right good evening everyone okay so what happens is I say
good evening and I like like a course of people to respond back to me and you know we really want to really be fully engaged because we have these babies here tonight that some of them are just dressed to the nines almost and so I'm going to try one more time and I'm gonna say good evening and then you're G to really give me some feedback okay okay okay good evening everyone
good evening we want to welcome you to our board meeting uh this evening is February the 6 2025 and it is a combined work session and meeting so we are going to go on ahead and get started and first of all I just wanted to make sure that everyone has had a chance to review the agenda on this evening yes all right so I'm g go on ahead and call this meeting to order uh first of
all we want to say that uh any members of the public who desire to address the board on any topic related to the board there's a roster in the back um you have until 6:30 p.m. to do so so at this time Mrs AR would you please call the role yes ma'am Miss Frasier here Dr Robinson here Mrs Salazar here Mrs Wills Hill here Mr Williams here Mr gagos here
Mr Rawlings here and Madame President we have a quorum thank you so very much at this time we are going on with our agenda we are at item number 2.3 the Pledge of Allegiance and reading of the mission so we will stand and uh we will have the Pledge of Allegiance at this time pledge allegiance to the the United
States of America the stand naice
TR again graduate college and career ready students with the knowledge skills attitudes and behaviors to personally succeed and contribute to the common good thank [Applause]
you awesome job that's right good job thank you all right so we are moving on to item 3.1 uh the do the agenda I just need a motion please Madam president I move to approve the agenda as presented second motion to approve the agenda as presented by Mr Williams second by Miss Frasier all those in favor I
I we have a meeting so on this evening item four we have showcased Bricker Elementary schooler is the principal and Miss is the SE shell the
Chell um we're doing an awesome job I could just see your students are so eager so participating on this evening is as a Cosby jaselyn Salazar Emily Rachel Isaac gray arah enel um Samantha Olivia adelene shakon [Music]
isly um Delina adamy jaavi chave Chavez Marbella Lopez Natalie GGO Rodriguez Marella adamy Caroline Capone Catalia stoi and AIA sites and Olivia green pardon me if I butchered your name okay but I am so excited to hear
your presentation so at this time it is we have one more student on that name is Daisy Isabella Daisy Isabella is Daisy so sorry forgive me oh I appreciate you and now it is in
I'm Joanie carcia I am one C teachers Bricker tap is Center based program that stand started six seven years ago I was
the only St teacher I had seven kids and I had two now we have three classrooms and then now we have three classrooms we have three teachers we have nine parents we service 19 so it has grown quite large we have two moderate need teachers and they have a case load of over five students we have our own speech therapist which is a
treat because have to share them so I just want to introduce you to this young lady this young lady has been with me for three years and what's your name Arya Arya and then like when I do a man so this is something happen so we practiced a lot but we aren't following the script should we try the script let's try this uh no we do nor all right
so let's try this say what's your name ARA how old are you seven what school do you go to go Bricker you go to Bricker hey is that the school over there that is the Bricker School you are right yes yeah that's the that's all pretty now huh that a school hone yep that's the Bricker school too so Arya do you like school yes I do my friends ask me to that because you have friends at school do you ride the
school bus yes but they're are the same people I don't know why the people it just do it happen people do there's always the same people Arya is writing the special Transportation you are St right she is picked up at the house dropped to school picked up at school and dropped home so Ari what's your favorite special PE why cuz I do PE and our football days cuz my football is not work all football no we're not going to
talk about the Super Bowl no no football we did uh good dancing what's your favorite lunch um we don't have like three pack have munches look they don't have munch on my school they don't have like three pack they get they don't have children you do have lunch at your school well they don't have same people you don't have the same people at lunch at your school yes and Miss Julie and miss gcia
and miss Julie is one of our parents miss m and Miss Melody is one of our parents and Anna Anna Marie is one of our Paris an AIS an arys is one of our students but I just wanted you to kind of get an idea about my little social butterfly here everybody at Bricker knows her yeah but they happen in the people so I'm gonna pass it on but I just
wanted you to know we're really proud of this little girl [Applause] we all belong because when we come to school we are all greeted at the door we
know that the adults care about us we are listened to I know that our voices matter kids are nice and easy to make friends I'll learn because of our teachers we have teachers that care about and give us extra resour if we don't talk a
lot we all lead because of the leadership team is schoolwide we have senior student council Junior student council classroom ambassadors and culture ambassadors classrooms also have leadership responsibilities we learned in the class
how to be responsible for our own bodies and our own things as a building we create a culture of belonging by having a variety of clubs such as cheerleading student council a variety of sports and art club we create learning by having a 10
to one ratio of students to staff tutoring programs and are very successful when time we are leading by having F tactic elg Grant and [Music] E
200 273 students three 67 Spanish and Roo 10% Black and manquin 133% White Night
9% to your races .1 % American Indian SL African American I love Bricker because the
teachers are hopeful and I have so much fun in PE running play football and soccer how does diversity make us stronger diversity makes us stronger by encouraging each other we tear for each other at recess we make sure all students feel welcomed at Bricker by getting to know each other in the connection Circle we help each other understand what we do [Music]
[Applause] here evening uh my name is Crystal krier Wildenstein and I One half of uh the fifth grade team at Bricker um because my name is such a mouthful everybody likes to call CW because it's a lot easier of the whole thing um so Bricker is so much more than a school um I like
to think about it as kind of a tiny Colorado Springs within the Harrison School District to State um much like the Springs see Ricker we have a small town feel we have a close knit feel um with these with his big city attitude uh and our big city attitude it's an attitude of success it's the success and the drive for student achievement see here at
Bricker we don't have staff we have school family and with only 54 of us being at the building that includes two Educators per grade level from K through five two awesome CDE instructors one of which you guys are going to hear from here shortly uh two moderate needs professionals three autism teachers one of which you have
already heard from tonight um one full-time uh PE teacher a halftime art teacher a halftime music teacher a math coach and a literacy coach who were there all the time to give us ideas for higher success rates and on top of that we have one one counselor one social worker and a psychologist who are there for all those moments not just for the students but also there for us as staff when we
just need someone to lean on and of course fricker we can't fail when we've got an awesome support team we have nine special education pair of professionals we have one library media technician who's always there to have our backs when we can't figure out how to turn our clever touches on we have three instructional pairs we have a health Tech who's there for when we really need to make sure is is this
kid okay to be here do they need to go home and rest a little bit we have two ecre Paris our registar and our secretary are two of the biggest Heroes that we have anything ever goes wrong we know who we can call for backup but we can't leave out our building technician and our two night custodians who keep the building looking stellar and clean in sanitary for our kids our nutrition manager and our two
nutrition support Specialists also deserve to be recognized because they provide nice healthy meals for the kids but of course you know we we can't leave without sprinkling in our admin last but not least they're not [Music] just the makers of the law the law layers of the land but they're also
what I like to consider that wonderful crumb coating on the outside of a on the inside of a beautiful fonded cake they keep us together when we feel like things are falling apart and that is what makes our school so amazing with our staff I now would like to uh call up Miss Jacqueline Jones who is from
clld hi there my name is jacyn Jones um and I've been a seal e teacher at Bricker for the last nine years um one of the things that makes Bricker really diverse is our large C population 25% of our students are active multilingual Learners um 99% of those speak Spanish but we do have one that speaks sabano and we have a few that speak more than one language I have three of my students here with me that are going to introduce
themselves Wala good evening my name is shavei I'm from Wala and I speak three languages English Spanish andic fromal my name is and I speak Spanish is my name is mar and I speak
Spanish so I also get to be um our community Leon for our school and so I get to help plan our Title One Nights um we have four Title One Nights our brick or barbecue at the beginning of the year steam night in the fall um literacy and career day in the spring and our cultural night at the end of the year I'm gonna ask our students what is your favorite cultural or title night my favorite um family night is our
cultural night because it makes everyone happy and it is a way to get out a house and have fun my favorite tit night is the breaker barbecue we can celebrate the start of the school year with our families my favorite family night is the Bricker barbecue because we can go with our family and there are fun games and
activities all right so I am Jenny courtier and I am the very very proud principal from Bricker Elementary I would just like to touch space on our um R1 which is our school performance framework as you guys can see we did um get approaching for our academic achievements but we also received meet or meeting for our academic growth because of the percentage voice we did
receive performance for our SPF this year and we're really excited about that we do know that there's still a lot of work to still be done but we're still very proud of our efforts that we have um Miss Chelli our AP we'll talk a little bit later on about our uips um but we are still very very proud of all the work our students are to Chell hi I'm Kristen selli assistant principal at Bricker um and we wanted to
share with you our median growth percentile from Cass this measures the growth that our students show from third to fourth grade as well as fourth to fifth grade on their cmass scores the growth percentile measures not only our students but the rest of the students in the state you can see we are we have shown a comparison of where we are amongst the other schools in the district 50% is what is considered meeting you can see in on the green Bricker was at 45% so very close and for
our math in the pink we have Bricker exceeding at 53% and now jacqulyn Jones will talk to you about AO so another thing that we're really proud of at Bricker is our waa access scores um if you look at the graphs um Bricker is the Blue Line the district average is the orange line and the Colorado State average is the green line um as you can see our median growth percentile and our OnTrack data is above the district and the state since
2020 so we also have many Community Partners that come alongside us and support us in a multitude of ways um some of those include um Pikes Peak State College Nami um Texas Roadhouse heart space kids counseling um but our biggest supporter is Woodman Valley um and they provide um food bags for our kids they provide um luncheons for our
teachers and they support us throughout the year in a lot of ways and another thing that they've started this year is a program called kids help and I'm going to invite um Lori up and she's gonna speak a little bit about that so I am uh the director of our kids hope program um through Woodman Valley chapel and um would kids hope USA is a um National program that really equips and resources us as a church to partner
with a school and to provide mentors to those students that just need that little extra encouragement and support um each Mentor is um matched with only one student and they go to the school once a week for one hour to play games to do activities with their student and to just build that relationship uh each Mentor um really plans and targets those activities um that they do each week to encourage that student academically to
uh promote and build character and life skills and of course just to Simply build that uh that friendship and that and that relationship we as mentors really do um Embrace four principles that we love to um remember and those are um to be faithful and committed to being there each week to convey to our kiddo that we are here just for you they don't often get to hear that um to um really make sure that our kiddo is seen and heard by speaking their name often
and lastly really to um consistently convey those messages um of positivity and to really affirm to our student that we really do them to start to instill uh that into them we currently have 20 mentors going to Bricker uh elementary and in really in that year and a half since we uh launched that uh a program at Bricker which was last fall we have seen just a couple of examples we have
seen one student completely turn her school attendance around and one of our tougher uh boys we we watched throughout the year last year just um struggle with being posit positive and really had moments of of being almost uncooperative and this year we have truly watched him just progress and becoming positive and being responsive and being enthusiastic and just loves and looks forward to his mentor coming so we have watched changes in the students that we have provided mentors to and so we believe truly in
the impact of mentoring and are just so grateful to have a that at Bricker and I think next we are going to have CW come and share about out door Scrappy [Applause] classroom this past fall we have rigger were lucky enough to be able to partake in what is called The good-natured
learnings 60-minute Outdoor Learning CH U challenge during this challenge several of us teachers were trained on how to turn turn our Outdoor School environment that we currently have into what we call Scrappy classroom what that does is that integrates all the senses of our children their sights their smells their touches their feels with the sun and brings a whole
world approach to even what some of my friends here might think is the boringest of subjects reading but it gives them a new excitement and a reason to want to do it because we get to do it outside so I brought a couple friends with me today to answer some questions that I have to share with you guys on what some of the good things are to come with our outdoor Scrappy classrooms so would you like to introduce yourself
ma'am go ahead and come on in hi my name is Trinity and what grade are you in Trinity I'm in fourth you're in fourth grade so did you have a chance this year to go outside for learning did you go outside for gym at all how about field day yes I did yeah and what do you like about going outside for like field day which is kind of like a gym class I get to run around and play
with friends okay you get to run around and play with your friends do you feel like being outside gives you a sense that you get to let some energy out or do you feel kind of cooped up and bored I I get to let some energy out you get to let some energy out I bet your teachers appreciate that right huh [Laughter] okay so it also gives our kids a chance to be able to expend some energy that otherwise might be held within while we're sitting in the classrooms thank you ma'am Miss Daisy let's ask you a
couple questions real quick so Daisy is one of my fifth graders Daisy say hi in hell yeah so Daisy what have you liked about what we've done with the outdoor challenge in our room here it helps us get a lot of energy out just like C said and it also helps us get more engaged into learning instead of just being in a boring classroom with r lights and
stuff so thanks to um the um the learning learning trust um the trust for public land I'm sorry I had a momentary brain Labs but the trust Republic land and their funders as well as rise they have been awesome enough to raise some money to help us build some Outdoor Learning spaces so far we have gotten our shed with some materials that we can use once Colorado decides that
it's going to warm up enough for us to go outside without turning into frozen you know children and teachers um but it's going to be an awesome experience and I think think that it's something that we're all very thankful for and I really look forward to and I know the kids look forward to all of the classes to come they get to benefit from this and utilize this to the best of their abilities to really enhance their learning right now I'd like to turn it back over to miss
Chelli hi in addition to all of these things we also do focus on academics um one thing that we were looking at as we were looking at our Cass scores and talking about that with all of our stakeholders we did realize that we do need to have a focus on literacy as well as math especially at the tier one level to get some really solid foundations for our students um we also understand that
we need to be well-rounded we also help them with PB supporting them the whole child as well we've been very fortunate to be able to have repair us U through that program as well as using the fact tactics fluency that we're piloting this year and also our Outdoor Learning space which really contributes to all the things that we're working on with our students and now I think back to CW yes
[Applause] okay there anything I might just should have not sat down the first right um so our school strengths this year we have been focused on creating new foundations of systems and protocols for the betterment of our students for the betterment of our teachers we've been providing opportunities for all of our students to be leaders such as being able to present
tonight and talk to everyone here we strive on being a place where all children can belong regardless of anything that happens outside of school we want our school to be their second home we Champion a growth mindset with all of our kids it's not a gosh I can't do this it's a I can't do this
yet yet is our key word at bicker because anybody is capable of achieving anything if they put their mind to it according to our staff survey 94% of our staff This Year look forward to coming to work that's a 20% increase from past numbers and 98% of Staff said that their co-workers and colleagues work well together I've never been an environment like that and I hope that I get to see
Bricker continue to succeed now dais is going to introduce some very very awesome individuals from our school who are going to perform a little something for you on behalf of our breaker Spirit Squad please welcome our breaker cheerleaders [Applause]
[Music] know w
[Applause]
oh okayed party sorry that was the closing sorry yeah because I truly do believe that our students are why we come and every day that I come to school I'm very blessed to see all of our wonderful students so it's not about me it is truly about them and so that's why I want to take
cheerleaders can you come [Applause] back Prett good for you wow thank you so very much for such a wonderful and engaging um presentation on this and we are just very very proud everything that we've seen tonight and the numbers speak for themselves the culture been built there I just pointed out the staff
survey 94% of Staff agree they look forward to [Music] coming that's something to be very very very proud I'm very blessed to have an amazing staff that supports me an amazing community and amazing students that show up with smiles every day thanks for letting us present sorry I just want to say you
got wonderful well behaved talented children they're beautiful all of you and got parents here with children this is what we like to see we're all about Community all about family alling and I just want to add um Miss JJ
that family nights are pack and so I have um worked with rck Elementary School the the leadership at rck and guys are so accommodating and and I think that's what they want in every school and when I've been at the family
nights that is clear I mean and and waiting in line and I remember the bouncy h packed out and I just appreciate the culture of community thank you to staff thank you students for um coming up here and presenting for us even though you were nervous all did a very good job
um I just want to say that uh building strong School culture your staff and students and Families building Community those are definitely ingredients for trust and when trust is built the academics are going to come and so I just want to wish you guys continued success and um students you did a phenomenal job and what warmed my heart best is the the theme that I kept
hearing was wanting to come to school enjoying sense of family those pieces because when we keep can't really teach the heart we can coach teachers and we can coach staff but when you love and you own that Community you're going to you're going to theg a limit so keep on keeping on definitely love to see all the kids
come out uh Miss kunzel started out very strong for us this evening with the student representation she did an amazing job uh family staff I I love that term I love the term family staff yes you guys are are one big family couldn't tell you all apart from one another be honest with you but um you guys love big and I love that for you all thank you guys for being a part of uh D2 love it but wait there's
more we want all the students participated come up and we're going to take a picture with you and we've got something for you come on very excited [Applause]
kidos want to come down in the fr to
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all right we're going to continue on with our agenda for this evening we are moving on to item 5.1 that is for public comment members of the public who desire to address the board on any topic related to board work are welcome to do so at this time speakers are requested to limit their remarks to not more than three minutes um or to appoint a spokesperson if the concern is a group concern and to
supplement verbal presentations written reports if necessary or desired personal attacks will not be allowed although the board does not respond to any public comment we will review the information presented and provide responses as needed so I do have um at this time one presenter and we're going to ask for Mr Jamie Montoya the Schmid you will come to the Das at this time St your
name home address have any children who attend and your topic for this evening uh absolutely uh Jamie monard Smith uh live at 712 Pleasant Street color Springs Colorado yeah I got three daughters they're amazing um and uh I am the uh D2 mental health services coordinator and
I'm going to talk about uh National School counseling week um so good evening uh president Wills Hill esteemed members of the Harrison School District 2 Board of Education superintendent branzel and our dedicated D2 executive leadership my name is Jamie Mona SMI and I'm honored to be the D2 mental health services coordinator tonight uh during National School counseling week I'm here to recognize the incredible contributions
of our school counselors and thank the board and leadership team uh for your continued support of the school counseling profession uh in our district first I want to highlight a major achievement for the first time in d2's history every building in Harrison School District 2 has a full-time counselor or more this isn't just about Staffing it's a testament to our District's commitment
to equity access and opportunity for all students aligning with our mission to empower Advocate and support their academic social and emotional growth our school counselor's impact extends far beyond Crisis Support or mental health Guided by the American school counselor association's National model they lead programs that boost academic achievement attendance and wellbeing they build resilience Foster academic success and
help students reach their full potential let me share two quick examples of their impact at Centennial Elementary school counselor Don Miller connected social and emotional learning with academic growth you have one more minute okay using academic and behavioral data she identified students um behind in reading and created seal groups to support them the results were remarkable with typical reading interventions might expect 10% growth Dawn students reach nearly
32% growth in their reading skills these achievements wouldn't be possible without your vision and support by in investing in full-time school counselors you've affirmed that mental health and personal growth are just as vital as academic success school counseling isn't a luxury it's a necessity in creating safe inclusive thriving schools on behalf of all school counselors in Harrison School District 2 thank you for your commitment to students holistic
development together we're helping to every student to discover their potential achieve their goals and Lead success ful fulfilling lives thank you for your time attention and dedication to our D2 Community Madam president you said you had two examples may I hear the may we hear the second one and no we over time make it really quick thank you uh at Harrison High School Lindsay leget our
college and career counselor had made a phenomenal impact um by January of this year she has met with every senior individ ually uh really to provide individualized personalized guidance for the class of 2024 though secured more than $5.8 million in scholarships an increase of 46% over the prior year and even more impressive two students were named Gates Scholars one attending Vanderbilt
University and the other Berkeley College of Music and that Gates scholarship covers all remaining College costs uh after other Aid uh with each award worth at least $80,000 over she's the college career counselor and well and she was selected um by the high school college relations as uh I think it was actually school counselor of the month um back in October
[Applause] thank you so very much for that we are moving on to item number six which is communicating with the board 6.1 is the Quarter Two October November December financial report we have Mrs Cory arur CFO good evening Madam
chair members of the board Andel um I'd like to go ahead and okay I'm GNA have problems with single time up here okay so this is the quarter 2 uh financial report as I've been doing um quarterly reports for you uh this is compared to our original budget so that's the first thing I want to point
out to you our um revised budget that was submitted in January was not yet accepted so the these numbers are in comparison to the original budget so I want to make sure do that there are a few numbers I'd like to call out to you first and foremost on the revenue side um I'd like to call out the and I said I'd bring a laser pointer and I didn't but I'd like to point out property taxes under local Revenue if you go to the far right column you'll see that it's 30
million um versus 20 million that were originally budgeted the difference is the 9.1 million from the mlo so that is what the difference is there I want to make sure to call the next number I want to call out to you is State Equalization number we now have our final counts for the year so our state uh the where it says State Equalization under state revenue you see we budgeted 132 almost 133 million and
our actual will actually come in at about 128. million which is a decrease of 4.1 million um and that is due to the adjustment in student count from our budget to the actual numbers that were submitted so it it hit us significantly obviously um so for the most part you'll see that um at the bottom of this I I
don't know if you can scroll down just a little bit um but you'll see at the very bottom of this um that we had budgeted 119 million almost 120 million for the budget income and revenue and we're going to um come in at about 129. two and that is the offset from the mlo dollars that come in in the spring but we will not use them until next year that next
slide on the next slide there's just a few numbers I want to make sure to call out to you um total salaries um next slide please oh I'm sorry thank you Mike sorry how do I go back okay thanks this saved me like oh thank you there you go okay thank you Mike saved me like three times this last two weeks actually more than that so um the budget I'll I'll call out the salaries we
budgeted 79 million um which represents about 80% of the total expenditures for the district for the year 80.2% um estimated year end um is looks to come in at 75 million that's due to the open positions we have um on the uh expenses the benefits uh we budgeted 26.3 million and we also are looking to Comm in at about 25 um4 million which is
about $880,000 uh less than what we budgeted on the operating side the number I'd like to call out to you is purchased Services we budgeted 14.5 million and it by the end of the year we look uh to be spending 23.7 million um we had several things in this category you'll see that it's up significantly this category projection
is made up of um the we have uh substitutes charged in here we have additional money for athletics that was under bud budgeted um we have additional money for summer school that we also didn't have in our original budget and so those additional adjustments went in here um next quarter I'll present a different format to you we won't have last year's uh all like last year's budget in here we'll just have last year's actual um we'll have the new
budget the revised budget and then we'll have the projections so this will be cleaned up quite a bit uh for next time um so overall it's looking like the ending fund balance well we had budgeted you can see the 10.6 million that we were going to have more expenditures than income uh as all we've been working very hard the board the staff um and most definitely the schools uh so we the budget was 10.6 million uh more
expenditures than income right now we're trending about 5.7 more expenditures than income which um is a 4.9 um million Improvement so it's it's been hard work um at we're working on our budget for next year right now and we as as I have shared uh and been very transparent we continue to need help in this area because it's very very difficult um budget uh templates were
rolled out to the schools and the Departments this week we've been having our budget director Jake um meet with schools so that we can walk uh help walk schools not just through the new templates but through some of the challenges and hard decisions that they they have to make so kudos to them so we've seen a 46% improvement in our U projection uh to uh against the original budget so that's that's just Testament
to the hard work that the staff and the schools have been doing uh next slide I don't have the clicker yes I have the clicker sorry okay all right um I don't necessarily have to go through anything on here um other than 80.8% of our budget is spent on salaries um next year with all the things happening at both the state and federal level um a lot of
what we're doing on the budgeting side is yeah trying trying to to keep stable as much as possible um although we do have to make some hard decisions um Insurance re Reserve fund there really is um no uh change here other than I do want to call out one number which is the transfer from the general fund um and that is an adjustment that we had to make um to our projection so like I said
next time you see these numbers they will be closer to our budget because we've submitted a revised budget uh based on some of these um the other number I want to call out on this slide is the workers compensation line we budgeted almost 600,000 and we are going to be at about 900,000 we've had more snow we've had some accidents we've had some slips and Falls we've have we've had a lot more happening this year and therefore our projection is to uh be
higher than our budget there really is in the nutrition um in the nutrition there is no significant um numbers I need to call out to you um designated purpose grants this one I'd like to uh the total revenues um you can see has decreased from 38.8 million to 36.2 million and that's because we moved Medicaid into general fund Medicaid used
to be called out as a separate fund kind of like a grant but it's not a grant it's a reimbursement that we get and so just it's it's an accounting adjustment and but that's why this number differs so I wanted to make sure and explain that and call it out to you um and uh so that is pretty much it as far as everything is pretty uh standard and going to be within projection or at least close to projections um general fund obviously is where um the um the
most changes occur that I wanted to call out to you um and and that really is about it if you have any questions please feel free to ask me we're we're obviously keeping a very close eye on all of sorry I'm so horrible with the clicker anyone have any questions for
Mrs araras um I do appreciate the new format and want to um give us more information explaining on what these numbers mean and the changes and a quarterly format is greatly appreciated so thank you so very much for your
efforts right we are moving forward to item 6.2 which is the Atlas Preparatory Charter School update Dr Mike claudo assistant superintendent of report Services evening sir good evening Madam president members of the board Dr bur Hansel soon as we get that PowerPoint up I want to share with you just some strides that Adas prep has been making and the first two bullets that you see here the reading and math increase and
the reducing the number of two students two or more grades behind and reading by 16% and math by 21% that data has been verified with RDA which was one of the things that the board had asked for this the last two bullets are bullets from 2324 data and so C RDA does not have that data so they weren't able to validate that data but this is straight from um their reporting and what you'll see in those last two bullets is that kindergart through fourth grade reading
is up by 20% and then K4 math growth is also up by 9% from last year so again they're making gains they're making St and when I meet with Britney from Atlas prep one of the things that we talk about is her coaching cycle and she kind of give gave us a an opportunity or a glimpse of what that looks like and so they have their Co their weekly morning coaching with additional check-ins on one-on-one to make sure that teachers are doing what they need to do they're really focusing on that feedback and
that accountability and what they're doing is they're giving teachers feedback that's actionable as opposed to down the road um they want to to see that impact the schools immediately as you can see they're making progress towards their goals and their initiatives and one of the things that Britney and team is following up is making sure that that communication is happening and that there's followup behind it I think one of the strengths at Atlas prep that they've had for a number of years is their retention and you'll notice that they have 100% retention at the elementary which is
huge because we know that if you have a constant turnover that can reduce some of the gains that you have have made and so they're continually working on keeping those teachers there to the right you'll see an award that I never knew even existed and so I had to do a little bit of research so Alice prep received the Eliza peel route award now many history Buffs may know who she is I have no idea who she was she was Colorado's first lady um back in
18 93 uh she helped Colorado become the second state to allow women to vote by the at the first by popular vote and she was actually the first woman to vote in Colorado and so they are giving these Awards out to schools who have shown that 85% of their eligible seniors um are eligible in our voting so quick little snapshot of what Atlas prep is doing I mean they're making grounds if
the board doesn't know the performance Frameworks came out um last year and they're actually 3.2% away at the elementary level from be becoming a performance school both the middle school and the high school are performance um graded schools any questions well I'm glad to see that they're on the rise again at the elementary school level in particular we
had a lot of concerns about so um anyway here but you can pass along that we're really pleased to hear this report absolutely and ma'am I meet with Britney on February 20th and so I'll open it up to the board if anyone is willing to meet with me on February 20th at L prep we'd greatly appreciate it Norma can you send us all an invite those who can thank you so much thank you Dr CLA yes ma'am thank
you moving on to item 6.3 the r1.1 report Mrs Rachel laugher assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Mr Andy Bristol director of curriculum and post-secondary and Mr Scott welin director of data it is in your hands well you sounded very excited to
hear from director Bristol and weld in so I'm turning it over to them good evening board um in your slide deck you'll see 26 slides we're not going to go through all of them we want to make sure you're equipped with information so as you're working with schools you are informed to how the your performance is going um we also want to make sure you are understanding of the information that you have in front of you and so we're going to walk through kind of a high level overview of what you have um but it's really meant to um make sure
you have the information you need to have the conversations that you need um this is based on middle of the year I ready data um this is an assessment that is for ELA based on our comprehension kindergarten through 8th grade and for math it measures a number of different math domains and this is something we have done for a number of years um and we we find that how we perform on this is very highly correlated to how we do on cmass
um because of how familiar it is to the student experience when they're taking the assessment um back in September get there go um back in September we approved the indicators um for this report and so we are now reporting midyear on how um we are um at this point of the school year and so the the
target again is based on multi-year average the column you see on the right um for performance and on growth it is set on our belief that that our students can grow a year in a year's time what you'll find um overall in comparison to last year is that um reading is about the same as it was last year um when we look at all 14 of our schools as a district um we are about plus 2% reading overall Middle School
Ela is the one you'll see the most growth um and so I'll um I'll show you a grid of how our schools are doing um where you want to be on this plot chart would be high and to the right um that means you're achieving high and you're going a lot um I want to focus particular attention to our our Middle School reading data um there has been a lot of effort um on the on the staff's part and
the central office to support our Middle School literacy efforts and it's paying dividends um I can report we're about plus 5% for our Middle School reading growth so that's very encouraging to me this chart I refer to affectionately as the bubble chart it's looking at the cohort over time um so this looks how this this group of students by graduating class did across the years and so this will give you Trend analysis
um based on this group of kids and so we're comparing like peers um from as far back as we can record in some cases in third grade or excuse me in kindergarten same information for math um we have spent a a lot of professional development time and conversation at our admin meetings on math I am happy to say that collectively K2 3568 all of math
has risen um in our midyear report we know we have work to do but um our work is paying off and so I can I can show you that with the data um but if you if we look at comparison to last year um we are about 5 to 8% depending on the grade band um of what we're looking at going to we have a report to you on three different data sets we have I Ela and math but we also have what we
call dibles and that's going to be for our early assessment and director won is going to talk to us about that [Music] thank you Andy um yes so debl is what we use for the read act for kindergarten through third grade students um we report that in our uip every year so we decided it's important that you also see how the district is doing um I'm pleased to say this year especially in reducing
kids who have a significant reading deficiency we are definitely on track to hit all of those targets um so our kindergarten through third grade students are doing a good job how to read so the left table is reducing students who are very below um they have a significant reading deficiency the right table though is also something that our curriculum or Spruce is working on very hard is getting kids all the way to Benchmark and above because there's also a gray area you can be significantly
below you can be below and you can be at or above so it's also important that we get them at and above and then the last thing every January the state releases the graduation rates so we wanted to make sure you get to see those and I don't know if anyone from Harrison High School is here but they had a huge increase um very good year for Harrison High School a class of 2024
Sierra also has an increase um just more muted than Harrison sorry love both of our high schools um now what I did here is I put two tables you've got your typical four-year that's on time graduation but Colorado tracks students for accountability sake seven years after high school so kids who had extended time the right table is showing you what that rate would be if kids had
three more years so class of 2021 would be the most recent seven-year data that they can give you because that was three years ago so 3 plus four seven um and you can see on those extended timelines we're a lot closer espe um to hitting our Target of 88% the last thing I wanted to point out about the graduation rate um class of 2024 overall as a district is the highest rate we've had in over 10 years
I think um Wendy might hate me for pointing pointing this out but like since she's taken over we have been on upward trend of graduation rate and I think it speaks to her leadership and the high school's leadership that we have seen continue like it's not a fluke it's been going up each year so very good news with graduation Scott can you remind me where we are in the city are we the fourth but we're I can tell you we're
way better than d11 yeah we're way better than d11 then D3 and why that matters is because our kids have bigger barriers than those kids and so when you talk about we're outperforming districts that are more fluent that's amazing and if you look at districts with like population PPS is one of them Mapleton is we are out graduating them by up to 20% in some not we our kids I've already gradu we are we are very close to
overtaking the state in graduation rate we are already better than the state in dropout rate so we're doing very good at keeping our kids in school and then uh last time I think I gave a lot of graduation data I just included this this is different demographic breakdown um so that you can see how different groups are performing um yeah that those are all our slides and I can get just give Insight this is my own perspective but um maybe three
years ago our Hispanic students were outg graduating our average but since we've had more nips non English proficient students or students coming from other countries with no schooling their graduation rate is not as high as some of the other subgroups so our demographics and how they kind of lay out is different but it also matches the story of our student population and how that has changed also so still working with all students to get to graduation
um I know our principals check in all the time we have graduation coaches we have Dropout coaches so um we have a lot of support but I think it's interesting to just see how our rates are continuing to perform even when our diversity is increasing and some of our kids needs are increasing could you explain economically disadvantaged how you come to that yeah
sure that is um Colorado's way of saying students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and I was was wondering do we still do we um still distribute like the differentiated diplomas like the honors and the and I I just wanted only to ask um for example like our uh special needs students who also get diplomas of
completion are they included in this that's what I was Wonder because they also go to college some of our kiddos so I didn't they are included um the question you're asking is part of our graduation task force and there's actually a subcommittee that is co-facilitated by director Weldon and Dr bansel Who are digging into what do we want um differenti diplomas different honors um that we provide students upon
graduation so what we do now and what we will do in the future um is kind of in transition um both of our high school princi we're at a regional Workshop today hosted by CDE around Capstone and what that could look like if we go to a Capstone for All U model so we will have more information we're going to finalize that new um the new guidelines and the policy in May um so we can give you more details
then few factors that go into the data that we've all learned from Mr Welden educating us um so if our students are here with us in seventh and eth they automatically roll to nth if they've never been in high school they count for us as not a graduate and a Dropout so they might have never stepped foot in Harrison High School but because they went to us in Middle School it automatically rolls and if we can't find wherever they went it hurts our data which obviously hurts more transient or more mobile populations which we serve
um the other thing that we have that is a higher percentage than most other districts is we have students coming in High School who've never had any credits so they're coming as Juniors from a different country and they have two credits and so we do everything to get them what they need but the reality of coming with two credits when you need 24 is a lot of times CRA can help as much as we can but I just think some of those challenges and how they calculate
doesn't tell the whole story of the good work happening in our high schools and some of the barriers that our high schools have that other high schools don't experience and I if I could just add so Andy bristle works very closely with Tammy Holland director of CDE to really take a student based approach when we do have a new student from out of country who either has a transcript that does not easily um translate to an American school system or is from a country where we cannot get
a transcript from their school at all in the past there hasn't been a way to really dig into what previous knowledge and courses that student took and how do we credit them for it so we've gotten a really creative in doing some different assessments interviews to see they may have taken Biology how do we prove that they have some biology knowledge it's going to be in a different language but that doesn't mean they have to repeat biology here with us we can give them the credit and
then support the language while they continue through their science course progression so the two of them have been working really closely and it takes hours upon hours with every individual student in that situation to make sure we're doing the best for that student but also translating it into Colorado expectations and American school systems so we're excited about that work as well may a dumb one um concurrent
enrollment students are not right if a concurrent enrollment student is a student who's enrolled in high school who also takes classes at the college and so they would be considered a high school graduate if you graduate early you are part of the graduating class of your anticipated year of graduation did I get
that right Scott that's correct so if you graduate early like if you graduated as an 11th grader last year you won't um count in these numbers until CL of 2025 is published all right does anyone else have any more questions we really do look forward to your rep and just for the record our
10-minute time limit was for the slides it did not include the lovely questions and conversation that we had anything else you need from us it might be because Dr bur henzel told us three times to make sure we hit the time so please clock us if you did now this is really incredible content and so thank you so very much for taking the time to explain to thank you thank you all very much we are moving on to um item
7.1 is oe9 communicating with the board monitoring report this is Christine O'Brien thank you let's try that one more time good evening president Wills Hill members of the board and Dr bansel I am presenting oe9 tonight this will be very quick
because this OE is compliant and you can see in the analysis that the OE is found to be 100% in compliance with a high amount of communication with the Board of Education both by the superintendent and Department leads do you have any questions now a comment though I think um each department has worked really
hard um for the past year and a half on on um the details of the OES and I think that work is showing now so thank you very much yes thank you this is a big celebration all right if there's no other questions or comments um Mrs ramb we would like to send this to the
consent to G right and you're still here back again green light still on 7.2 oe3 treatment of stakeholders indicator report super so in this indicator report there is one small suggestion for change on page two and you will see the word added in red in the superintendent interpretation we propose adding staff as one of our stakeholder groups because that closely
aligns with the culture section of our D2 strategic plan and we felt they were overlooked previously that is the only change suggested so anyway um there's no other questions or comments and I really like that addition as well yes so we are
going to move that to consent agenda thank you so much thank you all right we're moving forward to uh item 8.1 it is the February personnel and comparison report and at this time is there any questions regarding the report any comments seeing that there is none I just need a recommended motion please
Madam president I move to approve the superintendent consent agenda items as stated second motion to approve the superintendent uh consent agenda for item stated by Mr Williams second by Miss Frasier all those in favor
I moving for um item nine January 23rd 5 item 9 communicating with the monitor item
9.3 stolder Madam president I move to accept the agenda as presented second motion to accept the Bor is present Dr P
Robinson favor I I do item 10 annual work plan just a couple of dates that were added and uh and best and changes that we'll have for the and and work plan going
forward thank you um I wanted to let our on Friday February 21st 9 to noon there is a webinar on crime absenteeism and that has become a serious serious issue in our schools and um if you all like
I 2 first from 9 to thank you m moving to .2 is legislative updates so since we've last met there's
been a lot of things World um a lot of executive orders coming out of Washington along with their policies coming down um I think one thing that we talked to admin about this week is be a cautious consumer of media just because something says it's an executive order does not mean anything's changing because there is not any law so I think we need to all calm down and make sure we have all the details before we act on it to help us
in a district Katherine is sending a weekly update of just what's happened in the last week and what it means for our district and how we'll proceed or if there's any changes um from the state legislature the biggest thing that we need to pay attention to is school Finance doesn't change um I think the good news is that they're starting to listen to some of us and we will be meeting with um representative bacon who wants to meet with us because she has an
affinity for D2 and she wants to hear why we are not fans of the school funding formula and so um Corey and I will meet with her and I'll invite you once we get that scheduled but she wants to really hear why their solution is not a solution it's actually a problem they thought they did an atrisk fund funding that would increase funding and would help districts like ours when in reality it hurts us and so um I'm just excited that she's open to the conversation so that she can make sense of it and take it back um the other couple things that
are out there is there's a bill around creating a cell phone policy they want every District to have a cell phone policy policy and that's pretty much the bill it doesn't say what has to be in the policy or what doesn't have to be in the policy so while we would say it's an overreach of local control I would say we let the policy ride and we support a policy that has no teeth of what we have to include Katherine is also working on that policy with us and I'm getting student feedback this month on what they think it should be um and their ideas of
Technology are very different when it's their cell phone in their pocket what do they want so um but great ideas and feedback from our students the last one is the accountability bill I told you um we're still in draft now we're in draft two um it went from8 Pages down to 105 I think so we are still working through that has not been introduced um we expect support on it but we know we will have some push back so um those are the ones we're really monitoring I think 15
bills got introduced yesterday so we're still kind of looking through of how those affect us but um we know there's a lot more coming Dr bansel um hypothetic and know you best just to calm down and relax but hypothetically if the federal government decides to turn over um education to the
states in your best guest or opinion does that hurt us or will it help us so just some facts um to be able to get rid of the Department of Education you have to have a vote in Congress um the house has the votes the Senate does not have the votes they have to get seven Democrats to cross party lines to approve that change and no one predicts
that that will happen they don't think they have seven votes to find um so that's just the facts out there um I I mean we've had times where we haven't had a centralized Department of Education long ago I think in a state that does a lot of stuff to support districts like ours we could it would be better than some other states that won't do anything the problem is if the money goes to the state it doesn't go to education it goes to the state and the state then divides it and we see we're
already fighting on school Finance so now we're just going to be fighting for a larger pool I think the bigger concern is what happen with title and with um special ed funding again they have to make Congress has to agree there has to be bills there has to be support but that's been a targeted area we continue to hear and that is a large part of our District's funding because we have such a large group of students so um watching that closely but I think um you know when we
hear that the president's going to get rid of it and then he sends people home to work that makes people very anxious which we get um but nothing's changed in terms of what's happening for us [Music] immediately thank you Dr branzel we are at item
11 is to adjourn and I just need a recommended motion again Madam president with no further business I move to adjourn the Board of Education combined work session and board meeting second motion to adjourn the combined Board of Education work session and board meeting by Mr Williams second by Miss Frasier all those in favor I we are adjourned thank you so
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