interesting I think we'll talk about with um Mr. Nate fall around his legislative update that he's going to give us, but he talked about AI and school safety and um local control over curriculum enhancements. Um there was some talk that at the state level they
might mandate if a student succeeds on an assessment test that they should automatically be enrolled into certain classes. Um but that is very state level and and it doesn't allow room for local control. So um it was an interesting conversation. I I love that event. I
like the preview. I like the wrapup um that we get to go to in the spring um just to hear what's going on, where the dollars are, where the concerns are, and and what we need to be on the lookout for. >> Thank you.
>> Um yeah, not not a whole lot to report boardwise except to say that um really excited about especially seeing this full calendar of things. I will make one comment or a couple comments about the legislative preview we had today. One, I
had actually a community member come up who is involved in the discover district 6 academy and she had just commented about how wonderful of an opportunity it is for her. She's a realtor. She's been in the community for a long time and she's learning things about our district, about what we're doing that
she never knew before. And sometimes it's insights that you know you kind of don't get if you unless you run for school board or you work for the district. And so it's more of just a comment of appreciation um and encouragement to the community, anyone watching this or hearing about it to
really consider doing Discover District 6 Academy just to learn about the great things we're doing because she said she's like, "I'll always support you guys, but like it's it's great information for folks to know about where the dollars are going, where the focus of the district is." Um and so I just wanted to pass that word of
encouragement along um for what the district provides through that. and then just kind of echoed shared concerns about what we heard this afternoon. There's a lot of work to be done being told uh public education funding is safe, but then also being told that cuts
will need to happen across the board, including in education. So, just kind of some of those mixed messages. My my big concern uh was the rural teacher recruitment and retention program um and just what that could mean not just for our district but some of our neighboring
districts um that really do depend heavily upon this and trying to get teachers to stay in those smaller communities or go to those smaller communities. Um so I I'm just interested to see where that goes um with the hopes that UNC does not lose that program that
they offer there. Um, but I also at the same time I'm just encouraged just to know to see that room so full and to see people really interested and they're not just sitting back to say, "Well, whatever happens happens." To really see how they could be a part of that conversation. So, I'm excited to hear
Nate's update. Um, I think it'll be a little less uh this way or that way. I'm looking forward to just a straightforward discussion. >> Thank you, Director Limos Garcia. >> Yes, thank you. Um I as had a wonderful
break um took some time off and uh decluttered part of my home. So that was a nice refresh. Um the weather was great so it felt like spring break for a moment. Um but for me what I have to report is um I had my first school visit um to Brentwood and uh it was so fun
seeing all the students um engaging in the interactions that we went to to all of the classes and how they even approached us as as adults and people and seeing the students present and how proud they are of the school that they're in. So it wasn't something that they made up. It was truly from their
heart and you could just tell that every one of them wanted to talk and speak. So I am looking forward to other visits um school visits and uh the calendar that we have throughout the year. So excited about that. >> Thank you Director Roi.
>> Well, I too had a uh wonderful break. I really en uh enjoyed Casby so much. So I'm looking forward to the discussion about that. Um but we we did not have a relaxing time and I did not declutter. Um but we had grandchildren there and it
was a busy time but it was really fun. Um so the uh just on top of what director Limos has Garcia has said um just the visit to Brentwood was just really fun and would have been both of our first visits to a school. And so the
um Nicole uh Peterson is just such an impressive uh young woman and we really just and they just really showed off their school and we had uh students meeting us at the door and uh escorting us in and they were obviously um proud
of their school and it was really uh and I really enjoyed getting to go into a couple of the classrooms and just noticing um just you know even from when I went to school or when my kids went to school, just the approach is so so
different and so um I was just so impressed with the teachers and just their professionalism and uh just their way of getting the students to interact and be active in their learning and that was very very impressive. And the legislative preview was really
interesting for me this morning. I really enjoyed that. Um just for me really learning what the issues are. Um I you know it's the kind of the first time I've heard about the rural rural teacher issue and some of those things. So that was for me really eyeopening to
sort of um see what uh the things are that our legislature even deals with. So it was it was a good morning and a really good experience. >> Well, thank you all. Um yeah, it feels like it's been a long time since we were all together. Um, but happy holidays to
everyone. Happy New Year and yeah, excited to to get to get into the buildings and um really see all the wonderful things that are happening. Um, I unfortunately miss the Brentwood visit. Um, I make my work schedule quite quite a ways in advance. Like I have it
through at the end of February, so I'm not always flexible once it's already set. But I'm glad that you all got to go and congratulations again to Principal Peterson. Um the legislative session today was just like so much to take in
and um unfortunately not a lot of good news I guess on the financial front but yes glad that um so much work was done last year um to change the funding formula and it sounds like we're stable with that for for this year. So I think
we will move along to our CASBY debrief and love to invite our council of student representative students to join us. Got mics for you and everything. Did you have any kind of format in mind Dr. culture at the students.
>> I think it'd be great to start with the students. >> Yeah, sounds great. >> I'd recommend. H >> you guys okay with that? >> Yes. And will you both reintroduce yourselves to the board, please? >> Yes. I am Sarah Venegas. I'm a senior at Early College Academy and president of
the Council of Student Representatives. >> Uh I am Ali Medina. I'm a junior at Northridge High School and I am uh the secretary of CSR. Excellent. Well, um, you want to go first, Sarah?
>> Yeah, absolutely. So, CASBY this year, I was able to go last year. Um, so this year was another year for me and it was it was different this year. Um, I think the workshops were very nice. They tailored a lot to us as leaders, a lot
of advocacy, a lot of understanding other students. Since many of the students that attend CASBY are usually the leaders in your district, it's not usually those students who are struggling or maybe those background students. So, in those workshops, they taught us a lot about how we can include
those students who might feel like they're in the background, who might feel like they're not as supported or as heard. Because many of the times when our students in the district see for example council student representatives or those leaders in their school, it's
like okay, they have all the attention. What about us? So that's what we're trying to advocate for. We're trying to say you have our attention and we're going to make sure you have that. Um, one of the things that I really liked
about smaller districts, which there's a lot of smaller districts within Colorado, we're definitely one of the bigger ones. Um, they have a very tight-knit community, which is definitely easier with those smaller districts and harder for us as district
6 with the amount of students we have. Um, one of the things I really enjoyed from a smaller district was they have something called a student a superintendent um council which is very similar to CSR.
However, they meet with their superintendent once a week and they communicate about what's going on in their schools and um what they can bring to superintendent any new ideas. If they have something they want to present to
the public, they will have a section in the um board meeting in order to discuss that out to the public um part of the agenda. So, I think that was really interesting. Another thing was within that council, those students were able to visit a lot of other schools like
middle schools and elementary schools because I think that's very important. CSR hasn't had the yet the opportunity to visit those um middle schools and elementary schools. I think a lot of times we focus on high school students because we're all high school students.
Um, so I think it's difficult to connect with those younger kids, which I think we need to, especially since those younger kids might be in CSR one day and they're going to be able to know how to connect with the board better even though they're smaller kids.
>> Um, I wanted to add on that. Uh, I remember last year we really tried to do that. We try to connect with the um middle schools and elementary schools and we did a whole thing on it and we were trying really hard to be able to actually reach out to these schools. Um but unfortunately it never went through.
We struggled very hard with like actually getting in touch with principles and making plans with them and just planning in general. Um, maybe we're going about it the wrong way, but I feel like a little bit more help in
connections because principles aren't really just going to answer some random kid who's saying >> let us in our in your school that that's what I wanted to talk about on your thing. But other than that, um, I was also there at CASBY last year. Um,
they did two different work sessions actually. One of them was the same as last year except they shortened it for some reason. Um, I really liked that work session a lot more last year because we had a lot more time to go about it. Um, I didn't really
enjoy the first work session actually. Um, they talked a lot about advoc advocacy and I feel like if you're a student who's above and beyond and doing all this stuff and actually going to CASBY, you're going to know how to advocate for yourself.
Um, I don't know. I That's just my personal opinion. Um, but I really did enjoy um the second work session. Uh, let's see. What else did we do? We did a wild hunt chase hunt, right? >> Yes, we did the scavenger hunt. So, we
went all over the Broadmore looking for clues, unfortunately. >> And the career thing. >> The career thing. Oh, the acting. Is that what you >> No, no, no. We went to different little career people and they were telling us like >> yes, we
>> so in the breakfast there was different booths and each of those booths had different companies of course which apparently helped school districts and we went to each one having a little bingo card. I believe you all had the opportunity to also do that little bingo
card. Um, a lot of those booths were very helpful. There was one specific one that I really found interesting. being asked a lot of questions in that one. I think the guy was kind of thrown off by the amount of questions I was asking. Maybe he just thought, "Give me my stamp and I'm gone."
>> Yeah. Yeah. >> But it was a mental health booth and they were advocating for mental health. So, free therapy for students, for families, um very accessible online as well. And I thought that was really
interesting. um with insurance, without insurance, they're able to provide therapy for both students and families and really anyone in the district, which I think is very important because in Early College Academy, we do have a
front-range therapist um a few times a week and a lot of our students do utilize our therapists, but I don't believe other schools have that opportunity, especially those middle school and elementaryaries, which I think is still important to implement
therapy and mental health even in those younger students considering life is hard even at a young age not just teenagers are struggling kids are struggling middle schoolers are struggling so I think it's important to advocate for maybe counselors and
therapists in my opinion are different counselors are more school-based I would say like yes if you have something maybe mental health struggles, you can go to them and they might refer you to
someone. But I think having a therapist specifically who has a degree in their job and knows what they're doing and knows how to handle students and knows what how to listen and what type of advice they need. I
think that could be very important and very different from what a counselor can offer. Um, so I think that could be really good to add >> for me. Um, during that little scavenger hunt, um, sell yourself to the district little thing. Um, I found it really
interesting. Um, the quantum physics program, um, they said they're really new and their booth just really stuck out to me. I'm a science person. I really like science. I enjoy science. Um, and I feel like, well, at my school, I'm not really sure about other schools. I know other schools major in different
things. Maybe not science. Um, but they were a quantum physics program and they sold themselves on how I forgot what it was, but I just really think that it would be a good opportunity for us because I just really want to advocate for our science
programs. I feel like there's not enough science in Northridge specifically. >> Let's see. What else did we do? You >> want to talk communication? >> Communication. So, a lot of our smaller districts, of course, they have an easier time
connecting with their schools because a lot of them are just K12s and they're in a huge building compared to our school districts, which we have so many elementaryaries and so many middle schools and we still have our charters and our private schools and whatnot.
Sometimes I believe a few of our schools might get overlooked. Um maybe those other like schools who have maybe better opportunities for example
Brentwood has their IB program has I believe it's the STEM program and those schools that have those more prestigious programs compared to maybe other middle schools or other elementary schools might get overlooked a little
bit compared to maybe what they offer um and what other high schools offer. I went to Bella Romero Academy and sometimes I think that school might be a little bit overlooked just because it's so tiny and it's a K8. So it's kind of
like we don't have many K8s in our district anymore. So I think it's important for there to be more connection within our district. Maybe have more district events, something that can bring our community closer. I know that's also
CSR's job, like trying to bring our district more closer, just as we mentioned earlier, it's a little more difficult to connect with those middle school and elementary schools as those other districts in Colorado have the opportunity to do.
>> I feel like we went over. >> Other than that, Kazzy was really enjoyable. >> Yeah. >> Oh, it's different your second time. Yeah, it's definitely different going a second time. You think you know what to expect and it's like, nope, everything is different. Like, every year is different. There were students I met
there that it was their third time going and I'm like, third time? I'm like, okay. Like, that's really cool. >> I think I think it's cool to have the opportunity to go multiple times, but I would like to open it up to more
students. I think CSR does like to have our officers go. That's why we have the opportunity to go multiple times. But I think it's it would be nice to open it up to more students just so they have the opportunity to also experience that and they might look at it through a
different lens and bring in more ideas and other point of views that us officers might not even consider sometimes. So >> yeah, I feel like um definitely open it up to other people. I know I met people who weren't really on their school boards, um the district school board,
>> um and I feel like that would be a good idea. I really did appreciate the opportunity at first. Um but I feel like it's a little bit of a waste um to go a second time, especially learning all I did the first time. I don't have as much to speak about because I spoke about it
a lot my first time. And yes, the activities are different, but it's just it's just not a whole new experience, you know. >> Um I really would like to um go again. Yeah, of course. But I just feel like it would be nice to give somebody else that
opportunity. >> I think I went over a lot of that already in my head. >> May I ask you a question? Of course. >> Were you able to give your feedback to CASBY about your experience there? So the positives and the things that you would change. >> They did send us a survey.
>> Okay. >> Um the survey is very simple. >> Didn't ask the right questions. >> It did not ask the right questions. It does ask was the work did you think the workshops were good? And it's kind of
like strongly agree or strongly disagree. I don't think those are very strongly worded questions. I think they're very broad. Um, and maybe if they were more openended where you could maybe type or just what was your experience? I think
that would be more broad question where you could kind of type out everything and anything you're thinking about, not just a little like survey of multiple choice. Um, I do understand that students do plan everything. So, it might be a little bit difficult to come
up with something new every single year considering I believe this was their 85th anniversary. I might be wrong. It was around there and I'm like having to do that 85 times in different formats is very difficult. So, I can understand why
they kind of repeat a few things. Um, but just opening it up to different students would definitely be something to advocate for next year. Um, a lot of the students that I met there, I had met last year. So, I think this isn't just
within our district. I think with it's within a lot of districts, maybe they think, well, we're officers, we're leaders, we're going to do great. We know the ropes. That's right. But a lot of the students who might also be
interested they're or who just might not have the time to be an officer because they have so many other things that they're leaders in and they might want to have the opportunity to go. So I think we just need to open it up more
Colorado wide and have students maybe go once and um that way there is more difference in each experience and not just the same back >> since I believe last year we we did do a Kazzy presentation to the board. >> Pretty sure. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And it's it's like it's very enjoyable. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> I have a question. So do you think that be since you've attended once that maybe the second round you could present? So
if you feel like if you went the second time and you were a participant that may be opportunities for you all to share out to others might be a good opportunity instead of so attending there as a presentation or a presenter rather than an attendee.
>> Yeah, I actually think that would be a good idea, but um I'm not too sure. I feel like I gained a lot of um knowledge on how they do things. I didn't actually think about that. >> Maybe I should try that. I don't I don't know what the roles are. >> Um being one of the people who organizes
it. >> Yes. So, you do have the opportunity to do that. Um the application comes out around February or March, I believe. I was going to apply to be one of the organizers. However, I decided against it because the application is
very lengthy and very complicated. And I looked at it and I was like, um maybe maybe not. But there is an opportunity for students who have attended CASBY to be one of the presenters to be one of the organizers. Um many of the I did
notice this year that some of the organizers were the same as last year. So I think that comes back to just having maybe different students maybe have like you can do it one year and then next year maybe not have more students. Um, so that way you're having
different voices, different opinions, and different point of views because a lot of the organizers were the same as last year. So I think that's also why there's a lot of repetitiveness in the workshops because they're the students who have organized it for the past few years.
>> Any more questions? >> I love that you brought up uh that the vendor that stood out to you was the one focused on mental health. And I don't know if you guys will stay for the full work session, but one of our um updates is on community schools. And so I think
that would be a presentation you would enjoy because that's part of that community school integrative model is to bring in mental health and uh physical health services like um so that's cool. And then I love that you guys are trying to reach down to middle school and the K
through fives. Um we do have six middle schools in our system if we include uh D6 online. Well, actually, if we include D6 online, I think there's seven. So, we do have a lot of K8s. K8s. >> Yeah, we've actually increased Kates since you guys were in elementary school. We've actually
um Mclliff, >> Fred Chardis, Madison, we moved to a K8. So, it's >> it's really a pretty popular model. Now, >> the other thing that I think is different since when you all were in elementary and middle is that we do have a north range therapist at every site.
>> Okay. not necessarily full-time. And then every site has either a school psych or a school social worker as well >> presently. So now several of those social workers are paid for on federal grant dollars that we understand are going to be cut next year.
>> So but I think it's an interesting idea about um who should attend. And so I think that's a conversation that council student reps can certainly have like how do you how do we want to determine how do you all want to determine who
attends? I I do know CASBY wants some they want that leadership from the officer kind of level or the you know the school leader level. They do want that because you got to have leaders in the room that naturally lead. Um but you know a lot of districts don't have a
council of student reps. They just pick the kids to go. They don't actually serve on a council. >> Um, >> but we should be able to help you to reach down to elementary and middle more if that's something that the council of student reps wants to do and even think about a mentoring program maybe or
something. >> Definitely don't. >> We No. Yes, we we tried to implement that last year as Aaliyah pointed out. It's just very difficult to do it on our own. >> Yeah. So, that's something we should be able to help with maybe. >> Awesome. >> I'm excited. Well, that's for next year.
So, >> we're really glad you guys went. Thank you for going. >> Yeah. >> Appreciate that you're you're not greedy to have that experience again for yourself, but you want to share it with others because you felt like it was >> it was so fun. >> Helpful. Yeah. And fun.
>> Anytime you get to just get away and so pretty there. Yeah, for sure. So, thank you for for wanting to share that experience with us. you. We always enjoy our breakfast with you and you guys are all like fired up about what you just learned. >> Oh yeah.
>> Yeah. You attend some of the general sessions as well, the big speakers. >> They didn't do that this year. >> They didn't have them do that. So that was different than in the past. >> Yeah. They, you know, in the past they've sometimes had the the the general session speakers then go, you
know, K the students would come for that session and then they would sometimes that speaker would go work with the students on a workshop, but they haven't they didn't do that this year and I don't know if they did it last year either, but they didn't do it this year. >> I don't believe they did it last year. >> I Yeah, I think they've changed that. It used to be though that students would be
in the general session. There was even a session where students used to be on a panel in the general session. So, they've changed some of that up. They probably just always Yeah, like you said 85 different times. Let's try this seemed popular. Oh, that seemed like a flop. >> I think the student panel was very
popular. I think that would be very >> worthwhile to rein implement. But >> yeah, and they were usually on like a specific topic. >> Yeah. And you'd even kind of like do little breakout sessions where you speak with a smaller group. So
>> yeah, student panel on their perspective on artificial intelligence. or sometimes they just do all all >> know multiple questions. >> Well, I think that Casby does seek feedback from from us as well if there's things that we want to see. So,
>> I can always send that their way. So, yeah. Um, do any other board members want to share their experience of something that stood out to them at Caspby? I could just share that um I was
you know people kept explaining it like a fire hose experience which I mean it kind of was but I expected that to be the case but what I gathered mostly from CASBY was an appreciation of what we have in district 6 mainly seeing those smaller school districts of they're the
ones that have to meet about the paging system or they're the ones that have to do their budget and so just to see what district 6 has in terms of in-house support and expertise just made me realize how much um I don't want to say easier of a job, but like a different job we have than the smaller school
districts to know that we have so many great people that we can rely on their expertise whether it comes to budgeting or whether it comes to um legislation and counsel and all that. Um one thing that I I really appreciated the vendor hall too just to see all those different things and being at the
food bank and and really always just having food and and hunger is kind of the forefront. going to meet with some of the vendors who offer their meal services and kind of I don't know maybe play koi a little bit just to hear about what they offer but then to hear all the things that they offer to know that my
friend Daniel Bach just does so well here and just to see that um again another one of those in-house resources of just like oh well we offer this and we offer this I'm like yeah Daniel does that so that's just it was just wonderful to see all that I'm I'm excited to go back next year to not have
that you know first year experience of like Okay, I got to go to all of these new board member ones so that I can maybe kind of focus on some other things. Um, but all all in all, it was great to get to know my fellow board members or board directors. Um, and just
to it made me excited for the next two years. Um, especially the of what the work we get to do. Um, and yeah, so it was just it was a great time. And I stole a pair of antlers on accident. >> Oh. From the photo booth. >> Oh my gosh. Um, so I might just have to
steal things every year. >> Well, I go ahead. >> I'll go next because I was only there for one day, so I have uh, you know, limited to report. So this year, um, CASBY landed at the same time as my UNCC board of trustees meeting and so I only got to go for Wednesday and then had to
come back home for the rest of the week. Um, but Wednesday was a really important day. We got to have a work session just our board. So, D6 uh board directors, it was a dayong session. Um we obviously onboarded and welcomed our new board directors. Um but just reviewed our
board protocols, Robert's rules of order, um best practices for how board directors are supposed to interact with stakeholders, which means like parents and teachers and community members. And um so it was a really good reminder of
that and kind of I I I think this was my fourth CASBY maybe. But um just being reminded of what our role is as board directors and it really boils down to three things. And one is our budgetary roles serve fiduciary duty. Making sure
that um we're not in the red. Um that we are being faithful to our mission, vision, and strategic plan and that we're you know holding everyone accountable to that. Um and then to make sure that our reputation um that we have a good reputation in our community in
Gley and Evans and so being ambassadors for our comm community for our schools in our community um and and really that's that's our job that those three things you know there's a lot of extra that we get to do like that are fun and things like that but really it comes down to the budget mission vision um
strategic plan being faithful to that and um upholding our reputation in our community. So, um it was great to be reminded of all that and and get to meet you guys and get to know you a lot better and um yeah.
>> Are we doing round robin or >> I think we're whoever wants to talk. >> Zigzag. >> Um I certainly enjoyed the time at CASBY. It was of course my first time there as well. The first day we did meet as a team as Brenda mentioned um Dr.
Compass Spitzy. Um, and it was great getting to know how everybody's brain works and how we can work together as a team. Um, I enjoyed that piece. The piece that for me I was so intrigued with all of the workshops. I wanted to attend them all. And of course, you know that you can't, right? You have to
divide your time. And it was so great just really taking it all in. And I'm a notetaker, so then I took notes and I reviewed them when I got home. And so just continuing to learn how we can provide the best that we can for our district. Um and knowing that we're in
the best district anyway, right? Um but to be able to continue that and to learn more as we move forward, I think is so important. So I truly enjoyed um every component of the CASBY piece. I was sort of thinking about um reviewing in my mind kind of a lot of
the things that we went to and kind of the two things that stand out to me are the two keynote speakers that I that I listen to and the first one was the skateboard principal and he was really fun but I just could not relate to him
at all. I just was like, "Oh man, I you know, that takes a very specific person going to a very specific place in in my opinion." But I thought he was really really interesting and just, you know, the building of relationships with kids,
with teachers, with uh the community and and that was I think the really the strong message he had. And then um and I don't have the name but the elderly gentleman that spoke um I went to a workshop of his >> Constantin was his last name. Stephen.
>> Yes. Yes. Yes. Steve Constantin. And I loved his um kind of his focus on communication uh with families and that the the family is the number one educator of a child. And I just thought that was such a revolutionary thought
for me. Um that that is so true that that is the those are the people that are there and as much as we sometimes think you know parents don't care uh they do care they just are stressed and have a lot going on and sometimes don't
have the time and energy to do what some other parents do. So finding ways to tap into those kinds of parents and families I thought was um really unique and uh thoughtprovoking. So I I I kind of those were the two things that really stood
out to me. >> Do uh oldies have anything to say? >> Um this >> I mean seasoned. >> I'm the the youngest board member just for >> Okay. >> Um
this one was a little different for me. It' be my fifth time. you know, I have heard the school finance act in class a couple 101 a couple times and um I guess one thing I guess I I was I was hoping to to hear more maybe about the federal board of education and anything
happening there and it I think the lack of information that we got about that and the lack of clarity just probably explains where everybody really is and nobody really knows what's going on. So, um, that seems seems to be the the the topic every time we're waiting and see
and look looking for guidance or something. So, I was a little bit disappointed to to to not hear anything, but I also understand that I think it was just a lot of unknowns. So, um, but but the the breakout or the the speakers, the keynotes were were really good this year. They they kind of had the same
theme to a degree, you know, connecting with your community. Um, the one the one M Constantine speaker in his breakout session before he He did it backwards. He said he did his breakout session before his his keynote speaking. And so we got a little bit insight first and he he he said something that kind of struck
home where he said, you know, you can't just have a pizza party and expect the community to show up. And I think uh you know, me and Dar were sitting by each other listening to that and I think a lot of that stuff kind of hit home of how we can connect with our parents and our families better. So it was a good it was a good week for sure.
>> Yeah. And like Kyle, no matter how many times I go to the school finance, I leave I think more confused and this year I'm very confused because again, as Kyle alluded to, so many things are happening at the federal
level and and the state level and that goes hand inand with the legislative review session today. Uh it it does make your head spin a little bit and wonder what is going to happen. But again, we're in a we're in a good place. And I
always leave CASBY or have left CASBY with a feeling that we're doing the right things in school district six. It's a verification and I think our student leaders would would concur with that. Um I think the the most important
element of this CASBY convention for me was our our first meeting as a board. And I really want to thank uh Brett Miles and Susan Meek for their work. Um they're good team builders and I think it really sets the tone for how this
board is going to work and get things done on behalf of the district. So very good debrief by the way. You hit everything that was on my mind. >> I mean it was just >> I just say ditto when they do that.
>> Yeah, ditto. Thank you. I like the word cheat sheet. >> I know that's a good one. Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's always beneficial to work with um Miles or Brett Miles and Susan Meek. Um they just they make it fun, they make it engaging, help us to to
learn about each other and learn about the work. And um yeah, I went to a few of the more new board member type of breakout sessions and that was just a good refresher and not necessarily maybe new information but to help me know how to maybe further help you all understand
if you but yeah it's it's it's always um rewarding to like be in a room full of like like-minded intelligent people who are all working towards the same um solutions or the same trying to find solutions to the same problem. So, yeah.
But yeah, I'm so glad you guys got to go and thank you for passing the torch. You're you're a junior, >> did you say? Yeah. So, you could go one more time or you can tell all the younger, you know, the lowerassmen how great it is. >> Have them come back and tell you what they did.
>> That would be fun. >> Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Is there any I think we'll I think we'll move on. We're a little bit behind, but that's okay. >> Okay. Um, so the next item, yeah, you guys can be dismissed. The next item on our agenda is an update on our community
schools project. Thank you, President Mash. Well, we're we're transitioning this. I'll just um set it up for for Anthony and team to present. Uh we we began exploring the
concept of community schools seriously last spring last almost a year ago now um particularly with Brian Lamos who's coming to join u Mr. Osmus and uh with Ramon Reyes at Maplewood Elementary
School. And interestingly, 10 years ago, I went to a high poverty, high performing schools uh conference uh where we had the opportunity to learn from folks who had worked very closely with high
poverty, high performing schools. And um and one of the things that they spoke about at this conference was the importance of community schools and and schools being a a hub of the community and bringing all the services in one
place for families to access and and really helping families to feel like this is their school so that they want to be in the school and that they have a meaningful role in the school and and that the work they're doing in the school makes a reference to to the
school success as well as our child success. And so, you know, some things just take a long time for to catch on. It took us a decade to get here to where we really had a principle and um and leadership in place to to really go into
this with a full head and heart. Now, I want to say that we have several schools that have really strong pieces of community schools. uh you know with our community health centers at three of our schools I mean that's a big piece of community schools uh the partnerships
that our schools have with our churches partnerships they have with community agencies like Weld Food Bank those are important pieces of community schools the food pantries are an important piece um clothing pantries are another important piece and many of our schools all of our schools now have the food pantries and many of our schools have
clothing pantries we do have laundry facilities at a few of our schools now that's a piece of this as well. Some of our schools have had parenting programs where they're teaching parents how to be better engaged in in like the SAC committee um or in how to better
advocate for their children. So, we've had lots of these pieces in our schools, but we have not gone full in comprehensive in a school. And so, we are doing that. That is the plan now. So, I'm going to turn over to Mr. Brian Lamos, who is our director of
multilingual learners and cultural excellence, and uh Mr. Anthony Osmus, our assistant superintendent. Oh, family engagement. We keep changing his title. >> Family engagement. And then uh Mr. Osmus, who is assistant superintendent. You do not see Mr. Tuttle here because
Mr. Tuttle is on a Caribbean cruise. >> Oh, shoot. >> Funny how that is when you're halftime that you get to do things like that. the Caribbean, >> but he is he is working behind the scenes on this uh with us as well. So with that, I'll turn it over to you two, gentlemen. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um Dr. Plet, I'll kick this off just a little bit. So, President Mash, vice president Blay, members of the board, just want to um introduce myself. I'm Anthony Osmouth. I'm an assistant superintendent of secondary schools with Brian Lamos here, our director of uh MLS and family engagement, multilingual learners and
family engagement. and we're excited to just share a little bit about around about around uh community schools. Now, I'll start a little bit because like Dr. Pch said, we have done some work in the past and in the past I was an elementary principal and we did dabble a little bit with community schools and and we just
we just did not have a a district model that we went after. So, I'll share a little bit of that experience. And um I was a principal for several years at Centennial Elementary, which is a high poverty school. And what we know about high poverty schools is um they do serve students with tremendous potential, but
they are impacted sometimes with um factors that we can't always control inside the school. Research around community schools says it's effective because it recognizes that academic success is closely tied to student well-being, family stability, and strong community connections. And we really
find that to be true. So, let me tell you a little bit about what we um what we did at Centennial and how we're taking that to the next level um here with our community schools. And so, at Centennial, we were very fortunate because we did have a school-based health clinic in a partnership with Sunrise. And let me tell you how
beneficial that was. Families would come and they could check out their students, go right go right on site to a doctor's appointment and come right back to class. You're not missing school, helps with attendance, helps with engagement, all of the things. And we also um they also partnered with um a dentist here
and there. And so um students that did not always have access to a dentist, they could have that right on site. Uh one of the things that we prided ourselves on was our monthly parent meetings which filled our cafeteria and we wanted to get feedback from our parents like what do you need parents?
What do you need? One of the things that we heard um over and over is parents need a job. They need help getting a job. And we also at the time way back when we had um our newcomer center at Centennial. So we had all these parents that were new to the country, students that were new to school came to our
site. And so they needed a job. And so we partnered with Otterbox to help support this. And we had several opportunities for parents to come to our computer lab, create resumeumés. Otterbox would help them with some interview skills. Uh it was a great partnership we had at the time. Um, we
also heard from them that coming by a washer and dryer was sometimes difficult. So, we actually installed a washer and dryer at Centennial and open that up to community use. Um, another partnership was our wild food bank where we um created a food pantry before we had food pantries. We had a food pantry.
Um, and we also had our the food truck that was on site just often. And so, a lot of times it was just responding to our community because we know that academic achievement and um community support go hand inand. So to talk a little bit more about this is Brian Lamos. Um and I'll turn this over to you.
>> Yeah. What um I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to present and to speak here tonight. This is something that I think all of us are very passionate about serving our communities, serving our students and also our families. And this is really an approach that integrates all the services to meet the needs of our
children in our buildings. But the core spirit of the community school model is student achievement. So we want to be very very clear. We know through research that there are some things in pla that things have to be in place for students and families in order for them to support each other and to ensure that
students get the best education from us and you talked about that earlier uh director um Brenda and we you know you said about the integrated supports around mental health um medical assistance and we also know that dental assistance and all those things. So
there's really uh from the national view there's five pillars that um I'll briefly talk about that encompass the community school model. One is powerful student and family engagement. The other is collaborative leadership and shared um voices and power um expanded and
enriched learning opportunities, culture of belonging, safety and care and integrated systems of support. All these pillars integrate so nicely with our I2030 vision. There's nothing in here that does not connect with our I2030 vision. And so that's where it was like
we are teed up for this to happen at our schools that we've identified. When we think about pillar number one, right, just do the space bar. >> Well, let's share this. The pictures are always good, right? When we see students that are uh smiling and we see our afterchool programming, we see parents
involved and just really when you think about the pictures up here, you see integrated services by just our community, our teachers, our parents, our students involved together and really really having a good time. The
what we're going to talk about deeply is now the five pillars. And when we think about our powerful student family engagement, families and students are key partners within the decision-making process. And so families lived experiences and form approaches and as
Dr. Poach talked about it really becomes a hub of the school and some examples of that are like where uh students might not where families might not be speaking English and then they feel supported through the schools and the services that they get. And we also see that as
assets rather than as a deficit. And so how do we work with those families? They can inform us on a lot of different things such as how to best communicate with them. What are the things that they are challenged with within the current school system. So having their voice is very very important and this model
really really brings them to the table to really have that shared leadership. When we talk about the second pillar of collaborative leadership and shared power and voice, they co-create um a culture of professional learning, trust and shared responsibility. There's
formal teams that are put in place such as a shared governance where uh parents are co-creating school improvement plans, reviewing data together, and then uh vote on priorities and resource allocations within that school. So those are things examples that could happen
within this pillar. When we go to pillar number three, we're really talking about um you know our expanded enriched learning opportunities before and after school programming, weekend programming that happens and also our summer programming.
How is it all aligned to ensure that our students feel safe, our parents feel like they are involved in the learning opportunities? Just not the afterchool programming just for our kiddos, but also what are the things that we can do with our parents? Maybe there's English classes that we're offering, whatever it may be. But really going back to pillar
number two, saying what what is it that the parents are saying within this decision-making process and how do we make that happen in our after school programming? Um classroom support that is uh supported from the community connections. We have a lot of partners within the community that help with our
uh pro current programming such as soccer without borders. They come in, they help support us. They help uh not only with enrichment activities but helping students develop English. And then they also work with our parents as well. And then we talk about um just
really the cultural, you know, identities and how important it is for these schools and students to feel like they belong and they're part of this decision-m and part of that is there's a lived experience. And so how do we create opportunities for students to be engaged in things that are happening out
in the community but also in our enrichment programs at the school. So elders are a great example of that. They have stories. They have lived experiences. They can come in partner with teachers and tell the stories of what's happened locally. What's the history that's happened? And really
gives the the you know identity of our students here to hear from their elder to say this is me. This is who we're talking about. and it validates their experience here in this community. Thinking about culture uh belonging, safety and care, we talk about this in
I2030. It is, you know, very very prevalent that we want all students, staff and community members and parents to feel like they belong, that they're part of the decision-making process. And this is uh pillar number four that really really uh amplifies our um CC1
goal in I2030 which is connecting families, students and staff and community partners to safe and belonging environment. And then the integrated services as you can see from the picture up here we have the uh mobile unit from the public
health department which goes to Maplewood currently right now and other several schools and really it's around that health support that they give but really it's consolidating services making sure that community partners or the school system with counselors uh
social workers are not duplicating services and we have clear alignment in how do we support our uh families and students and just really we really want to amplify this as Anthony was talking about as Centennial they have a health center there on campus. I was in um I
had the privilege of being a principal at two community schools. One was an elementary, one was a high school. And the difference that that made in our attendance was huge because if a student was having some maybe dental needs or was sick or just need some support, we
could send them over there and they could come back and we could make sure that they were getting the proper support that they need. Mental health services is another one we had on site there. And we want to duplicate those things. With our current partnerships that we have with community members and so forth, we are teed up perfectly to
implement the community school model. As Dr. Pilch talked about earlier, we have the resources. We have, you know, um, funds at these schools. All of them are 21C schools. So, the afterchool programming could be really aligned closely. Our parent engagement
activities. So, all the things that we are currently doing through the family center, um, just multiple multiple uh, pieces that we have in place. Now, it's just really looking at that and saying what are the priorities and how do we make it happen? And so, um,
the five schools that we're looking at for implementation, as I said earlier, they currently are recipients of the 21st century grant. They also are all title one schools. And right now, year one, we're in the um exploration stage with Maplewood and just seeing, okay,
what are the pieces we have in place, but we'll be doing a survey to see what the needs are as we go further. and then really going into uh the exploration after that and installation. And the next schools that we're thinking about um that we're proposing um would
be Centennial Madison. Both of them have health centers on site, so they are very well positioned to uh implement a community school model. And then Romero and Scott would be year three. Um anything else you want to say?
No, I just um just thank you for um for listening. We're looking to answer any questions, but we are super excited to think about going all in with this and connecting achievement uh and student support and community resources.
>> Thank you for your presentation. Um I had just a couple clarifying questions. So this year is exploration. Year one would be next year of like full imple implementation for Maplewood. >> That That's our hope. >> That's the hope. Okay. And then um is
there like a director that would manage the community schools program either at one school or all the schools or do we know about that yet? >> Yeah, you're you're looking at him. >> Yeah, that's you. Okay. So all of the sites, all the community school sites
would have a community school um facilitator on site and so they would do all of the work and then uh Mr. Lamos then would be the director that would oversee this and support the work. >> So we shuffled or shifted some um some of the staffing at Maplewood this year
and then supplemented it a little bit so that they could have a community schools coordinator on the site. So, they do have a full-time employee, uh, a classified employee dedicated to supporting community this community schools program. And then David Reyes also is critical in this work, of
course, with the family center and and he's backing up Brian. And then, um, Anthony and Wes as as the assistant superintendents who are over these schools that we're looking at will, you know, will ultimately be the ones to make sure that Brian gets the job done.
The other the other thing you saw 21st century grant program in there that's an afterchool uh program that that we run through state grant dollars that actually flow to us through the federal government. Um and so those schools are a natural fit with that after school
program. They're a natural fit um for helping to fund community schools. We've also uh applied with the Weld Trust for some additional support >> in uh launching our programming and and it looks very optimistic that we will we
will receive some support from the Weld Trust >> to launch. >> What's our third school that has a community based? Is it Jefferson? >> Celita Deloul. >> Oh, Celita. Okay. >> Um and I think that the healthc care center is enormously beneficial. Would
that be a necessity for those other three schools in order to fully >> either the on-site uh community health center or the or access to the mobile on a regular basis. >> Yeah. So part of what we've done at Martinez and um it was really getting up
and running before co but what what has happened at Martinez is their contact is right there at the clinic um close to Martinez and then they can they can call they have the health clerk trained to be able to call over for additional support.
>> So there's some different ways we can build the model. >> Absolutely. >> And what you don't see there are years four and five. you see the first three years. So ideally um pending the availability of funding we we would
desire to have uh this as a model in all of our title one elementary schools. >> How about the uh K8s? Is there a different feeling tone to the community schools with the middle school level being in association with the K5?
I'm I'm just wondering if there's a difference in feeling tone. >> Well, like Dr. Bill said, "I think as we get these schools up and going, even K8s such as Madison is well primed to be a one of our first K8s to to get in place here, too. Um, they've got the the school-based health clinic."
>> I think what you have at a K8 is that opportunity to work with a family over nine ages of their children. >> Um, and that's a really powerful model. >> Um, when we move to Bella, we'll see this, you know, something similar. Y >> as well. >> Do we have preschool at Madison? Yes.
>> 10 10 years. >> 10 grades. So really 10 years. Yeah. >> Right, Natalie. Good catch. >> And then uh the 21st century grant uh that's not in jeopardy of being lost, is it? >> Yes, it is. Uh uh Director, it truly is.
Um we just we just don't know. And those dollars don't last forever. So that there's a there's a deadline on them um when they are granted to us. Do you want to talk more about that, Mr. Lammo? >> Yeah, it's a five-year uh plan. um that we are eligible for dollars. After year
three, they assess if we have implemented the grant appropriately and then they will award us year four and five. Uh we don't we do know that um right now it is one of those programs and working with main sponsor that is up in the air right now. Last year they
told us that our funding was not going to be refunded. Um not because we didn't do what was uh supposed to be done through the grant. We did everything and in fact we're an exemplar in the state. we have been uh for many years and that's why we continue to get the grant. Uh but it was just through the different
policy changes through new administration. It was some one of those things that was just on the the block to not be refunded. Um but they did come through um and we worked with the team here to say what are we going to do so that we ensure that it does not go away with the program we have offered and so
we had a plan around that. Um but then it did go through the funding did go through. Um not sure about the details now regarding if it's going to still be on um a reduction for next year. Uh all indication is that we're going forward.
And so that's what our plans are, but we will always be planning if it doesn't go through. >> And the goal of a 21st century program is to create sustainability, create programs that you can sustain. And so we feel like with MLO, with our partners, that's what we are securing right now. so that we know even if we don't have
21st century that we can continue this work. >> I um I'm very excited about this work. I remember when we were touring Madison um Dr. Pilch talking about her vision for community schools as we were going through those halls and the school was
being built. So really cool to see it come to fruition and um yeah just I am excited for these schools and and for what that can how how it's going to bring community and I loved you talking about elders. I always I'm on Facebook
and like there's a lot of um community members who have a lot of extra time and who are very interested in education. I'm like they they need a project. It would be awesome for them to be able to volunteer that time in a a very productive, positive way. So anyway,
just really excited. >> Great. >> Right. Thank you very much. We'll look forward to >> the update next year or in six months or whatever. >> All right. And at this time, we will invite Mr. Fall for a legislative update
or digestion of what we talked about this morning. Thank you, President Mash. Board of Directors, Dr. Pilch. Uh, my name is Nate Fall. I'm legal counsel for the school district. Uh, nothing like a last minute meeting before la dinnertime to
talk about legislation, but um, I do want to share that, uh, this is kind of one of my favorite presentations to give. I did not give it last year uh just because we had the same board. But now with three new board members as well as a half awake director
Bentley at the last time I gave this presentation uh I felt that it would be uh in our best interest to just give you an overview of process uh and how the general assembly works kind of what my role is uh what our lobbyist role is in all this. And so I'm just going to throw
some terms out for you and then at the very end we can go over just some of the big topics. But uh many of you already heard that today. So um this is the one slide with a lot of words on it and there's a lot of terms but I just kind of want to walk you through how this works. So a bill comes forward and it's
brought by a sponsor and it's brought in one house and that's called a house of introduction. So I'll just walk us through a hypothetical and we'll say that uh uh somebody from the house of representatives brings forth a bill. So then the house is the house of introduction uh and they do their first
reading meaning they read the bill out loud and then from there uh that bill is assigned a number and then it's usually assigned to a committee. I would say by and large most bills get assigned to a committee. The committee that we're generally most concerned about is the education committee both in the house
and in the senate. Uh at the hearing at the committee hearing they really there's really four things that can happen. The committee could vote to amend the bill. They could refer it to another committee, which means they pass it or they just refer it to another committee. They could kill the bill. Um, or they also use the word postpone
indefinitely, which basically means that the bill is not going to move forward. Or they can pass the bill. Uh, I will say that the committee is where the magic happens. That's where we get our amendments in. That's where we can connect with the committee. I often will
go down and testify at the education committees um because again that's really where most of the work gets done. Once it moves into the house of the whole uh it becomes a little bit more challenging to introduce amendments and things like that. So again, we'll just say for the sake of this hypothetical, a
bill was introduced. It went to the uh education committee. They passed it. Then maybe they made a few amendments, but then they ultimately passed it. Then it goes to its second reading, and the second reading is made in front of the committee of the whole as it's called, meaning it goes in front of the entire
house. So um and then at the committee of the whole it can fail and they call that a loss bill or they can pass that second reading. And then oftentimes when you're reading, if you're following along to all the bills and the drafts and the amendments, usually you'll see this thing called engrossed on the side.
And that means it passed its second reading. And if it passes second reading, then it goes into the third reading. Uh and then again, they'll discuss it on the House floor. And if that passes, it's then called re-engrossed. And then it moves into the Senate where it does the process all
over again. uh generally so if a bill goes through the House Education Committee, it's more likely to go through the Senate Education Committee. Um many times bills can uh then go to the Appropriations Committee because it involves money or there's a fiscal note that's attached to the bill. Um and so
usually for most bills, we end up going to both the education committee and the appropriations committee. Uh then after that if it uh assuming it passes both chambers then it goes to the governor uh who then can enact and pass the law or can veto it which we dealt
with last year with a open records bill that was quite frustrating and involved a lot of stakeholders in time made it through both chambers and then Governor Pulse vetoed it. So I'm not frustrated. I'm just expressing some uh facts here. So uh there's also an appropriations
bill. Those are usually bills that are not permanent. They're for one year kind of one source funding type bills. That is opposed to the long bill which is an appropriations bill, but the long bill is kind of that school finance act bill that we spend a lot of time talking
about um and digesting. Um that's it. There's also uh if it goes once it goes to the first house, the house of introduction in the second house instead of ingross and reingross, we use the terms revised and re-revised even if there's no revisions. But that's just the kind of term of art that they use.
So kind of any questions about that? Um the late great John Hafley uh called this my schoolhouse rock presentation. So we'll go. >> I was hoping you were going to sing. >> Uh lobbying. Uh we do have a lobbyist
that works at the district. If you attended the UNCC event today, you saw Ann Barkcus. She is the district's lobbyist. She represents several school districts throughout the state. She is phenomenal. Um she knows a lot about school finance. Um she knows a lot about what her clients kind of need and she really knows what angle that we want to
approach things from. Um and these are really what a lobbyist does. And then of course ultimately and this is most of most interest of this board are the positions uh that I'll work with our lobbyist on you know proposed positions
and then I'll bring them in front of this board. Uh, and so the way it works is I'll share with you a list of bills. I'll share with you kind of my proposed position on the bill, and then I'll let you all kind of tell me what you think. Um, so these are really the positions we
often end up taking. By and large, we uh just monitor most bills. Um, there's there's some value in kind of reserving our political capital to focus on just a few bills rather than trying to put our voice in on every single bill that might be out there. So, any questions about
that? These are your state legislators. Um, a few changes. I wish I had remembered. I know Scott Slaugh took over for Ryan Armagost. Um, Dusty Johnson just took over. I'm so sorry. I wish I could remember some of these. Um, but
you you know that some of these individuals were in attendance today at the UNCC event. Um, and so these are the folks that we often work with um, when it comes to bill drafts or questions about bills. Um, and these are folks that you all I encourage you to connect with um, if you feel like uh, you need
to get your voice in the room on any of these particular bills. >> Can you remind us which ones are in the education committee? >> Yes. So, uh, Scott uh, Senator Scott Bright is on the um, Senate Education Committee and then I believe uh, Representative Gonzalez and Representative Garcia Sander on the
House Education Committee. So um again I won't spend a ton of time here. We don't have any actual bills. The general assembly starts on Wednesday. Uh we have seen some kind of proposed bills come forward. We know with school finance the budget does support K12 finance uh to the extent
that we need it to be funded. We know there's now some questions around how they're going to maybe make adjustments to the local share with that specific ownership tax. Um, if you do have any questions about that today, I'm going to defer that to our chief financial officer, Megan Sponsor, because she can answer kind of more specificities on
that. Um, but as uh Miss Barkus pointed out, that could lead to a pretty significant shortfall in um funding from the state level and then we would have to make that up at the local level. Um she had also mentioned this kind of disability and discrimination oversight that uh there's a bill that they're
attempting to kind of create a new office for civil rights through the state level just given the concerns that the office for civil rights at the federal level is going away. So they're not going to be able to uh an individual is not going to be able to bring a disability discrimination claim um
through OCR. And so they're attempting to kind of create something similar through CDE. I've reviewed the bill proposal. it it's workable, but right now it just doesn't mirror what federal law requires. Um, and it's just creating a lot of confusion. And so, uh, we're going to be working really closely with
the sponsors there. And, you know, ultimately, if this is something that that they want, uh, I'm guessing it's going to there's going to be a pretty big fiscal note that's attached to it because they're going to end up having to hire four or five more investigators just to address these disability claims.
Um, and with the budget that we have, it's I'm I'm doubtful that they are going to be able to pass something like that, but we'll see. Uh, academic achievement, we know that there's kind of this autoenrollment for gifted and talented students. If they pass a certain score, uh, the next year they're
automatically enrolled into an AP class, for example. And that's really just for rigor purposes to make sure that students are getting the highest level of education that they can get. and also that some students don't know that they might be capable to enroll in some of these classes and those tend to be kind of more the disenfranchised student
groups um that typically don't enroll in those AP classes. So, there is value to that. Uh I just think we need to think a little bit more about how that might work. Implementation for that wouldn't come for several years. Uh, I did throw the core bill on there, the Colorado Open Records Act, because I know that
the bill sponsor is going to be making more attempts to to look at that um with a little bit harder of a lens and maybe Governor Pulse will um accept or pass uh this version. And I don't know if there's anything else from this board, but um if not,
I'll leave some time for questions and comments. >> Would you be able to just share this? >> Yes. because that first slide was super was >> Yeah, we'll post it for you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I can also um I'll link to you a couple of pages on the general assembly's website and they give some pretty helpful overviews of this
process. So, and I think even Great Education Colorado has some pretty good information. So, >> again, I'm just grateful for you that that we've got your expertise that you can really know this language and the pressure is not on all of us to try to figure out all that out. So, I really
appreciate you. when we come back for our next legislative update, um perhaps we can dig in a little bit on where we are with the scholarship granting opportunity um that Governor Polus has opted into,
although it isn't legislation right now. We believe superintendents believe and advocates for public education believe that there may be a legislative action that stops that from being implemented, but once the governor
pushes it through, we don't know that there is. And so the superintendent last Thursday or Friday whenever I met with the front range superintendent, there was some question about would this be something that um attorney Phil Wiser
could take on in terms of legal action to to stop the flow of public dollars to private schools is the idea. >> Seems like is I mean I feel like we got an education. It was a breakout session
at Casby one time about all of the different attempts for voucher programs and that they've always been determined to be unconstitutional. >> Yeah. Uh unfortunately the this there's a situation now where um the federal
administration has made an opportunity for governors to grant to opt in or to choose to not opt in to the the scholarship granting opportunity for their state. And I think we've known we've known
long all along and for a long time that our governor is is an an advocate for private and charter schools. And he is he has not been able to get a voucher program into the state of Colorado as a
result of these other lawsuits. And this this may be an opportunity for him to make that happen on his way out. And that said, if if he's replaced next year, well, in 2027, well, he will be. He's term limited. Um, can the new governor replace? >> We don't know. The rule making has not
been written yet on this and and is not required to be done until December of 26. So, the rule making could go as long as December of 26 and then it would be implemented on January 1. So, what we don't of 27. What we don't know is could
the rule making say once you're in you're in? Could the rulem say once you're in you have to stay a minimum of x amount of time? We just there's very little we know. >> And I think it's it it's possible that the way the legislation at least is proposed that that that money could flow
to public programs and so maybe the general assembly could do something about that as well. Um so I just think there's a lot of unknown. It seems to be supporting private schools and private schools only, but at least the way that they're messaging it is that this money could be used for public purposes
>> as well. So, >> well, and I it seemed to me just reading about it in the paper, it's it's worded very deceptively. Um, so you read it and you think, "Oh, that's a good idea." >> Yeah. It's hard to understand. It's kind of hard to understand what they're what the
>> It talks about school choice and about supporting after school programming and supporting school choice for families and then it talks about a tax break and so we all like school choice. We do in Colorado and we like tax breaks >> in Colorado. >> So, yay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, we'll have to really pay
attention to that one too. >> Yep. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Let's debrief so we can eat some supper and we'll do reverse alphabetical. So, we'll let you go first, director.
>> Um, yeah, this has just been uh really interesting and helpful and um sounds like there's uh kind of a new concept for me anyway is the community schools. Um that is very exciting and I'm it's I
go to um these listen to TED talks and the the guy that I heard at Casby and then I find out that our district is already doing it. So uh that's been really exciting for me. >> Director Limos Garcia, >> who am I next?
>> We're doing reverse self. >> Reverse self. Um gosh, great meeting. Um lots to absorb. Um, I didn't think I was a processor, but definitely with the legislation information, it's a lot to process and a lot to learn. Um, I'm looking forward to
getting the copy of the PowerPoint and, um, the links that'll be attached just so I can learn more. >> Um, but good meeting, >> director Edmonds. >> Uh, yeah, grateful for the our student reps. Thank you again so much for
sharing your experience and being honest with us. um especially when it comes to just standing up for your fellow student which is very encouraging to me to see just like I have such pride in my community and my district but to see that from the students as well is amazing. Um community schools I'm all
for it. I mean that's that's that's my heart for this community. I was very excited about pillar four and pillar five, but knowing how all all five pillars will be very important to just provide a resource for our families who are struggling in a high risk community,
especially like Gley Evans area. Um very just encouraged. I loved when I walked to understand now when we walked by Madison Ear rebuilt and to see that sunrise sign there and be like, "Oh, that's really cool. What's that all about?" Now I now I know what that's all about. But just those little things that
we often take for granted for those of us who do own a washer and dryer, who can go to the doctor, who don't have to wake up in the morning and realize, oh, there's not enough food for my family. So to see that we can provide that for our students and their families, it's just goes back to the skateboarding
principle. Um, I know it didn't hit well with a lot of people there, but the idea of telling our students every day that I love you, um, and that that this is a way we can do that through community schools is just great. and then legislative uh update. Yeah, it's I think that's the part that I'm really
looking forward to just learning more of that process to just better understand it. Not to be the authority or to be able to to do anything that Nate does, but just uh grateful for the for that presentation. >> Yeah.
>> Um yep. So, ditto, as Kyle would say, um I work in a community-based health center and that is the model we have is wraparound services. So, on site I'm the doctor, but there's also an optometrist and in our system there's a dentist and
we have social workers and we have therapists um all in one spot. And I know our families trust us so much because of that. and they'll often come to us instead of going to the emergency department, which is often where they should have gone. Um, but I know it does
build these communities of trust. Um, so I just I love that we're expanding that into into education and thanks Nate for the update. I loved your what did you call it? Rocking >> school of rock. >> School of rock. >> School of rock. >> Schoolhouse rock.
Well, >> school of rock. School of rock would still be just next. >> I can go next. >> Okay. >> Uh yeah, the thanks to um you guys for the the community updates on the schools. That's
um one of the things that those guys talked about and it you can kind of see the importance and it's it's a really cool feature and I think it's going to have a tremendous ROI. So, I'm I'm fully on board there. And um I think Nate, if you you do the math, four years of uh
being half awake, I've got two solid years of info in now. So I appreciate everything you do and keeping us up to date. So looking forward to it. >> Yeah, I agree all around. Um I am interested in knowing more about the scholarship program that you spoke
about, uh Dr. Pelch, and how that's going to be how that is going to be facilitated. >> Me too. Yeah, I and the impact it's going to have. I think that's going to be a big issue. So,
>> yeah, it was a great meeting. Thank you to our students. Thank you for sharing. Thanks to hear um all about how you enjoyed CASBY and um it is really our team building and our professional development opportunity. Um thank you to Amy and Deerra and whoever else
organized the legislative preview. It was so well attended. um which also is just exciting that so many leaders in our community are hearing the same information. >> Um community schools and like I think you said Robin like it's fun when we're
already doing some of the things that we're hearing about at CASBY. So um it seems like we were yeah halfway or more than halfway there towards the community school. So excited to have like a very um specific plan and then yeah the legislative session is going to be
interesting and um I always appreciate those updates and we have robust conversation on that. So thank you all. Uh this meeting is adjourned. Go get some dinner. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Part: 2
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Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [music] [music] [music] [music] Heat. [music] [music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Good evening and welcome to the board of education meeting for Gley Evans School
District 6 on January 12th. This meeting will now come to order. Please join us for the pledge of >> allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, liberty andice for all. Miss Lemon, will you please call the role? >> Director Zari, >> present. >> Director Bentley, >> present. >> Director Campos Spitzy, >> present. >> Director Edmonds, >> present. >> Director Limos Garcia, >> present. >> Director Mash,
>> present. >> Director Roi, >> present. >> All board members, present. >> Well, we want to welcome you all back to second semester. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and um just restful time. Happy new year. Um we are off and running with our new board members have
already done a school visit to Brentwood Middle School and we're excited for all the all the school visits, all of the events, getting to celebrate the great work being done here in District 6 and we know this semester is going to fly by. Um today we were able to attend a
legislative preview hosted by District 6 and UNC um just to see what kinds of challenges um priorities that our legislators have and uh we really appreciate them being there and available to answer questions and to you
know see their community and see what is important to us and how we um can serve our students and our families the best. Um, something fun you might all want to attend is the Central West basketball game this Thursday night, our cross town rivalry. Um, always a lot of fun to um
to watch our athletes compete and and see them all, you know, come together and see their friends from middle school after um some excellent sportsmanship. So, thank you for joining us this evening. Um, our first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. This is
an action item. I move that the board of education agree school district 6 approves the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Is [clears throat] there any discussion on the motion? >> Seeing none, Miss Lemon will please give us a vote. >> Director Zari >> I.
>> Director Bentley >> I. >> Director Campos Spitzy >> I. >> Director Edmonds >> I. >> Director Lemos Garcia >> I. >> Director Mash >> I. >> Director Roi >> I. Motion carries 70. And I apologize, I should make a note in my agenda, but I also want to recognize
our council of student representatives um members that are here with us this evening. Um they also shared their experience attending the CASBY um conference and and all that they learned as students. So, thank you always for your input and for being here.
Um I will now pass it over to Dr. Pilch for her honor role. Thank you, President Matthews. I am honored, President Matthews. Oh my goodness. What? Old habits die hard. President Mash, you know, I was just
thinking I'm gonna do the honor roll. I'm not going to mess up my superintendent comments with the honor roll and then I call you President Matthews. Okay. >> Couldn't be a better mess up. I >> Thank you, [laughter] President Mash. Thank you. Um I am honored to recognize uh an individual and an organization
tonight in my superintendent's honor role. And the individual I want to honor um is a student from Bell Romero Academy. Axel Guerrero Hina Hosa is a recent winner of the Gley Philarmonic Orchestra's Magic Baton Melody Contest.
The Magic Baton Melody Contest is a composition contest um where local music students in grades 2 through 12 uh participate in the contest and Axel is this year's winner. Um, here to tell us more about the award is our specials
coordinator, uh, Mrs. Kathy Aari. And Axel, come on up. Hello, Dr. Pilch and board. This is an exciting time because we get to celebrate uh, students making music in collaboration with our community. and
Ben Barnhart, the um CEO of the Gley Philarmonic Orchestra, was planning to be here to tell a little bit more about the actual contest. But uh we also have uh Axel's teacher, Dee Flanigan, and she
will be telling us about Axel and how this came to be. Flanigan. >> Hi, my name is also Dearra Flanigan. Um, yeah. And, uh, I'm Axel's piano teacher.
I get so excited when there's another deer in the room. Um, I teach piano at Bell Romero. Um, I've been lucky to have Axel in three semesters of piano over the last two years. Um, he's such a hardworking student and so friendly and
helpful and open and kind to all of his peers. Um, and we had this opportunity for Mr. Dylan Fixmer, the composer and residents from the Gley Philarmonic to come and teach a workshop to our students about how to write music. And
so he came and did the workshop. Um Axel was there and was so attentive and hardworking and tried his best even when sometimes things are uncomfortable when they're asked to write poetry and asked to play random notes on their instrument until they find something they like and
write it down. And then we turned the composition into a longer project in my class. So it was a unit where students continued to write their own poetry, their own music and um learn how to notate it properly on traditional music
staffs. And Axel was the first or second, I can't remember now, um student to finish. So, he was like really ahead of the game, really motivated. Um, and he wrote a song about helping other people, which didn't surprise me at all because he's an excellent student and an
excellent person. Um, and then he was honored at the Gley Philarmonic winter concert where Mr. Fixmer orchestrated a melody um or orchestrated a whole piece based off of Axel's melody. So, congratulations, Axel. Congratulations.
Congratulations. >> Congratulations, Axel. It's really quite an honor. Um, and then the next organization I want to recognize is actually uh one of our community partners here in the district. And I think as school board directors, you all know that we could not do what we do here in district 6 without the
tremendous support of our community partners. And and this is especially true for our students who need the most in the district, some of our students um with disabilities. And so I am honored tonight to recognize Highland Park Lanes Bowling Alley and um recognize Jackson
Danes and Zack Andress who are here with us tonight. Jackson and Zach and the team at Highland Park Lanes were nominated for the superintendent's honor role for their continued support of our students um by one of our amazing special education teachers. So um I'd
like to invite our executive director of student services, Tom Grible. Um and Judy, I think are are you here, Judy? Oh, there you are. Yes. To come up and tell us more about the recognition. Thank you. Good evening, board, uh, President Mash, uh, Dr. Pilch and
student representatives. Uh, I'm Tom Gribble, executive director of student services, and I'm excited to be here tonight to recognize our partners from Highlands Park Ranch. Uh, Highlands Park Lanes. I knew I was going to say that wrong. Um, it's been an outstanding partnership. Over 30 years, we have been
working together way before my days. um they have supported our unified bowling program, our special Olympics bowling um program and their continued commitment to our students with disabilities has made a meaningful impact on our entire community. And so we extend our sincere
gratitude to them and their dedication and their generosity. So if you think about it, even in recent years, a couple days, 32 lanes, back-to-back games, we're talking thousands and thousands of games of bowling. um in recent years,
but tens of thousands over recent um you know last four or five years. And so their generosity, their unwavering support and an outstanding community partner. Um and I at this time I'd like to introduce one of our finest D6 adaptive physical education teachers,
Judy Smeak. >> Um hi, my name is Judy Smeik. I'm an adapted physical education teacher in the district and this is my 23rd year in the district. Um, Zach and um, Jax Jackson at Highland Park Lanes have been
so great to work with over the years. Um, we want to thank them for their commitment to hosting Special Olympics and adaptive physical education events for students with special needs in our district. Um, they've collaborated with our adaptive physical education teachers
and Special Olympics Colorado. um to host our school day special Olympic bowling events um for students with intellectual disabilities and students with special needs in district six. Each year we host one elementary, one middle school, and one high school school day
event. Um this year we had students participate from 16 elementary schools with 180 students attending this year's event. Um, at our middle school event, we had 104 students participate from 10 middle schools and at the high school
event, we had 100 students participate from three high schools um for students with special needs. They've also worked with us um on having Chessa Unified um high school bowling practices and tournaments for several
years. In unified bowling, we had three of our high schools, each with separate teams, participate with over 60 students. Um, several of our young elementary students at our school day events, have enjoyed participating in ramp bowling. Ramp bowling is one of the
adaptations that's provided at Highland Park Lanes so that students with significant disabilities can participate by pushing the ball down the ramp. You know know that students are enjoying the activity when you see the big smile on their smiles on their faces. Tonight we
have two representatives from Highland Park Lanes, Zack Enders and Jackson Dinus. And um we'd like to uh welcome them to come up and say a few words. >> Rock paper scissors. >> Yes. Rock paper scissors.
Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Uh I'm usually the guy that does most of the talking. Jackson is the He's Yeah, he'll do some talking, but not usually. I've sprayed half of your shoes. Like I recognize half this room. I've sprayed them all. I've put your bowling balls
away. Um so I realistically I we can't thank you enough. I've been there for the whole 30 years we've done this. I'm just starting my 30 year. Um Jackson's grandpa actually brought me into the team 30 years ago and now he and I run this. So um it's an honor to be brought
in with you guys today. Um we can't thank you enough. It's just part of the community. Like we do our part, you guys do your part. So we can't thank you enough. Hope you guys come out and support us this summer as we bring in the pro tour for the seniors. And we just signed a contract we're going to have the women bring in as well. So uh
CBS will be here this summer with us broadcasting a lot of that. I hope you guys can swing through in the month of May, check out some Pro Bowl and bring it into Gley, Colorado. So, thank you. Sorry. Um, I just want to say we've been working with these guys for I mean, it's
I've been there for 17 years now and the uh support staff, the teachers, all the um volunteers, they do amazing work and I'm just really happy that we get to work with them every year. So, thank you all very much. wants us to fancy right now. >> Yeah, let me do it.
>> So much squish. Squish a little bit. There you go. >> Perfect. President Mash, I see that um our executive director at the Gleyfield Harmonic, uh Ben Barnhard, has come into the back of the room and so I'd like to
introduce Ben. And Ben, I don't know if you wanted to say a few things about Axel and about the program. I suspect that you do. If that's okay, Mrs. Nash. >> Thank you, Dr. Pilch. And I apologize for being late. I had another presentation just before this that I was
late getting out of. So, I just wanted to be uh someone who also uh congratulates and and thanks Axel for all of his hard work and putting the the composition together um and the melody that we ended up playing at the Gley Philarmonic concert. So congratulations to you, sir. Um, and I want to give you
just a really brief background on that contest just so that you're a little bit aware of how it works and who runs it and uh who's interested in participating. So uh the Gley Phil has a real initiative to uh provide music education in the community. We're not
just about our wonderful worldclass symphonies, but we also want to go out into the schools and make sure that people have access to resources and um they understand career pathways that are available to them in the arts. And so that's what this magic baton melody contest is really about. It's what it's
about. It's about career pathways and uh exposing folks to careers like uh composers, um music directors, librarians, production managers, executive directors, things like that. So, we hope that that this experience uh
inspires you, Axel. Um, and I want to give all the credit to Mr. Dylan Fixmer. Mr. Dylan Fixmer is the one that brought this to the Gley Field Harmonic. I was just on the board at that time and he brought that uh this contest to us in 2022. So far, we've already impacted more than
400 students. Um, so what they do is Dylan will go into the uh schools uh all we serve grades ages 2 through 12. So he's going into elementaryaries, he's going into middle schools, and he's going into high schools. And we run two
contests per year. One for the middle school, elementary school level, and then one for the high school level. Um and what he does is he'll engage with the students with the permission of the music instructors and he'll perform composition workshops which is really
really enlightening. Uh if you've ever had a chance to watch him um what he does is he takes students through the thought process of taking something like an emotion attaching it to a musical note and then multiplying that over and over and over. And he does it through
film primarily is how he gets started. So, it's really fascinating how he connects one art medium to another art medium. Um, once he gets the basics down, he'll ask students to write a melody. If the students feel comfortable and confident, they'll actually submit
the melody to the Magic Baton Melody Contest. And I've got some figures for you. In fiscal year um 25, which is about a year ago, we had 128 entries into that contest. And then this year, just at the middle school level, now we're talking elementary and middle,
we're not quoting high school numbers, 119 entries across the board. So, this is what Axel has done. He has uh outperformed in many ways the other 118 entries, although we appreciate every single one of them and we think it
changes lives. Once Dylan gets that melody, he'll actually turn around and orchestrate it and have it arranged for professional symphony orchestra. And what it amounts to is at the beginning of u these two Glyfield harmonic concerts is they'll play several bars,
several measures of of the uh finished melody that Dylan has arranged for symphony orchestra. So it starts with a a class and then it grows into a seed and that seed is planted and then it's um really exposed uh to the to the
general Gleyfield harmonic uh audience twice a year. So, we're grateful for the partnership of School District 6 and uh for everything that you all are doing. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you for being here. I was just wondering, is there a recording available of Axel's song?
>> Uh there is. Um we can share that. We can share that great someone. Yeah, I'll work with Amy and we'll get that out to you all. >> Any other questions I can answer? >> We appreciate your partnership. Thanks for being here. >> Thanks so much. All right. So, you're I'll finish with
your honor roll. Yes. Okay. And then moving on, um we have another special item, school board recognition month. And I believe I will hand this over to our council of student representatives. Good evening. I will be reading the school board proclamation.
Whereas school board members are elected to sit in trust for their diverse communities and that in capacity are charged with meeting the community's expectations and aspirations for the public education of their students. And
whereas school board members are elected to serve these students of Gley Evans School District 6 and remain steadfast in their commitment to furthering student achievement and expanding opportunities through the continued intim implementation of the district's
strategic plan innovation 2030. And whereas schoolboard members are entrusted with the guardianship and wise expedential of tax dollars and they are responsible for manditating and preserving the buildings, grounds and
other areas of school districts that the community has put in their trust. And whereas school board members provide the essential leadership necessary to ensure a clear shared vision of public education, setting high standards for
the success of every student and demanding the effective and efficient operation of the district. And whereas school board members adopt vital policies to give voice to that leadership and employ a superintendent
to administer these policies while maintaining diligent oversight of district performance and compliance. And whereas the individuals elected to these positions deserve our profound recognition and gratitude for their
countless hours of volunteer service and their unwavering advocacy for the students of our district. Therefore, I, Sarah Venegas, president of the Council of Student Representatives, on behalf of
the students of District 6, do hereby declare my sincere appreciation to the members of the board of education of Girley Evans, District 6, and proclaim the month of January 2026 as school
board recognition month in District 6. I urge all students, staff, and citizens to join me in recognizing the dedication and hard work of our local school board members as we work together to mold an
education system that meets the needs of both today and tomorrow's students. Thank you very much, Miss Vangas. And thank you all. And once again, we're we're very excited for our new board members who have
joined us, and we're going to get a lot of good work done together. Our next item on our agenda is a report from our council of student representatives, specifically Maria Duran Santiago and Natalie Anne Perez from the District 6
online academy. >> Pressure, huh? >> Good evening, board of directors. Uh, President Mash, both start with an M. I also almost did that. Um, and Dr. Pilch, it is my pleasure to introduce two amazing navigator student leaders at D6
online academy. Uh, Maria Duran Santiago and Natalie an Perez. Good evening board of directors, President Mash, and Dr. Pilch. My name is Maria Doris Santiago and I am a junior at District 6 Align Academy. Today I am grateful for the opportunity
to stand before you and to share the great work happening in our school as well as a strong and supportive community we help build together. I am proud to say that we have some amazing schools in our district. But let's be real, online learning in is the future of education in many professions. That's
why District 6 online academy helps prepare all of its students by building the digital literacy skills they need to succeed. We use many internet based systems that allow people to work, learn, communicate, and share information digitally. Thank you, District 6, for making it possible for all students to have access
to the digital resources and technology to succeed. This school year, District 6 online academy implemented the use of two very important online platforms. The Cammy program plays a critical role in our online school by improving accessibility and ensuring all students can meaningfully engage with academic
content by offering flexible notation, text speech, and collaboration tools. Cami expands the resources available to support student learning and academic [snorts] success. We understand that students learn differently and some of us may need a little extra support to be successful. That is why our school provided lexia
power up to help build skills in word study, grammar and comprehension that give us lessons at our level and the support we need to better understand our schoolwork. This has led to great growth in our classrooms and increased confidence in our classes. These are only two of the many platforms we use on
a daily basis and we cannot ignore those who ensure all of our digital resources work without issue. So a special thank you to our IT department and cyber security team. Our school makes every effort to support learning where students are at and it has changed how school feels for me personally. My time
in district 36 online has been amazing. Back when used to attend in person, I was constantly behind on my assignments and my grades weren't ones I was proud of. I also [snorts] struggled with socializing with others in person. Even though I had amazing teachers who made me feel comfortable and welcomed, I
still struggled to ask for help. Ever since I was in fourth grade, I have trouble interacting with other people and often change schools due to problems. At District 6 online academy, I feel comfortable asking for help and I am able to freely express myself without having to worry what others might think.
For example, during my first semester of sophomore year, I was getting F, C's, and B's. But now, my first semester of junior year at District Online Academy, I have earned all A's. I am truly thankful for my classes and teachers because teachers can easily send us a message in the Zoom chat compared to traditional school where the teacher has
to go around the class and take time with each individual student. I am truly grateful for District 6 online because they've helped me make all these positive changes in my life. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today to share some of the successes of our school as well
and as well my experience. Now I will have my classmate address you as well. Good evening, board of directors, President Mash, and Dr. Pilch. My name is Natalie Anne Perez, and I am a senior at District 6 online academy. Today, I
will be sharing my story of how our school has supported me and the flexibility it provided me that other students might benefit from. Online learning can be very isolating and you need to know or you need to have the drive to get the work done. But it
does not mean you are alone. We have amazing teachers and adults in our corner to offer help to further support our students. The District 6 online academy offers a flexible learning environment where students can
seek emotional or social support as well as mandatory in-person meetings. Time for students who may be struggling with academics. As a student who has experienced this, I understand the importance of the flexibility aspect
and enjoy coming in to work with Miss EMTT and the administrative team. I encourage all students to take advantage of this opportunity which makes our school unique and supportive. I'm really excited to hear Mr. Awesomeus and our
administration team are working on an ex working on exploring a self-paced program for students who need even more flexibility. This is just one more way our school continues to grow and listen to what students need. I'm confident
this program will be just as strong and supportive as the one we have now. And most importantly, students will know they are not alone. I hope students across District 6 take advantage of the self-paced program as and support
supported by District 6 online academy. This will allow even more students the chance to succeed in the way that works best for them just as I did. I never came to school purely for academics. What mattered most to me was the emotional support it provided. During
the critical transition into high school, I struggled to find I struggled to find that support at Gley West. I felt unseen and need and my needs were not being met. As a result, I began to fall behind. Not because I lacked capability, but because I lacked
confidence and guidance. The experience forced me to confront challenges I was not prepared for at the time. I had to relearn how to believe in myself and more importantly how to advocate for my own needs. While the journey was difficult, it shaped who
I am today and taught me the power of support, resilience, and self- advocacy. All thanks to District 6 online academy. I began this journey as a frightened freshman. And I stand before you as a superhero senior.
I'm pro proving you you that you are always allowed to have your cake and eat it too. Junior year became the turning point that shaped me into the student I am today. I enrolled into one college course and I stepped taken
slowly and intentionally with the support I needed to build confidence. I was an average student, but I was a resilient one. You could have never guessed that I was a student who was receiving special services and I refused
to be placed in a box. My education experience till district six showed me what special is, better, greater or otherwise different from what is usual. We have full power to be better than how we got here and we will leave better
than when we better than what we will be better when we leave. As of this previous semester, I have achieved the GPA I have always wanted, achieving a 3.0 at the CTE Center, working with the help of Lauren Applehans to become the
teacher students deserve, and a 3.0 at District 6 online academy. I have been working hard to achieve the opportunity to prove my potential. As of now, I am done with all high school courses and I'm moving to my Ames career once more this spring. I have balanced being a
high school a high school student and being placed in concurrent enrollment from AS and UNCC while remaining with my home high school to provide all the support I could possibly need. Constant check-ins and even going over plans for each semester to make sure I continue to
follow building my toolbox in college. I gained my my strength from the encouragement of my home high school. This is not just a statement. It is something deeply personal to me. No matter where I go or what I achieve,
my home will forever be District 6. This journey was never a negative experience. It was an opportunity to grow, to rise, and to discover my own strengths. It was a challenge to become a superhero. And I want everyone to remember this. Students
are superheroes learning how to control their powers at a young age with the right support, encouragement, and belief to become a superhero. Thank you to District 6 for supporting me on my journey and Kheimman
Elementary, Brentwood Middle School, and most importantly, District 6 online academy. These schools and staff members left a lasting impression on me forever and it will inspire me to pursue a career in teaching. I will take the love
and care I received and share the same love and care with the future students in District 6. I am overly excited to return and become the model superhero that will lead District 6 students further emotionally and academically in
the classroom as a teacher. Thank you. Thank you both. And we have a comment from Dr. Campo Spitzy. >> So, um, thank you for being interested in teaching. We look forward to having you apply to a district 6 job. Um, but I
actually have a question. Um, when you decided to do online school, what made you decide on District 6 and not some of the other schools in town like Goal Academy? And >> um, what really made my decision really set is that I knew my problem was is
that I had really bad anxiety. I walked in the halls and since you're a freshman, you're a frightened freshman, you kind of get pushed around and you're smaller than everybody else in your classes and you're kind of just overwhelmed by a lot. And I knew if I chose District 6 online academy, I would
be able to choose comfort because it's not only at home, but it's also district 6. And I know District 6 will provide the support that I needed to get back on track. Thank you. Any more comments or questions?
>> I'm curious for Maria to answer that question, too, just because there's a lot of online options in town, right? It's not just um D6 online academy. There's also Goal Academy. So, I'm curious how you cho why you chose District 6 over some other online schools in town.
>> Well, I chose District 6 because I think that's a really good district, but I just had a bunch of problems with my other schools. But I still thought that District 6 was a really great district. So I decided to stay here and not like give up that good opportunity or to
keep. So yeah, >> thank you, Miss Beng. >> This is more of just a comment because I see you both in CSR and you're both CSR members and I just love hearing from you guys. You guys are just amazing. So just
kudos to you guys. Maria, you're usually very um quiet, kind of kept to yourself. So, I love seeing you out of your shell and learning more about you. And Natalie, always so spontaneous and amazing. So, I just love hearing from you both and all the positive things and your amazing experience within our
school district that just continues to build you as leaders and proves why you're part of CSR. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. I think my favorite part about getting the the CSR updates from each individ individual school is obviously the
students always have such great pride in their school and each building has a different or not building um has its own culture and flavor and um something unique. So we really enjoy hearing your experiences and thank you for taking your Monday night to be with us.
>> Thank you guys. Have a great semester. you. Oh, thanks for providing it. >> You're [laughter] welcome. >> All right. And now we are moving on to our superintendent's report. So, I'll pass it back to Dr. Pilch. Thank you so much, President Mash. I'll
start with uh congratulating and thanking you all u for National School Boards Appreciation Week. Um, you as the as Sarah said, you do so much and you you do do this um as a volunteer and and you choose to come and serve our
students and our staff and our families and our community and I thank you for that. Um, I could not do the work I do without the board of education who we have serving district 6. So, thank you for that. And then I wanted to share that um we have launched a K through3
literacy achievement initiative and some of you have heard me talk about this in the past um but we'll come before you at our next work session and and go more deeply into this literacy initiative but I wanted to share with you that uh we contracted with an organization called
West Ed who we've contracted with before who actually helped us uh with our work around uh developing our plan for our mult multilingual learners uh many years ago when I was in my early years here in the district. We worked with them and we've seen tremendous results um because
of that work. And so we are working with them. They've been here in the district. They were here in December. Um and then again uh they're back this month and then we will several of us will go through a a a training of the work that they will do with us here in the district when we go into classrooms. And
then they will be back later this month and will be in every one of our schools. They won't be in every classroom, but they will spend some time in in every school. And so, I just I want to put that on your radar. You may hear some talk about that um in the school community. Uh we have um conducted a
town hall with all of our teachers K through three. We put that a copy of that town hall and some additional information in your weekly bulletin. So, you have that if you want to take a look. If you haven't looked at it yet, it's about 50 minutes. So, maybe you want to just go fast forward through it.
Right, Jenny? So, uh, Jenny Jensen, our director of literacy, um, and elementary ed, has been helping, uh, helping with this and leading this initiative. Not just helping, really leading this initiative alongside with Lisa McGee, our coordinator for language arts and
literacy. So, lots of help and lots of work going into this. And I'm really excited about this work. We uh we have seen some pretty significant growth, but we're not seeing our achievement line up with um with [clears throat] the the level of work that's going into this.
Our teachers and administrators are working so hard in the building. And there's a disconnect between the hard work they're putting in and the results that we're seeing. And so what the initiative is about is really looking at what are the barriers, what's getting in the way that we've got this disconnect that's occurring uh between the high
level of work that's occurring and and really the performance data. So I look forward to sharing more with you about that um in the future. And then finally, I would just like to take a moment and and recognize um the passing of of a of a great and amazing leader here in our
community, Mr. Robert Twiton, uh who went by Bob. and and Bob passed away on December 27th at 92 years of age. Um he lost his wife Betty um in in 2020 during COVID. And so there will be a celebration of life later for both Bob
and Betty. Um but um I want to talk just a little bit about Bob and his really significant impact on education and on our community. Bob and Betty did so much for the entire community. um they gave to scholarships, they gave they gave to
um nonprofits here in our community. There is not I I would venture to guess there is not a nonprofit in our community that has not benefited from their philanthropy and their giving hearts. And uh we certainly benefited from that here in district 6. Uh Bob started the student recovery program
which was a program for 10th graders um for males who partic mostly males who were behind in credits and who were not on track to graduate. And the intent of the program um was to design an intervention that would get students to graduation on time. We own that program
now in district 6. I was honored uh when we finally had the mill levy override dollars that I could go to Mr. Twain and say how about we take that program into the district now. um and you won't feel a responsibility to fund that forever. Um he also was critical in our
implementation of the blended learning initiative. Um this was when we first began to introduce devices into the classroom. We found that blended learning was one of the most impactful strategies with our English language learners. What we found was that in classrooms uh with English language
learners, those that had the blended learning tools were outperforming those students who were in classrooms who did not have that. And Mr. Twiton helped us to fund that initially before the passage of our first mill levy override. And I'll just say we probably would have never uh had the courage to go for a
mill levy override or passed one without his wisdom and his guidance. Uh Bob was one of just a few leaders here in the community who served on a business advisory committee uh with with our staff and me and who advised us on how to on how to begin to think about a mill
levy override and what that might mean for district 6 so that we could bring a package to the board of education to consider for the first mill levy here in override here in district 6. He also served on our bond committees, our bond advisory teams and helped helped advise
on that as well. Um he also helped to implement our success foundation um discovery labs or what you've known as the smart lab um with his significant contributions his em and Betty's in 2022 we were honored to be able to name the
twinton pre-engineering academy um after Bob and Betty Twinton and to have his name as a as a legacy here um on our prek through 8 uh pre-engineering academy I I think many of you know that Bob was an engineer by trade and he was
deeply dedicated to public education because um public education changed the trajectory of his life and he became a civil engineer um at Kate. They were big supporters of Kate as well and leaders
um during their time there at Kate and so I just can't say enough about him. The final thing I want to mention is the Twiton um Institute for Educational Change that at at UNC and Bob implemented that. Um it was run for
decades by Janet Elhorn who just retired last year. Um but that institute was was and is intended for educators throughout the state of Colorado, teachers and administrators. Um and he he when he talked to me about the instit institute, what he shared with me was that he he
invested in that and developed that because he so believed in the importance of developing people and the importance of providing leadership opportunities for people and um he will be greatly missed. Um he and Betty leave an amazing legacy here in our community and our
state and really throughout the country and I think we are honored to be able to call him a friend and an adviser. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Pilch. The next item is an update on our I2030 uh student learning and achievement goal
2 artificial intellig intelligence task force update. Thank you, President Mash. I see um Mr. Osmus, assistant superintendent, and uh Dean Andrews, director of curriculum instruction assessment, and uh Tony Czech, our chief information officer, coming to the podium uh to give you an
update on artificial intelligence. As you all know, um artificial intelligence is here. Uh and it it is a it is a freight train and we're we're trying we're trying to stay on the train um rather than be run over by the train. So um we want to share with you tonight
where we are with uh thus far with our AI task force. It was just a little over a year ago we came to you and had had just implemented a task force around artificial intelligence. So, uh, with that, Mr. Osmosis, I'll turn it over to you and your team. >> Thank you, Dr. Pelch, President Mash, Vice President Bentley, members of the
board, uh, and Dr. Pelton, council, um, of student reps. My name is Anthony Ospen. I'm the assistant superintendent of secondary leadership and graduate of the Titon Institute. So, thank you for mentioning that. Tonight, Dr. Deed Andrew is our secondary curriculum
instruction and assessment and Mr. Tony our chief information officer and I will present an innovation 2030 strategic plan update on how we are supporting artificial intelligence or AI. This is an exciting but challenging effort
across 23,000 students and 3,000 educators where some embrace AI, some are cautious but all need support. AI is here in all forms and we embrace the work. Just this w last peak last
week alone, I saw my eighth grade son interacting with AI to support his writing in school. My fourth grade daughter begged for an AI puppy. And my oldest daughter just told me that my new favorite song and artist is AI.
[sighs] Here it comes. So all of our strategic work is grounded in our mission and our vision and our values. Of the four focus areas found in our strategic plan, artificial intelligence is outlined in student learning and
achievement. Student learning and achievement is where we engage all students in a challenging personalized education preparing all students to be college and career ready. Our strategic plan contains goals and this work is found
under the goal to implement consistent and coherent aligned curriculum assessment and instructional practices that are researchbased to ensure that all students learn. AI is connected to two objectives in our strategic plan. to support educator
instructional practices, to promote access and equity for all students, and to implement a professional development plan to ensure quality teaching and learning. And our major outcome for this has been to develop and implement an artificial intelligence task force to
provide leadership and instruction and assessment, which we have done. There are four main action steps in our strategic plan for this work. First, to support teacher efficacy and effectiveness by connecting instructional practices to district
achievement goals and to provide high quality professional development to our educators. Another is to support achievement by using AI to enhance the curriculum. I'll say it again, to enhance the curriculum to support students and then to update policy um as
needed and that is everchanging. This slide captures our AI task force members that lead this work and pilot many of our AI programs so that we can plan and respond. A big shout out and thank you to this group of district teachers and staff.
We know we cannot do this work alone. So we do participate in a statewide collaborative effort led by the Colorado Education Initiative, sometimes referred to as CI. There are eight districts in all and is collaborative and four industry partners which include Magic
School, IBM, AI edu and Sparkf fun. This collaborative meets periodically through the year to support each other on AI implementation and it's nice to have a thought partner to dig deeper and share how we support teachers and students
with AI. I'll turn this part over to Dr. Dean Andrews. >> Uh thank you Mr. Rasmus and I do just want to acknowledge kind of what everybody's been talking about in terms of uh what the landscape currently is with AI. Uh there's a lot of noise out
there right now with AI and the reality of it is there are over 300 uh tools dedicated specifically to K12 education. Um and there are such an incredible number that are coming onto the market
now. And so the reality is we also know that there that we need to be really thoughtful and make sure that we don't get caught up in the next big thing. Uh we also acknowledge that there are some legitimate concerns around academic
integrity and cheating. And so our AI task force has been charged with cutting through the noise and helping us have real clarity uh for our educators and our students. And so what you see on the current slide is a framework that we've
created uh to help support our teachers and our students with that level of clarity. And so we want to use AI as a tool that enhances our student thinking, not replacing it. And that's a really critical component of the work that we're doing. Uh and so to guide
students, teachers can indicate that this is a red light assignment. And if a student had if a assignment is red light that means students need to complete the entire assignment on their own with no support from AI. If it's yellow then students can use AI as a brainstorming tool or to help them with outlining or
maybe they got stuck and to help get them started. If it is labeled as green students may use AI through the entire assignment process using it as a co-pilot as they complete their work. As we make this shift in education with
AI being everywhere, it's going to be important that we focus more on process and less on product. And so to help guide teachers with this as well, what we need to do when students turn in a final product is for them to also turn in their prompt
history showing what questions they asked II. Also showing the evolution of their work starting with their initial draft and notes and then developing into that final draft. So teachers can see the work that they did in the mental and thoughtful engagement that students
engaged in. And then of course we need to have the human edit where students put their own voice into it so we can see how they shaped it. Use their own thinking, their own voice to really shape the final product. We also know that in a world uh a
digital world that we live in, our AI task force knows that students need to develop an online maturity and we've done that through a K12 digital citizenship progression for all of our students that focus on five key components. Uh the first one being
healthy habits where students really need to be thoughtful and start creating boundaries for themselves around how they use devices and how often they use devices. We also need to make sure that our students in an online environment know how to be empathetic and show respect towards others to avoid cyber
bullying. We also know that students need to be incredibly thoughtful as they post things in an online environment because of the implications it could have for their reputation so that they really think before they post. We also know that our students need to
be very careful about how they share personally identifiable information so that we make sure they protect their data and maintain their privacy and safety. It's also going to be critical in a world ubiquitous with AI for students to understand AI, what are the
ethical, what are the biases AI has and also how they can engage with it to be uh productive members of society as they move forward. With that clarity, we've been very selective in the AI tools that we
brought in. One of the tools is Magic School. And what Magic School has provided, among many things, is an opportunity for students to engage with lesson planning that makes them more effective and more efficient. For example, they can push a button when they've created a lesson and provide
additional language supports for students or to help support a student who has a specific learning disability. Another tool that we've invested in is Course Mojo. Course Mojo seamlessly aligns with our EL education curriculum
at the middle school level. And what it does is it helps students by prompting them to dig deeper into text and engage in deeper analysis and also helps support them and push them to be more clear and provide better explanations inside of their writing. And the last
one I'm going to talk about is one we are considering with our 612 math adoption, EDIA. Uh this particular tool serves as kind of a math coach or tutor. as students work through problems and think critically, it will provide them with feedback on the things that they're
doing well and showing uh demonstrating mastery on, but it will also give them feedback on what they're struggling with or what their misconceptions are. It's really powerful in that it provides that kind of support in real time, but without providing answers.
The other thing it does is it provides teachers with a dashboard that shows let's say for example a student has a spec a group of students have a specific misconception. The tool will show them that group of students and then suggest instructional resources that they can use to help support students in
developing and addressing that misconception. Uh the next piece, the next slide uh that we're going to show is just a brief animation that shows how EDIA works with students and helps support them, showing them what they did well and what they
may have struggled with. With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over uh to Mr. Tony Czech uh to give you an update on policy. >> Thank you, Dr. Andrews. Good evening, President Mash.
board directors and Dr. Pilch, as we've discussed, our priority for us right now is updating our policy framework. We've already made some great strides and figuring out figuring out how AI fits into the classroom, but now we need
to zoom out and look at the entire organization. We want to build a framework that ensures we're being safe, secure, and very intentional about the tools we bring into the district. Essentially, this task force is going to look at our current rules, see what's missing, and create a clear road map for
the responsible use of AI and aligning with our district goals. But this isn't just an IT project. This work touches every corner of the district. That's why the group That's why this group we've assembled includes leaders and experts from across the organization
who have the authority to make these big picture decisions. We're already seeing some great strides and momentum here. For example, through the Elevate AI grant from the Colorado Education Initiative, our finance and IT teams recently went through professional development focused on the operational
side of AI. We're not just planning for the future. We're already building the expertise we need to manage it. Of course, we can't do this in a vacuum. Our stakeholders, the people who who will be most affected by this policies
are critical to our success. We're committed to a very collaborative progress process. We'll be hosting listening sessions, holding formal feedback rounds, and sending out surveys. We want to make sure that the final recommendations of this task force are shaped by the people who are
actually doing the work in our schools and offices every day. We know that managing a project of this scale takes time, especially if we want to do it right. This timeline established ensures we have the room to really listen to our
stakeholders and understand the implications of every policy recommendation. We want to be thorough, not just fast. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Asmus. >> Thanks, sir. >> Yep. And then we always know that we'll have
next steps with this. It's just ever changing. So we'll continue to work on the on the draft policy for the board to review. Um always continue to provide support to our teachers, to our families, to our students, and then continue to work on this three-year plan that seems to always change about every six months. So it could never catch up
to that. It just changes so fast. And then monitor the federal and state legislation. And I know there's a lot of a lot of monitoring of that right now and and just keeping track of that one so we know how to respond here in this district. So with that, we'd love to be able to answer any questions or hear any comments.
Thank you for the presentation. Dr. Campos Spitzy. >> So I don't know I don't think you'll be surprised uh to hear that I get really nervous about AI. Um, I I think it needs guard rails as you guys
have expressed. Um, when you talk about red light, yellow light, green light, I love the red and the yellow. The green makes me really nervous. [laughter] Um, this conversation came up recently at uh my trustee meeting at UNC, right?
We're having the same conversations at the university level and we have a a trustee who sits a student trustee who sits on our board and while um the faculty seem to be wanting to embrace AI
act Audra who's our student trustee was the one putting the brakes on on everyone in the room and saying you think students are doing this responsibly they are not they are cheating I am their roommates I am their friend and Um and so so I you know I
think we can't go into it with rosecolored glasses. We have to go into it with um with the knowledge that there is a huge temptation there. And um and teaching our students that AI is does
not critically think. It is a language learning module or whatever LLMs. Um it's good at predicting the next word you're going to write in a sentence. But so I I uh I'm so glad that we are putting so much thought into this. Um I
I don't want us to necessarily embrace it. [laughter] Um I don't think just because it exists it's a good thing. Um agreed that maybe the workforce is wanting kids to come out of schools being good prompt engineers and knowing
how to ask the right questions. Um, but I would hope that our teachers are always asking students where the primary source is coming from. Um, and not just what um, you know, chat GPT spit spit out at them. Um, and then uh on a final
note, because I could talk about this for a while, but I I do hope our our students are also learning about the environmental impact of AI and and uh the same student trustee joked that she had just finished a final for school and that she probably killed a forest doing it, you know, and um she with her
classroom. So, lots of reservations around this new technology. Um really want our kids to come out critical thinkers with original thought. Um, yeah, and am interested to see what you guys come up with as far as
drafting board policy. Interested to review that. Um, but I will review it with a critical eye, just so you know. >> Sure. >> Miss Beng. >> Thank you, President Mash. Um so as a student in the classroom we have um had
the opportunity to um use AI as a tool within our dual enrollment writing classes. Um I know there can be a lot of reservation around AI especially when used in writing. Um but that's why I really appreciate the use of the green
light, red light and yellow light. Um within our um class we implemented more of a yellow light. So our goal was to write the paper completely ourselves, use outside sources, scientific research
and a lot of um of those natural sources of our own ideas. And then after our paper was completely written, we were then able to sub um instructed by our professor to submit it into AI in order
for it to maybe solidify our ideas or give us a clear thought process of did we explain this the way we wanted to or is it just kind of gibberish in our minds because we write very differently than we talk. And sometimes AI was a
helpful um tool to further clear those sentences that might have been a little bit more confusing in the beginning. Um we did use it very cautiously. Our professor was very adamant about that. We were um to screenshot every question,
everything we implemented into AI, our writing, the questions we asked, the responses we got. Um, I think AI can be a helpful tool sometimes once you're using it in writing, especially for maybe those students who are struggling a little bit more. Um, there are tutors
available, there's teachers available. Um, sometimes students might struggle understanding a little bit of what tutors are trying to explain or maybe of what their teachers are trying to explain and AI can just be used as a tool. Um, of course, cautiously because
as Dr. Campus Vitzy pointed out it can be used in a not so positive way but overall if the students are using it cautiously within our writing class it definitely improved a lot of our students thought process as they finish up writing their papers. Thank you.
>> Thank you for sharing directors Garcia. >> I want to thank you for your presentation and the thoughtful process that you have in place and the timeline. And I feel it's important that um as a district that we do evaluate where we're at with AI um as our next generations go
into the workforce, it will be something that our workforce will be looking for. So we're teaching them about the responsibility about how to utilize it about the right times in the right places are certainly important as well. So I appreciate what you've presented
today. Um so thank you for that, >> Mr. Bentley. Yeah, thank you guys. Um, I don't envy your spot. I uh the the AI world is very exciting but very scary at the same time. It's it's rapidly evolving. Every
everything you guys are doing today basically is going to be outdated tomorrow as fast as it's moving and in times 10 by you know the day after that. Um there's an old saying the only two things there's for certain are death and taxes and and I like to add change onto that. It's death, taxes and change. And
so I I really believe if we don't prepare our students for for this, um I I don't believe it's going away, I don't think it's a fat unless the power goes out and then we got a lot of other issues to deal with. Um but as far as being a business leader, um we are we are
forced >> [sighs and gasps] >> uh whether you want to or not, you either you either have to adapt AI in your business or you're going to get left in the dust. and and we can see the the cost structure going so far down so quickly that if if you're not using AI, you're you're uncompetitive immediately.
Even in a welding shop, there's there's so many benefits to to AI that um if if we don't prepare our kids, we're going to be they're just we're we're kind of hob hobbling. It's we're taking them back a notch. So, um I am with Brenda. It is a little scary and I am reserved,
but I also I can see the value in in the real world and um I don't I don't think it would behoove us to keep our heads in the sand and pretend like it's not happening. So, thank you guys for looking forward as far as you can and till we get to a crystal ball. Um I don't know what more you guys can do,
but definitely appreciate the work. I also would like to know a little bit more about that AI puppy. So, >> I know, right? >> I hope you did see in the presentation how we're trying to keep this AI super tight. There's so many places that we can go and we're like keeping it tight and and under control. And check out the
AI puppy, right? It's out there. >> Yeah. There's literally no way to keep too many guardrails on it if they have access to a cell phone. I mean, it's I know >> you guys can do what you want. And >> if they have access to a cell phone, they have it >> wide open. So, for sure. >> Director Ozari.
So, I I I just have a couple of questions uh on the task force stakeholders when you're going to be having these listening sessions. Uh especially in regards to students, how how's that going to be done? I we have a
lot of students in this school district. Are we going to be going to the council of student representatives or are there specialized students with specialized skills that can also weigh in on the use of AI? >> Yes.
Thank you. I like that answer. >> Uh but in all seriousness, um we are getting together the invites for the initial organizing group to start putting together those types of things and who's involved in the stakeholders and this needs and I I was speaking to Dr. Pilch about this. This is a very
wide net because there are so many different stakeholders and so many different interests involved. So the more we get the better our product's going to be. So it's going to be all those groups. And then another question, it may sound a little funny, but are we going to be using AI to help AI write an
AI policy? [laughter] >> It'll enhance >> it'll enhance anything that we do, but it will not be the start. Um, just just like what was mentioned here before as the student writing samples, we make them write on our own. There is plenty of AI generated stuff out there. I don't
think we need to need to capitalize on the start of our work. Now, are there some good things in there that it's going to help us, you know, tailor things? Absolutely. I I can't I I would be I would be remiss if I told you right now that we're not AI is not gonna play a part in in the in the in the polishing
of some of these policies and and making sure that there's there's other things AI does. Deep research. Okay. So, AI is connected to actual scholarly research. It isn't just madeup stuff all the time. So, there are ways to fact check and and look at sources and verify that the information being sent to us is true. So
if that helps. >> Okay. And then finally just one other uh and that is it seems like an ambitious timeline to come up with a policy a draft policy recommendation by May 2026 and then uh following up on that the a
three-year implementation plan. Um are we actually going to be able to have a a draft policy ready in May in your opinion? >> That is the hope at this point. Um, I've got to start out being ambitious. >> Okay. >> All right. Thanks.
>> I think we can do it, >> Miss Medina. >> Um, I just wanted to say from a student perspective, I have seen the red light, yellow light, green light, and the paper trail um being implemented in my higher
level classes. Um, I feel like it's a really good framework um for students to be able to have a guide on how to use AI effectively and not get in trouble for using it. I feel like it's important for
um for people to teach students how to use it and not necessarily plagiarize or not use your own ideas. I just wanted to let you know that. Thank you. Director Edmonds.
>> Oh, good. My button works. Um, so first I I just want to say I think it's it's really important to keep that focus on the students maintaining their voice and I face I mean I'm in communications so I've even within it's almost a monthly thing and sometimes a daily thing of
what new AI thing can be there. Um, but it's really important for those students to keep their voice, for the district to keep their voice. Um, I try to tell my co-workers all the time who who who email me much better than they speak to me. Um, that that it's sometimes clear how AI is being used. My question though
is um, is there policy or within this of how teachers will use AI for essentially using AI to catch AI? My son shared an example of how most of his class or a good portion of his class got caught using AI and maybe it's part of because
they weren't using the red light, green light, yellow light, but is that part of the plan as well is just like how teachers can utilize it to kind of keep things in in check or because it sounds like I mean obviously a lot of it is for the students, how do how can the students use it but also maybe around
the teachers as well. >> It is part of the task force. It is part of the plan. Um, I would say that AI detection is as faulty as AI itself. And so we want to be really careful that we people that are doing that are probably doing that outside our scope. And so one
of the things that we'll want to do is train our teachers on how to try to identify AI and have that conversation with students. Um, but we there is not a there is not a failsafe policy that can just catch AI. And um there are some some colleges that are in lawsuits for
um for doing that to students and and coming back on the college. And so we want to be very careful and and we try to stay a part of that and we will stay in front of that with teachers. >> Director Roi, >> I wanted to comment um just because everybody else has commented. I felt like I needed to too. So, uh, but I
guess, you know, my, uh, concern with AI, um, just it's kind of a word that comes up and it strikes fear, um, in terms of just what the future means and what that looks like for us personally and for our students. And I, you know,
have been um in the conference we just went to, there was such an emphasis put on the uh relationships, the personal relationships between uh teachers and students and administrators and and teachers and students. And I it almost
feels like um teachers are almost being set up to be the AI police and you know spending a lot of time seeing if the kids are are um going with the green light when they shouldn't and that kind
of thing. So, I guess I kind of I um I think just because it's coming, it doesn't mean we have to embrace it just like everybody else does. >> And that we do need to keep focusing on those relationships uh with the kids and
the teachers. >> Thank you. And we'll continue to push the the product of a process. I want to see your work. I want to monitor your work. I want to see what you're doing and give you feedback every day. Well, thank you very much for your presentation. I was going to make some
snarky comment when you were walking up like AI, what's the big topic? Obviously, every single person up here has talked about it and it's, you know, like some of the biggest problems that face our students are so much bigger than us and we are trying to do the best
that we can to manage it. I just wanted to call out that I really love the digital citizenship and especially that there's an ethical, you know, artists makes make art and then AI steals it. And you know, plagiarism, you always I always think of of writing, but there's
all kinds of plagiarism. Um, so that our students really understand and and I Yeah, it's like it's exciting. I I love using it for like make me a cartoon picture of this, you know? I I use it for cheesy things, I guess. But
um but human beings are we created the the technology we are creative beings and so I just hope we don't lose our humanity as we have created things to replace ourselves. Um and then I'm sure that this is part of like freshman
English class. But I I think my biggest concern with AI is is how to recognize what is real, what is good material, what is peer-reviewed scientific articles. Um, you know, I've seen so many videos, they they look better and better. It's so hard to distinguish what
is fake and what is real. So, um, I just hope that we have robust instruction on that for our students to have that discernment. Um, and it might be an ambitious timeline, but like Mr. Bentley said, we're probably already too late. Not too
late, but I mean, so I really appreciate the thoughtfulness. I mean, every big mis decision we make in District 6, I think we've historically done a good job of contacting all the stakeholders. And so I really appreciate that you're going to do that as well. And I think May sounds great. So, as you know, as as
thorough without, you know, rushing as we can be, but at least to have something in place and obviously it's going to be probably the most updated policy that we're going to have. So, so thank you all very much. Thank you for presenting this. I'm sure there might be follow-up questions, you know, in in the
future, but we appreciate you. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> The next item on the agenda is public participation. and I don't believe anyone's signed up to speak with us. So, we would like to now approve our consent
agenda, which is an action item and requires a motion. >> I move that the board of education agree school district 6 approves items as presented on the consent agenda and authorizes the officers to sign any and all contracts. >> Second. >> Any discussion on the motion?
>> Seeing none, Miss Lemon, will you please give us a vote? >> Director, >> I. >> Director Bentley, >> I. >> Director Campos Spitzy, >> I. Director Edmonds >> I. >> Director Lemos Garcia >> I. >> Director Mash >> I. >> Director Roi. >> I.
>> Motion [laughter] carries 70. >> Our next item is um to the approval. No, I miss I think I'm ahead of myself. Board priorities. Yes. Public notice of meetings and designated posting sites. Um this is also an action item and
requires a motion. I move that the board of education agre school district 6 approves a district website as a designated posting site for the public notice of meetings. >> Second. >> Um is there any uh discussion or Dr. Pilch, would you like to say anything about this? We have to post where our
where the information regarding our meetings will be and we choose our district website. That's how the public knows when we're meeting and what we're talking about. So pretty straightforward. All right, Miss Lemon, will you please give us a vote? Director Zari >> I. >> Director Bentley. >> Hi. >> Dr. Campos Spitzy. >> Hi. >> Director Edmonds.
>> Hi. >> Dr. Lamos Garcia. >> I. >> Director Mash. >> I. >> Director Roi. >> I. >> Motion carries 70. >> And our final item is the approval of updated school performance frameworks. This is also an action item. >> I move that the board of education of
Weld County School District 6 approve the revised school accreditation ratings as presented. >> Second. >> Dr. Pilch. We have a presentation or Yes. Thank you, President Mash. Um, so we have some good news for you. Uh, we did, uh, appeal to the state board of
education on three of our schools on their school accountability performance rating and those have been approved by the state board of education. So, you appro you have already approved the old rating and so we need to bring you back to you the new recommendation from the
state of Colorado for your consideration tonight. So, uh, because, um, not all of our board members were seated at the time of the last approval, uh, I've asked Mr. Osmus to just quickly go through what the different, uh, ratings mean for for all the board members and then to present the new ratings. Thank
you. >> Thank you, Dr. Pilch. Um, as shared in the October 13th presentation, schools are accredited in one of four categories, and the Colorado Department of Education assigns a school plan type. It's either performance, which is the
highest a school can be awarded, improvement, priority improvement, or turnaround based on the results um from the standardized test, CMAS test. This last fall, District 6 requested the Colorado Department of Education to
reconsider the accreditation statuses for three schools. Central to improvement, Centennial to Performance, and Maplewood to improvement, which were all approved by the Colorado Board of Education on December 10th, 2025. This means that now 19 schools are at
the performance level, the highest rating. This is the highest number of schools at the performance than we've ever had. These include for elementary, Centennial, dos Rios, Martino, Martinez, and Mfort, Chapel, Fred, Chardis, Mcola, Titon, and Winterrad. All middle
schools, Heath, Brentwood, Franklin, and Prairie Heights are at performance, and so is Early College Academy. Charters at performance include Frontier, Union Colony Prep, University, Westridge, and Celita. This is exciting news to have so many schools at performance.
These 11 schools are in the improvement category which is still acceptable, still great. We still celebrate at this level. They include Hyman, Jackson, Maplewood, Miker, Shasheen, Bella, Romero, Central, Northridge, West, Jefferson, and District 6 online
academy. Congratulations to these schools as as well. They're on track to get to performance. Scott, James Madison, and Union Colony are the only schools at priority improvement, and we have no schools in turnaround.
With only three schools currently on priority improvement and 19 schools at performance, District 6 is on a great place compared to when Dr. Pilch was hired in 2015 when the district had 11 schools designated as priority improvement or turnaround. This progress
stamps that leadership matters. I'll turn it back to you, President Mash, for any questions and approval of these updated school performance frameworks. >> Thank you for sharing this great news with us. Director Campo Spitzy, >> I love ending this meeting on such a
high note. And I just have to repeat your words that this is the first time, this is the highest number of schools we've had in performance in the history of District 6. 19 schools with 14 being our public non-charters and five being
our charters. And so just love that. It's awesome. I just we're just doing the good work and I'm so proud of us. [laughter] >> Miss Beneggas. >> Yes. I just wanted to echo what Dr. Campos Vitzy is was saying. I think it's
absolutely amazing from a student's point of view. Just all the hard work, all those late nights, working with tutors, working with teachers, all the staff work, everything in between, it's this is just proving that all the hard
work that goes in within those schools, within the curriculum, it's paying off. And 19 schools at performance ever is absolutely amazing. This showcases our students dedications, our teachers dedication and our board members of education's dedication to just um to our
students and to our staff. And it's it shows students that our hard work is all worth it and it's going to continue striving because district 6 is going to continue striving. So I think that's amazing.
>> Thank you very much. Yeah, we we have just had a banner year. I mean, we have these amazing um performance standards. We have our graduation rate at 90%. We have [clears throat] all of our awards for superintendent, teacher, principal,
counselor of the year. So, >> it is a great great place to be here in district 6. Thank you very much. >> Um will you please give us a vote? >> Director Zari, >> I. >> Director Bentley, >> I. >> Director Campos Spitzy, >> I. Director Edmonds >> I. >> Director Lemos Garcia
>> I. >> Director Mash >> I. >> Director Roi >> I. >> Motion carries 70. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you all for joining us for our meeting this evening. Again, welcome back and we're excited for another great semester here in district 6. This
meeting is adjourned. Maybe [music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music and bell]
[music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> High [music] heat. [music]