##VIDEO ID:30EhXiMVQ-k## [Music] [Music] [Music] we [Music] he [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] all [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] get [Music] e [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] he he [Music] [Music] I would like to call this meeting of December 11 2024 to order roll call please miss Sada Miss Applegate here miss Kenworthy here Miss Parker here miss Reed here Dr vaa I'd like to thank our live simultaneous Spanish interpret for joining us today we are also live streaming our meeting and at this point would you please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance is there a motion to approve today's meeting agenda I motion to approve today's agenda as presented in board Ducks is there a second second uh it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda for today's meeting of December 11 2024 is presented roll call please Miss saada Miss Applegate yes Miss Kenworthy yes Miss Parker yes Miss Reed yes Dr varda the agenda is approved d as a reminder to the listening public at our November 14th meeting we studied the following topics an update from the Jeff Co schools Foundation a student enrollment count and related estimated fiscal impact update for the 20242 school year and finally an analysis of previously planned new school buildings in Laden Rock and Red Rock's Ranch I encourage you to watch the recording to learn more about these subjects you can also visit our board page on the Jeffco Public Schools website there you'll find a host of information and links to both board docs and our live stream platforms as we move to our study agenda I do want to note that the board will meet an executive session this evening following our study session our first topic for study this evening is a review and discussion of board legislative priorities for 2025 board members we've received the draft 2025 legislative priorities for public schools in advance as is our practice the first regular session of the 75th General Assembly will convene on January 8th 2025 Jeffco Public Schools appreciates the strong relationships between District leadership and state representatives it's critical that the district and state legislators partner together to meet the needs of K12 students joining us tonight is Mr Ed Bic from Bic and Cassel public affairs I've asked asked Mr Bish to contact each board member to understand our individual interests in the upcoming legislative session in January following those conversations he will share back his themes from those conversations with the full board Mr Bish has to leave at 5:00 P p.m tonight so I've asked him to share a preview of the legislative session with us and from there I'll lead a discussion about our legislative agenda which we will take an official vote on at our regular meeting next week in addition some of our board colleagues across the state are considering signing on to a letter to the governor opposing his proposal to eliminate four-year averaging which would result in an Abrupt reduction of State funding for any District especially Jeffco experiencing declining enrollment we will also discuss that tonight if we have a majority interest in signing on we can take further action at a future meeting Mr bage welcome and uh we'd love to hear what you have to say right now thank you so much and thank you for accommodating my calendar tonight I appreciate it uh good to see everybody and thanks for the board for participating in the breakfast we had a few weeks ago out at Warren Tech um I think those are good events to get as many of the delegation together as we can and um and just have a general discussion with our legislators um the clock is ticking and a month from now we'll be in session um I'll just give you an overview on a few few things that I'm aware of that are going on and that will come up this year um as you know there really wasn't much change in the legislature in terms of the membership the Democrats lost a few seats in the house but they still retain a 43 to 22 margin and the numbers in the Senate are exactly the same so we'll still see um a lot of the same players um at the capital um we have three new legislators in Jefferson County all on the house side Representatives uh elect for from Arvada Ryden from Littleton and Stewart from Lakewood they're all on their local city councils which I think is a great background we have a few new legislators who are coming with a school board background so it's always good to see that as well um overshadowing a lot of what's going on these days is the state budget shortfall due to a combination of factors among them Medicaid utilization the property tax cut that was approved in the special session in August requiring a slight increase in state funding for school districts um shortfall in the state's reserve the approval of proposition 130 directing the legislature to appropriate $350 million for um police and law enforcement um and a few other things we now have A1 billion shortfall as we look towards the 2526 budget year that is overshadowing a lot um the state has I think it's about a 17 or8 billion budget in terms of general fund just to put in perspective what a$1 billion shortfall means to address the shortfall as was previously mentioned the governor has recommended that we eliminate the declining enrollment provision for years we had a five-year enrollment averaging last year with the implementation of House Bill 1448 they took one year off that so that would move down to a four-year the governor proposal would move to zero would move move to an immediate um enrollment um funding plan as of this next July 1 um the the moving eliminating that Statewide would save about $144 million roughly $23 million from Jeffco there's over 100 districts that are in Decline districts of every shape and size and demographic um are in Decline but certainly Jeffco would be the highest amount um and certainly on a percentage basis we'd be up there along with some of the other districts as well um one other thing the governor has requested in his K12 budget and that is extending the implementation of the new school Finance act we we going to bring that online over a six-year period um the governor proposes doing that over a seven-year period as you remember there was additional funding coming with that that new school Finance act if you lengthen it out we all get a little less money each of the seven years rather than over the six years um that's about a $42 million savings Statewide um about a million or a million and a half from Jeffco um again I like to emphasize it is early in the budget process it may not seem that way but the budget process really ramps up in January we have next week next Thursday we'll get the next Revenue estimates expect a lot to change but things will start to um uh stabilize if you will and then we'll get the revenue estimates on March 20th those are the big ones but the legislature still has the not the upper hand but they're the ones who write the budget they can take the governor's budget request and modify it however they see fit we are you know there are not a lot of places to look to save a billion dollars there's some accounting things you can do you can sell Pinnacle the the the state's chartered workers comp agency get a hundred million from that but some of these things are one time in nature and you don't want to do all onetime savings we come back next year and we still have a billion dollar shortfall um the legislature has been talking about this The Joint budget committee has been meeting for the last three weeks um Shannon bird whose District includes both Adams County and Jeff Co is the vice chair this year um there's one new member um on the budget committee because Rachel zenzinger was term limited I'm one new member on the budget committee Judy M who's a new Senator was in the house now in the Senate from Boulder um but it's a pretty seasoned group now they've been around for a while um and they know this is their challenge this year um we'll get we'll learn more in um come January when the legislature convenes among some of the things the legislature the JBC has been talking about is something we've been talking about for a while is that we need to save money in some places let's look at some of the grant programs in the Department of Education um and figure out if they are our top priorities to continue doing those um one of the other things that's come up that is related certainly related to the budgets is the healthy School meals for all that was approved by the voters sorry I can't remember two years ago maybe um it immediately ran into a shortfall utilization was higher than anticipated revenues were lower than anticipated then there were some federal changes that made the program even more um costly if you will um last year Shannon bird basically said I will not go back on the promise to the voters they wanted free school lunch healthy School meals for all that's what we're going to do um she and chair Jeff Bridges um Senator Bridges have said the same thing this year we we need to prioritize that and representative bird said I will not voice this on the school districts to pick up the cost for that so I'm pleased because that's the worst case scenario in which they just make this an unfunded mandate for the districts there were some Grant programs that were originally that that were approved with that measure and the grant programs I think everyone agrees are like nice to have but not absolutely necessary um and those will have to wait to be implemented till the program is short up I'm happy to move on to a couple of other issues that I'm aware of that are going to come up moving away from the financial picture unless there are questions on the the budget issues School Board budget superintendent dland I do think we all are very aware of the budget problems thank you and I have no qualms about the board signing on to a letter um expressing strong concerns with the elimination of the declining enrollment provision yeah and an update on that as I have heard today Adams 12 was taking the lead on that letter for um to the uh governor and then what I heard back now is that casby and case and cea are also interested so they may take the lead on it and get as many districts as possible couple of other things that will come up this year um we have the two adequacy studies that were um called for in the um in the school Finance interim committee two years ago they will be um unveiled no later than January 3D you can argue the timing is kind of strange we now have a new school Finance coming act coming online we have a billion dollar shortfall the adequacy studies will provide good information I don't really know what we do with them but we'll wait and see those will be out on January 3rd we have the accountability accreditation and student performance and resources inequity task force that has reported that has come up with a number of of recommendations around the state's accountability system I expect to see some legislation in that regard coming up in 2025 making some modifications to the accountability system I don't know that it will be Monumental changes but hopefully some improvements um one other thing I wanted to mention um the state has run a variety of concurrent enrollment and fifth year programs um for school districts and uh school districts and institutions of higher education some of those are coming under a little more scrutiny um some of them have not been capped in terms of the enrollment given the state's budget challenges I expect them to um face more review as we look towards 25 26 um one bit of good news I guess um every few years PE the state's uh pension system is allowed to adjust the rates that employers and employees pay based on certain economic conditions and certain rates of return there will be no rate changes on July 2025 so that's at least good that we don't have to worry about um that because obvious viously a rate change on the employer side means a lot to the budget and on the employee side um means more coming out of employees Pockets but the rates should stay the same um next year so that's just a broad overview of some of the things that I'm hearing and thinking about happy to take any questions I'll start with the accountability reports that came out they're pretty new can you give me some examples of things that they've highlighted um some of the things that they highlighted were adjusting the Frameworks to better reflect diverse student populations in individual schools adding more languages that the assessments can be um given and then creating a Statewide data dashboard that is userfriendly for parents or people who are interested in reviewing that yeah those are some of the types of uh recommendations that were included thank you board members any questions on this portion yeah yeah yeah I mean as uh far as we've still got Mr bage so it would help so yes go for it I do have um I have a request um looking at our draft um priority for priorities um to add in something to be specific about maintaining adequate support for students and families who require wraparound Educational Services and preserving safe learning environments for all students without contributing to adverse childhood experiences um I want to be specific about protection of immigrant newcomer um black indigenous people of color lgbtqia A+ uh and other marginalized identities um fresh off of casby we did or director Applegate and I attended a session about um preparing for potential disruption um for for families in receiving resources um and so I want to make sure that our elected legislators know that our county is committed to making sure that our schools remain a safe environment for our students and our families and I'd like to be explicit about that um I said the things that I'm concerned about but I'm open to more eloquent and diplomatic language um that might be useful um on a legislative agenda um but I don't want to leave it off of our our particular agenda because of the weight that we have um when we when we come up to talk to legislators during the legislative session I mean um I think it was really drilled home for me during casby that we are the second largest school district in the state and Al the 38th or the 39th largest in the nation and I want to make sure that um we're up we're keeping an eye on our national responsibility as well standing up for our students um in the face of any disruption that might come especially given the incoming uh National Administration so I think what we can do as a board too we can take your kind of draft verbage that you have there and um look at it among ourselves but do you have Mr B any ideas are there other legislators that are interested in doing something like that at the state level that we can craft our position along with theirs I haven't heard about um anything in that regard but I think putting that in the legislative priorities would be a very positive statement and something we can point to um when all of you come down to the capital and when we distribute that finalized document to all the legislators we can point out what's new this year um so that everybody is aware of that and it really reflects the board's priorities and the district's priorities thanks yeah I like that I think our um document that we've been using has been being improved over and over and I like it we put in demographics highlighting the the size of our district and the number of students we support um and so I also like the idea of kind of highlighting the changes the new things that we um have added to what we had last year so um yeah so we'll take that up as a board and if board members do have any other ideas at this point for legislation I know it's very early they haven't even actually been sworn in I think that more people have resigned than have been sworn in so um okay any other comments board members or I'm really excited that we're getting a head start this year a little bit proactive and um I look forward to um working with you very closely Mr bage so thank you so much thank you I appreciate the staff's partnership and everything I do um and I think I'm supposed to come out and see you in early January on the 6th 16th yes 16th that's right so we'll be a weekend and I'll have all the I'm sure so thank you great thank you so much really appreciate it okay for the next agenda item I'm pleased to welcome the Jeffco educational support professionals Association or jesa we're pleased to hear an update on shared interests including experiences engagements and activities impacting the state of the district for this school year so would invite the jesa members to come up make sure we have enough seats for all of you before I hand this off to Mr kashub jessa's President to introduces board superintendent dorland is there anything you'd like to say I'd like to say welcome and I look forward to listening to the opportunity for you all to present to our board tonight and um thank you for the ongoing partnership with that I will hand it over to Xander okay hello everybody uh so we appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today um what we're really hoping for is a discussion um we really want to engage you all uh ask you some questions hopefully you'll ask us some questions too um but we really want to have a productive discussion um on how we can have a productive and a successful year this year um but yeah first I think let's go down the line we can do some introductions real quick hello I'm John Duran I'm the uh maintenance Association president and also the grievance chair for jba hello my name is Andrea SOS I am a kitchen manager this is my 24th year in this career and I am currently the vice president of Jos food and nutrition services I am Corine Carpenter I am campus supervis been with the district six years and I'm the vice president of our department hi I'm Sarah MCL talk I am the standing president for jop par Educators and secretaries um I'm here today to make sure that I leverage my experience in voice um for the invisible work of the esps uh I'm Xander kashub proud president of jpa I'm a food service worker by trade I've spent much of my career here in chefco at this point um I was doing quick math a couple days ago and I've served I want to say about 200,000 meals to Children um with my time in Jeffco um and I want to keep fighting for for kids I'm Melanie mlan I'm the kitchen manager at Fairmont Elementary this is my sixth school year um I'm also the president proud president of Jeffco um Jefferson County School Food Service Association which is JCS FSA um I just want to say that you know I became a leader in jpa because one of my co-workers was demoted and reprimanded for giving away milk that was going to be expiring over winter break and knowing that now we do have free food for our students but that we still are being pushed to get rid of food that could help our struggling families it just is really disheartening and very discouraging and I want to try to work together with you all and you know make it better for our students because being kids is hard and they shouldn't have to worry about whether they're hungry or not you know and if they've got hungry bellies then they've got hungry brains and that's really hard to focus and just stay you know be a kid and do good in school and I mean that's what we're all here is for our students to thrive and need to thrive with healthy meals as well good evening thank you for having us I'm Darcy Hassler I'm a pair of professional this is my second career been with the district for 18 years why I lead is I'm not afraid to speak up for those who are afraid there have been PA Professionals in our building who have quit because they've been pushed down by students and in their eyes nothing had happened and they were older I hate to say older and frail but they were um and again in their eyes nothing happened and they didn't feel safe they felt that their best choice was to quit and I think that's not okay in a word um this job feeds my soul my other job fed my belly and I'm here because I can positively impact young people's lives and Advance their academic achievement and personal success and like I said that work feeds my soul hello I'm Sarah Smith a je Jeff Co prek teacher of 27 years 23 of those years we had no Union I'm a leader because I believe no one deserves to be bullied by their supervisors I was bullied by my supervisors when it happened to me it was lonely and frightening degrading and drawn out during a two-month time frame on multiple occasions I was called out of my classroom brought into a room of five of my supervisors where I had to S and listen for up to 45 minutes at a time to accusations against my character only to be sent directly back into my classroom to finish teaching for the day this crippled my self-esteem made me second guess my entire being my mental health was at stake especially when no one was there to stand with me how is having a teacher visibly shaken to their core good for anyone especially three and foury olds children learn from what they see they all deserve a classroom where everyone including the teachers feels safe bullying is not okay and my supervisors bullied me I never did learn of their true agenda I never did find out what it was all about it was only because I stood up for myself at every one of those meetings and I refused to sign their forms without more information that I made it through the entire experience alone but at what cost the entire experience took away my belief in the system I no longer believed that good things would happen if you were a good teacher it shook my trust I stayed for the kiddos I stayed for the connections that I had for families I had families that drove up from Highlands Ranch to be in my classroom up by Lids but I stayed for them and I stayed for my co-workers I stayed because I love my kiddos and I do to this day I have gone to weddings and I've gone to graduations but with jesa I know my fellow ecips and ecis will never be in a similar situation they will never be alone no one deserves to be treated as I was and this is why I stand up and be a Le and I'm a leader in jba today thank you for having us okay so despite a lot of challenges we've had a lot of Victories over the years uh we've raised wages considerably we've won healthy food pilot program we've supported workers um and students through our advocacy as a union um a lot of these Milestones are made possible by Community organizing and by the support of you um and I want to make that clear now we remain committed to fighting for students and our community um this might be a difficult conversation today but we're here and we want to have it um last year was a particularly challenging time uh for all of us I want to say after a mere three hours of negotiating uh the district hired an anti-un lawyer to represent your interests effectively severing our lines of communication at the table uh as we later learned before negotiations even began uh unanimous decision had been made by you all to not communicate with us uh this decision we were not made aware of at the time um and so as workers who supported you the board uh when you were running on pro-education and pro-worker platforms um and workers who also contributed financially to your campaigns we were left feeling confused uh and I want to say a little betrayed uh by the lack of communication that we had um we also had heard each of you publicly Express support for us our interests at our ccg community actions that's Colorado for the common good and commit to meeting with us and talking to us to discuss solutions to our to to our needs and our issues that we're seeing in schools every day and on buses and in our workplace um yet the actions that were taken and our lack of communication and refusal to communicate seemed like that was just different painted a different picture for us now I'm bringing up last year not to reopen any wounds that's not what we're here to do but context is very important as we move forward this year with negotiations we want to learn and grow from our experiences and to fully address our concerns with you um without communication there is no relationship and we need a relationship in order to support workers and students in Jeffco Public Schools we're not here to fight you we're here to fight for our students and for our community so what we truly hope to understand today is whether that Vision that you shared with all of us and the community for Jeffco has changed uh since your election and if so how can we align ourselves in order to uplift the needs of both workers and our students uh there's a lot of power in this room we have power you have power and we can all create meaningful change together but that starts with an honest open dialogue so that's why we're here I'm G to pass it off to Sarah um if you have any questions for us please feel free to ask Hi how are you can you hear me yeah perfect um I wanted to start off kind of pigging off what Xander had said with the way last year um had went I thought it would be important to in a in a genuine and very authentic way get to know a little you guys a little bit more and have a little bit of more of an understanding to kind of rebuild that relationship so I hope you're okay with that okay um so I first wanted to ask all of you um why are you on the board of education I have three kids in Jefferson County and um I have family who work in Jefferson County um I've just been invested in what happens to the kids in our um school system for a long time when I started as a parent volunteering and then being in the Sachs um yeah and so I've just been interested for a long time I've I've I used to say oh maybe one day I'll run for the board um to be honest when no one really did in my area um I stood up to run um and I just have learned so much while I've been here I didn't know anything when I was a parent compared to what I know now um and so I like to be able to put that perspective into this policy and governance um and this is one way that I've been able to do that [Music] um thanks for the question I'm here because I'm an educator in my heart I come from a family of Educators my grandparents my great-grandparents and both of my parents taught in public schools so I'm supporter public ed through and through I also taught for five years before leaving burned out um from the classroom I'm here because I'm now a parent uh have two students in Jeff Co schools and uh a fellow friend who's also a teacher and an educator here in jeo asked me to consider running and I said no uh and then continued to ask me until I said yes I'm glad that I said yes I'm glad that I'm here I think this work is incredibly important um and I'm also here to be a meaning maker I started through the accountability process the stack committee at the school um I was on daak for a while and now I'm here in this chair um and I want to make sure that um our community understands how how the Board of Education Works how the district Works what's happening with state level funding um there's a much larger story going on than what most people see from their individual perspective and so I want to make sure that um various perspectives are being considered when we have conversations here at the board and um really glad that I get to work with my fellow board members and being meaning makers um for our whole community so I was an educator in Jeffco for 30 years um I was a leader in jcea I believe very very firmly in the importance of employee voice in how things run in the district I think you get a better run District when the people who do the job have a voice in how the jobs get done um I also felt like just having an educator and a Jeff Co educator on the board was really important it gives a perspective that isn't necessarily there um from people who haven't had that experience I have two grown children who went through Jeffco schools and I have a grandchild who will it'll be quite a few years but she'll be going to a Jeffco school um and so all of those things are really important when I was an educator in jeo I went through a period where we had a board that I would say was not friendly to public schools and was definitely not friendly to collective bargaining um and really was doing everything they could to dismantle unions and I just think that uh as I said it's just really important that we have strong associations and so um one thing that I I just want to clarify from earlier and there's some other things I'll probably clarify just to give a different perspective on it um but really it's only during negotiations and about negotiations that it becomes really tricky for individual board members to have individual conversations um because for one thing no individual board member has any power without the other board members we all have to work together and if we're all getting the same message at the same time that's better but I do want to make clear to you and to everyone else whether they're in the association or not in the association that they're always free to send us letters to ask for a conversation about their own personal experience not here's what needs to happen in negotiations there are teams for that and there's a process for that and that process rests in contract and the contract is super important with those individual conversations I am always open to having those and so if there's been something that has led to a perception that you can't write to us that you can't talk to us individually just about your own experiences um I just want to clear that up because I I really I don't want you to have that feeling um at all uh I believe that learning is equivalent to living uh for me when I contemplate the quality of my life it's whether or not I learn whether it's from my grandkids telling me what they did that day or reading some new article on what's happening at the bottom of the ocean so I've always valued education I am lucky enough to be retired and because I'm retired I get to decide where I want to spend my um volunteer time and public education is definitely a place that I would like to spend my volunteer time I have two daughters who are teachers in Jefferson County I have two granddaughters who are graduates from Jefferson County two granddaughters who are currently in school in Jefferson County and I have two grandkids who are in Douglas County now too so I like to see how they're all doing um as I said I am fortunate enough to be retired so um I was thrilled at the opportunity to um run for and then be elected to the Jeff Co school board thank you Mary your um one of your daughters is my SEC is my older son second grade teacher um I have three kids in the district um the oldest is a senior and the youngest is a preschooler so thank you for teaching preschool because it is foundational to making sure we have education for our kids I am not an educator um but I wholly attribute public education to the ability for my hus hband and I to have made our lives and made our lives better and so I'm very passionate that the education that my 17-year-old has gotten is the same or better that what my four-year-old would get and so for me it is really recognizing being a volunteer in the schools ptas Sachs and then understanding that the work that gets done at the ground level is what makes us it's a maker break and so seeing the teachers every day seeing the Paris every day knowing that the work that goes on in those schools it's what really made me passionate about taking this seat um similar to Dr Bara as a parent you just don't know everything there is to know in a school district and so for the first year that I've been on the board I've learned a lot and I know I have a lot to learn um but I appreciate being here I feel very passionate that our public education is the way for our students to Make a Better Lives for themselves to make our County better and to make our country better so that's why I'm here okay thank you so much for answering those questions I have two more questions to follow with that I also want to know how are you fighting for our students and for our community I I always say this maybe to some of our district staffen I think our job is when we hear things to hesitate and ask questions so when we get information from anyone from our district from the superintendent from you all our job is not to always just hear everything and believe it's true but to stop and pause and say what are all the sides what is everyone's perception on this what are all the stories and as board members I think it's Our obligation to ask really hard questions and I find I that's that's one way that I find that I can fight for this uh work that we do by leaning in and saying I don't know that what we're hearing is all the data I don't know that what we're hearing is all of the truth and so making sense of that is definitely truly truly difficult um but then aligning that with the law and then with our policies and our values as a district is is our job so I think it's just absolutely critically critical in terms of the fighting part um to not get exhausted and tired of asking questions and to not be afraid to ask those questions so I I the reason I like jump in and want to answer that is because it's hard to figure out like how do you fight for the things you believe in um I've always seen the sign that says um don't get mad get elected and I love that because that's not for everyone but I relate to that so I was like that's that's how I can figure out how to do the thing advocate in the ways that I want to I'm better that then I'm actually a really private person so when you're like I'm throw out random questions I'm always like oh no um but that's one way that I can be more public in the way that I want to Advocate and fight for kids so I just think asking their hard questions and not just accepting what we hear at face value as as the thing the way to go forward is is our job um what do you mean by by hearing things that face value are you talking about what's happening in the schools like if hearing it like from us like the things that we say we get so if you can imagine when we sit down for a meeting we have a topic on legislation and then we go to Desa and then we go to Dak and then we go to whatever else is on our agenda we think about the budget and the capital uh curriculum so every single topic that comes to us is like is just like we have to we have to know all the topics so we get information that helps us understand those topics so we study ahead of time we get materials we talk to people out in the community and we get presentations in public conversations so what I'm talking about is as we're absorbing all that not to just take the first thing you see at face you know as as what it is and assume that's it that's the truth is to dig in to ask questions to find the multiple perspectives so what I mean I I forgot the way you asked it but seeing things at face value like everyone's presenting to us from their interests everyone is and it's our job to make sense of that and make sure that we're considering all the interests at once so that's the part where I think if we're just hear hearing something and putting our blinders on and saying that's the truth we haven't really done our job because we haven't really opened up and looked across all of the different ways we could learn about something so so when I hear like a presentation this is probably I think could get frustrated with me is I'm like okay this is part of the story you know we could where's the rest of it what do the people in my community say about this you know what what would my advisor say about this you know what would all the different folks um who I would go to to learn say about a topic I think I think that's great thank you I I also wonder and I know you I know you all do school visits but how often are you visiting in schools to see your own perspective of this as a parent I am in schools literally every single day just pick up and you know experiencing all of that um so I it's it's not really it would be inappropriate for us to just go into schools a lot it makes people you know they have to it's just not a good role for us to just walk into school so there is a level of preparing and helping people know when a board member is going to come um so I I personally literally am in schools almost every day um not in all parts of the school but I don't know others thank you um i' like to say too that because I'm the president um I do try to get to all the districts up and down from North Jeffco to South Jeffco all of us have been assigned a district as you're probably aware so we have assigned 30 to 35 schools that we um set up visits uh official visits with once or twice a year so we're all doing that um but I have been um going along with Dr vter a lot because I want to see what's happening outside my district also um I have been going to uh ride along some school buses with um Mr Gatlin which I have thoroughly enjoyed I did four of them last year and started one this year started to go into the school cafeterias and actually working with them to prepare the food so not just you know a part of my regular school visit but spending some time there so um I also want to get into the schools as much as I can I don't have kids there but I have daughters who were teaching um I have grandkids I go to their activities as as well can I just do a quick followup sorry so I love the you know listening part right and then listening and then you know Gathering all the information you possibly can um part of our part of why we part of why we're here and part of our Our concern is that we that didn't we don't think that happened last year when we came to you with concerns um and so I want to I guess I want to understand we want to understand um why that decision had been made to not talk to us during negotiations and I know you you mentioned that um that the decision was about negotiations well one person can write you a letter um that's just that's very concerning to me that we can't as a union approach you with concerns that will then be addressed or even considered so I I think that's kind of to me in my head that's a little bit um it well it is concerning and I want to um sorry I'm just trying to wrap my head around that because last year we had our Our concern was negotiations had stalled there is a lawyer here what happened so the nature of our concern was not fixed staff fix Outsourcing even though those are our top priorities it was what happened in the process to get here so I think that is that deserves recognition and communication so I think we need to understand at what point are you not willing to communicate with us and I think our our main goal here sorry is to keep Communication open so I yeah okay so I think there's a couple pieces here one is the perception that somehow last year there was a decision made among the board well in the past the board has always talked back and forth with the unions but this year we won't which is not at all what happened there was no discussion that led to a decision where we said you know I think this year we probably shouldn't talk to the unions that that just did not happen so um it's it's always been the process during negotiations and in the process of negotiations that the negotiations themselves happened between the teams you guys did come and talk during um public comment and I wish I had the notebook I was using last year because I would read back to you Verbatim what you said because I was writing it down that's how much I was listening to what you were saying in public comment and it's one of the reasons that we've talked about this year specifically putting aside time a substantial amount of time in public comment so that during negotiations about negotiations there is an opportunity for um jba and for jca to express the concerns that they have and um and I can assure you that I'm listening but if if you would feel better um having me let you know what I heard uh you know and and put it back to you I certainly can do that um but but I can tell you that we were listening during public comment um I think there's a difference in perception about and and so please clarify for me if I have this wrong because I'm very well might um and we have one-on-one conversations with uh the superintendent and Tracy and I specifically talked about the possibility of getting a facilitator um just the sense that maybe there was uh some misunderstandings at the beginning about who was perceiving what what ways and and who was perceiving how the the process was supposed to go and that it just seemed to be kind of having a rough start and that maybe a facilitator would be good idea and I liked the idea of a facilitator um because that is somebody that is hired by both sides you you work together to choose that person that they don't take just one side I I would not have my first choice would not have been to have a lawyer just representing us I would have much preferred to have a a facilit facilitator chosen by both sides my understanding was that you that the jper team preferred not to have a facilitator that was chosen by both sides so maybe if I understood that better I could address the rest better I would be happy to clarify what happened last year so we had two sessions of negotiating we did not have a facilitator at the table after two sessions of negotiating the district threatened impact pass if we were not to agree to a facilitator we said no the next session Brent case is at the table can you help me understand why you didn't want a facilitator that's what I'm we were threatened by the district to either go with a facilitator or you would declare impass I understand that that the threat made the whole thing feel not great I I get that aside from the threat if if that hadn't been there if it hadn't been we need a facilitator or or we're looking at impass if they had just said we really think that we need a facilitator would you have agreed I honestly I'm not maybe you can help um elaborate I don't fully understand why we would need a a facilitator if the whole goal between the board and the district is to collaborate and communicate with us why we can't do this together we don't always have to agree we don't always have to be best friends in this situation but we should be able to communicate and collaborate I absolutely agree I just think sometimes it doesn't hurt to have somebody else who's not you know who doesn't have a dog in the fight who is like I said hired by both sides and repres resents both sides um I I guess I'm not understanding why that's not a good thing we so yeah I mean we've considered it we are still considering it it's something that's a possibility this year but we have not come to any agreement on a facilitator for this year have you guys is it like you just can't find the right person we are still trying to negotiate what that looks like and why we need it and why the district wants it I want to address this and then I'd love to get back to answering the actual the initial question that you asked us about how we're fighting for kids um I I want to say I think relationship is incredibly important and I'll as an example lift up that I have a great relationship with my partner 15 years and we get into places where we need an impartial third party to help us navigate difficult conversations we go to coup's therapy so that we have an impartial third party who can hear both of our sides and help us come to a resolution we are invested in being in that relationship together both of us but we need help sometimes and I think it's okay to acknowledge that sometimes organizations such as this also sometimes need impartial help we want to rely on relationship and I will say I have struggled also with understanding the relationship between multiple parties involved not just with negotiations but also with Community advocacy and within our unions in general I've been here for a year it's been like drinking from a fire hose and I'm I'm coming back around to how do we reestablish and reconnect relationship because there have been things that have happened that have been harmful in the M maintenance of relationships some of those relationships are with me some of them are with other people on this board and some of them are with other people in our community and we've got to attend to our relationships if we need a third party who going to help us attend to and build our relationships I think it's a tool that we can use so that we can get to a place where we have trust and we can have hard conversations without eating a third party but we're not there right now I mean I'm just going to be honest I don't feel that I am there um I can't speak for everybody on the board which is underscoring my answer to the question what am I doing to fight for our kids I'm going to go ahead and answer that because I want to move our conversation I know you said you had another question you wanted to ask us to and we've got multiple things to get to tonight um So my answer for that is I'm supervising the superintendent along with four other amazing human beings who are up here who are supporters of public education staff students and community members our job is to supervise the superintendent the superintendent's job is to do all of the other things that make this County run and so we do not have access to the Lane where we just jump past the superintendent or we jump past cabinet staff down into the weeds that's a different kind of board that's not a policy governance board that's like an organizational board that works great in districts that are small where they have not a whole lot of articulation areas or perhaps one school that's K through 12 that's not Jeffco in Jeffco we have to have people who are fulfilling their roles in the lanes that they are in so that it all works together in concert and create something that's larger than that any one of us could do it's another reason that I'm here I want to be part of something that's larger than myself Jeff certainly larger than myself it's larger than any one person in this room and we have got to work together if we're going to keep moving forward for our students that said I support also the idea of having um a third- party in the conversation so that both sides of the table are being represented and heard told when they are overstepping or told when they are not considering or not hearing the other side that's the role of a facilitator and when both sides have a role in picking who that facilitator is I think the outcome can be much more powerful than if just one side selects who that facilitator would be in fighting for our students I really I really um and I'll say this because I left education I left Public public school classroom the adults constantly get in the way way of student learning and when we say that we're advocating for kids when we get into conversations about negotiations are we negotiating for our employees so that they can support the healthy outcomes for students that's my understanding of what a professional Union does it advocates for the employees in their contract so that they can do the work to support the kids one of the things that I struggle with is when negotiations start around an employee contract become about Community advocacy projects that are not connected at all to the employee contract and I get worried when our professional organizations get conflated with other actions social justice actions I'm not saying that that's not a necessary part of what a union does but when you come to negotiate a contract at a table you're talking about the contract and the employees who are working in that contract what are you referring to and for the ADV totally honest and say I think that at times the affiliation with coloradans for the common good gets conflated with the work that needs to be done in negotiations I think there are two separate things that need to happen we can Advocate and work with our community partners with for Colorado through the common good when I say we I'm using a royal we not we the board but organizations can join that at their own you know their own choice but when a professional Union comes to the table to negot negotiate a professional employee contract the focus needs to be on the employees and that work environment and that contract and not on social actions that are happening out in the larger Community with other Community Partners that is frustrating for me to think that we're showing up at a negotiation table to talk about what Colorado for the common good would like to accomplish you're talking about the pilot right I'm not talking about the pilot what are you talking about talking about how we show up at the table or how this organization has shown up at the table to advocate for things that Colorado for the common good is working on that are not part of employee contract language can you be more specific because I hear the Food Service pilot when you say that what are you talking about I'm talking about when you show up at the table you should be talking about employee contract issues can you please give me an example of what you're talking about hours benefits no of when showed up and not talked about that I I I'm I'm Ser I'm honestly confused because when we show up at the table we're talking about what's in our contract we're advoc but there have been con there have been conversations and things brought up that are about not the contract about programs and other things that are going on that multiple organizations in our community are working on I'm not mad that that work is happening I just don't think it belongs at the negotiation table it would help us to understand with specifics because I I don't know what you are referring to I'll have to go back and listen but I remember walking away from some of the first few times that your organization showed up at the table and hearing language that I've heard Colorado for the common good advocate for out in the community that was not related to actual contract language for the employees who are represented by Jessa and that frustrated me I don't have a specific example at the moment but I'm happy to go back listen to why I walked away with that feeling I I would be happy to to to speak to that because what I believe you're talking about is then we had Parents show up at the table and advocate for healthy food for kids that was last year that was a second negotiation session we had two parents from the Food Service pilot which lived in our contract they spoke to the needs of that program which they are part up are they employees of the district they are written into that they were written into that you they were part of the working group and the community that was working on the pilot so they are deeply connected to the work we're doing we are deeply connected to the community we are parents kids workers in Jeffco we are not it's it's not just a vacuum here and that's part of our work I have concerns about issue advocacy in an employee contract negotiation I'm going to end it there because I want to make sure that my other board members are able to answer the other questions the questions that you've already asked and whatever remaining questions you have okay does anyone else have anything in response to how are you fighting for our children in in our [Music] community sure I mean if you if you have something to say if you don't then you don't right oh okay so um you had a chance to to watch some of that just happen with our legislative agenda so one of the things that we do is we um we have ad vage go to the capital and talk about legislation that we believe will be best for our students and so some of that is funding for sure because funding deeply impacts every aspect of their education um but uh like last year we supported legislation that allows students to be called by the names and pronouns that they want to be called by so we want to fight for their right to um determine for themselves who they are and to be addressed in a way that they find respectful and welcoming and gives them a sense of belonging we advocated for their right to express themselves at graduation in a way that is Meaningful for them culturally and personally so uh so we do that through legislation I think that we will be called upon to a greater degree I think we've always tried to advocate for students that are often underrepresented or for whom they're are opportunity gaps I think that we'll probably be called upon to do that even more strongly and my hope is that we will rise to that occasion and and do that for our students so I think that that is something that you will be able to continue to see us do to fight for students we try to make sure that they're getting quality instruction quality materials materials that are cultur culturally relevant um that the instruction they're getting is culturally sensitive uh that is not something that I saw as a student ever and that honestly now that I know some things that I didn't know when I first started teaching for sure I didn't always do a good job with as a teacher and that was because I didn't know and I didn't have training and I want to make sure that our teachers do know and do have training I'm currently serving on the equity accountability committee or I'm the board Lea on for that and I'll have a chance to talk about that experience a little bit more on Thursday so this is work I'm doing on the side to continue to fight for students thank you I would say that for me I mean you you've heard a lot of really good stuff and so part of the challenge with going at the end is that you kind of repeat things so bear with me um I think from my standpoint it's it's listening you heard Dr V talk a lot about we listen and we get a lot of emails and we take that information so whether it's student visits whether it's School drop offs you'd be amazed how many times I get stopped dropping my own kids off and told about something and it's everything um everything from a student telling me that a bathroom was really yucky and if I could fix that um not not that it was yucky in the way of like not clean but it was painted an ugly color in her opinion two two concerns about time and start times two concerns about out and you name it and so part of my job is to be the siphon the filter whatever you want to call it and when we talk with the superintendent and we talk with the cabinet when we have study sessions to bring things up and so you know you heard other board members say when you communicate with us we may not respond but we do get all of the emails we do get all the emails and a lot of that information gets filtered and it gets shared um I guarantee you when we are in the heat of negotiations and we are all getting emails we share that information and we share our thoughts on that information with the superintendent how I'm fighting for kids specifically is I want to make sure that when our kids go to school they feel safe and they're getting an education and that our teachers feel safe I think that point is really struck with me um and that our teachers can make a living wage and can live in the neighborhoods that they work that's very important to me it's something that we talked about a lot during our campaign a year ago um and putting good teachers and good parents and good staff in our schools is one of the ways we fight for kids frankly because when they're safe in that way when they have teachers they trust um I can tell you with three different kids with very different needs um I can't do it without crying so I'm not going to tell you the story but there are teachers in my kids lives that I'm certain oh H I'm GNA cry anyway um put them on a track for success and that means the world to me I can never repay that and so I want to offer that and I hope every student has that and so there's a whole lot of ways every decision we make every vote we take is in defense of students thank you Michelle um the whole point of these questions were to get to that deep you know why remember your why type of situation um so that was the point so thank you for the genuine emotion did anyone else have anything they' like to add I I just I just want to acknowledge as well the commitment of this board as a unified board I've worked for many different versions of boards over the course of my career and I would say this is one of the most unified boards um regarding compensation increases in concern and care for employees and they know that the folks who are in front of our students every day whether it's a bus driver um somebody in the cafeteria a professional an educator a principal that that individual matters in the lives of our kids I think you just saw that as evidenced with director Applegates comments thank you for that um and I do think none of you talked about it but every single one of you has been a very strong advocate for our employees and making sure that they have um Fair wages that of course we have to provide within our means um and I just I needed to acknowledge that and I thank you for that okay thank you my last question um is what stands in your way so coming back to everything that we've talked about you know or that you've given me an answer you know why are you on the board who are you fighting for and what is currently standing in your way money absolutely money it's making going me crazy Colorado funds its schools2 to $3,000 per child less than the national average and what I would do with that money is I would make sure that our employees are fairly compensated honestly I don't believe you are and I and the thing that stops that is our overall budget is trying to figure out out how the heck to make that happen because currently I think it's 84% of our budget is Personnel something like 87% is salaries and compensation um and we do have to do other things we have to have infrastructure and you know so so we can't make it 100% um I'm very frustrated by that limitation and uh so so you know that's one of the reasons that what you just saw was us talking about the need for money and as we've all seen over and over it just feels like every time the state is short the first place they dip is into education if I were Queen of the world we would take every single penny out of C dot because if everybody had to drive on roads that they maintained the way we maintain schools think people might get a little motivated to do something but we have 75% of our voters who don't have kids in schools and don't see it and so they're like you know and and we see it we see it on next door we hear it in community conversations oh you know they're just complaining everybody's making plenty of money no you're not you deserve more You Deserve Better Health Care coverage the things that I've heard you talk about you deserve them if I if I had the means to to do it we would so you know we continue to finagle and massage and try to figure out how to get every penny that we can for compensation out of the budget that we have but that is our biggest obstacle in my opinion is funding or okay I I'll say Obviously funding is the biggest elephant there but I also think we're a really really big school district and because we are we've got very different needs at different schools and um as a school board when we're trying to um uh make sure that the resources are used appropriately I know when I first got on the board um realizing what was happening to small schools and the subsidies that were going to them um um it was masking a lot of problems sometimes and it's therefore we realized we had to close some schools um to be more efficient in the small amount of funds that we had but also I think on the school board we get a lot of emails of people who are not happy and then they extrapolated if one situation at one school is a problem they'll say Jeff Co schools are a problem Jeff Co schools don't care about X Y and Z so it is another added challenge I think because our school is so big our district is so big thank you thank you for answering my questions today thank you for your emotion Paula as well um in these questions um the past couple of nights to be honest with you I've been sitting back and thinking about a lot about this a lot about relationship a lot about seeing ourselves a lot about collaborating and communicating and coming together what I see here is that we are both on the same side correct we are both fighting for the same exact things um what I want to invite you to do I was talking to Xander about it earlier I don't know Tracy with your psychology background you might understand this but I've taken a training in um what the drama triangle is and how all of us are always in the drama triangle no matter what right and I want us to start and I want all of us to invite each other to start seeing each other as the villain to see each other as the Challenger or coach right so if we're in the drama triangle and we are we could be the victim we could be the villain or the coach or the the hero right and so the flip side of that would be the Creator would be the coach would be the um Challenger and I'm perfectly fine being a challenger to all of you tend to just be that naturally but I don't want to be the villain and even with Coloradoan of of the common good good everybody is here fighting for the same exact thing and I want all of us to remember that even with J We're not just jba we're not just the union we are representing how many four or five thousand of your esps we are representing them we are a part of the community that is coming to you with the things that they come to us with with the things that we personally experience in the schools and then me going in further with as with so many other of my co-workers and is that I am a parent that I am a Community member I am a taxpayer and I am an employee so I am here looking at this on so many more angles just as all of you are and so to wrap this up I really want um to get a commitment from you all for collaboration during bargaining process and communication because we are on the same team I want us to remember that you might not always agree with what we're doing but we're coming from a good place correct and I want to remember that that same space is coming from you that I might not always agree with the decisions that you make but I want to believe that it is coming from a good place and the best way we can do that is through collaboration communication and transparency thank you can I can I follow can I'd like to ask you all for a commitment to trust us I'm telling you this is the board you want in negotiations there is no other board no other set of five people that are going to work harder to try to meet the requests that you're making I guarant gu these are the five people and I am hopeful that you all will commit to trusting that that's true of us whether I'm comfortable meeting you in a coffee shop to speak oneon-one which is maybe more about me personally than anything else is not the same thing as whether I'm going to go to bat for you when we are working really hard in that negotiation process so I hear what you're saying but I also so I feel like one of our major roadblocks in this particular work with negotiations is that I don't think you all trust us and we we need you to trust us too so my hope is that you will make that commitment to us um when things were not going well last year we're all watching these negotiations when they're streamed and I was like what is what went wrong I have the same questions Andre that you had I was like what is going wrong why are we at this point where we heard there's an attorney why what happened you know and that doesn't have anything to do with whether we're meeting you oneon-one there's something that happened in the process that went wrong and I guess I have one last question for you all like I I hear your part about wanting to meet with us and I do I hear that but in the process part what do you all need you know from from the process or you know we there is a team that does this so we're not the ones making those calls um so I'm just curious if and I'm I'm kind of hoping we could you like focus on that part that would be really helpful Danielle thank you for asking that question um this being my second year in the school uh watching at same I was at every bargaining listening every single time um and as a parent watching Community coming in in support of uh esps and Jessa who represent esps when we watched a union busting attorney so when I watched my tax dollars that I pay to this District pay and hire a lawyer that within what two sessions make more than I do in a year felt horrible it felt like I was paying for you to fight against me and that felt distrusting again like Xander said in the beginning this isn't going to be a easy conversation and we need to clear up some elephants in the room and this is where I think maybe we all need to take that look in the mirror and look at were some of our egos in the way were some you know like where was this where was this coming from because doing hiring somebody within two sessions that makes more than your ESP makes in a year with their tax dollars was a slap in the [Music] face so can I humbly beseech you to consider a facilitator that is chosen by both sides and the reason that I say that is because we are considering it well okay that you will do it let me put it that way that that you will actually do it because um one of the reasons I thought it was a good good idea last year is because when you guys came to the board meeting and if really was listening one of the things I heard was that um there was a sense of being disrespected that jba was being disrespected by the district and this is one of those times that if you use the the coup's counseling analogy that um maybe it's perception maybe it's not maybe the district really was being disrespectful having that third party there to be able to say hang on a second rethink how you just said that think about how that may be perceived and that goes both ways that's why you choose somebody that both that both sides agree to um it keeps that from breaking down and I think there was such a sense of of things breaking down that the district was like well we need you know we feel like we need somebody in there to to look at the process and for what it's worth U my understanding of the the person that we hired and I get the the salary issue I absolutely do um and the you know the money that's being spent and that that is a separate piece and and I appreciate your frustration with that um but uh my understanding of that particular individual is that he is frequently hired by both sides that there are times that he fights for unions and other times that he sides with management so um he's not like he doesn't have a career as a union busting lawyer but it feels that way when one side has chosen the person so I would really really really like to see somebody to help out who isn't working for one side and that's just it's me it's your call it's your decision that's just I think it would be so helpful I we hear you again as we are representatives for esps this also has to get approved by them this is not just about the people sitting here at this table and I just want to Echo Darcy's point we are considering a facilitator last year Brent case was not intended to facilitate he was intended to come to the table and tell us no no I know that it's that we sort of presented the idea of a facilitator initially and and and that was not okayed by jesa but I understand you know where that breakdown happened and that you sort of felt like an ultimatum had been given and at that point it wasn't a feeling it was a letter sent to us with a ultimatum so yeah there's no perception there it's literal and I'm and I'm acknowledging that um I'm saying let's not do it that way this year we don't want to do it that way this year and so we can can I just clear the air this year's going better than last year okay it's going better um it's the first session was a little bit Rocky but we can we can navigate that okay so I want to be clear we we are we're making progress okay um the concern is that we could potentially get to a point this year where we need to communicate with you can that happen absolutely communicate with us you can't negotiate with us that's not what we want well ultimately we are negotiating with you we negotiate with the board you're representatives represent the negotiating teams eventually come up with together yes so we can't we don't get into the negotiation process and that is a policy governance thing so absolutely communicate with us absolutely and one of the ways like I said that we want to do that is just set aside dedicated time for you to come in and tell us your concerns um and people can always write to us and you know if if you want to have a one-on-one conversation like I said about just in general um and I've had people do that you know here I'm having this issue with my supervisor who I think is being unfair and I want you to know about this and I've engaged in those conversations with people and I'm not in a position to go do anything to their supervisor but I can hear and I can know that it's going on and I can acknowledge that so just just understand that um communication doesn't mean that any one of us can sit down and say yeah we'll we'll make sure that you get XYZ that's a process that has to be done between the teams we understand we understand that okay we get that and the the the point of communicating with you during negotiations isn't isn't about doing back door deals we don't want that we want transparency again the issue is if we do run into any problems we want access to the leaders that we've elected into Jeffco that's what yeah I'd like to get more specific we have talked about having dedicated time for you at our monthly meetings which I think would be helpful because then everybody hears the things at the same time and we have you know an opportunity to um just be on the same page as opposed to if you ask to speak to one of the school board members individually I'm not sure how that would work if if you were hoping that one individual would then bring it back to the superintendent or bring it back individually to all the board members so if you can help me know the benefit of you meeting with one board member during or just what access means to you that would help be helpful for me perspective delivered in a specific way or so so does does what's been set up meet your expectations or would you like something else let I mean I appreciate that we're trying to find Solutions okay let me just be clear with that I this is great last year let me just again say what happened when this breakdown happened I reached out to every one of you I emailed every one of you about speaking with us because we have concerns with the process and what's going on I only received a response from Mary um now what I I would have loved to meet with all of you at the same time I mean that would have been great if we could have just sat down and met and I believe there was an interest in meeting with community members as well let me also be clear we are ccg this isn't just some like group that we are part of we are ccg okay so making it seem like bringing ccg to the table [Music] are grp being able to speak to you with you to get perspective on what's going on in our district is [Music] crucial to Our Success just period what do you mean you are C the union is ccg like the members of the Union are members of ccg I just want to be clear because I don't understand that CG stands for coloradans for the common good and we're all coloradans that want to come together to collaborate for the common good of our students our co-workers our communities so that that's what ccg is the union it's an or it's an organ it's an organization that we are that that we are part of you're a member of yeah you're a member of their organization it's not their organ we are it's it's it's there's no there's no there's the line is not there's no division with that yeah never heard of this before of a union being the an an outside organization but I mean but I do think um when you said like you would have liked to talk to us to about the process we we really can't talk to you about the negotiation process that's exactly and we we can't even talk to each other in groups of more than three about are I mean that's what I meant groups in in groups of three like we're the way that we can communicate is so is that is that policy that you can't a laww okay actually I think if Julie could just jump in here miss TOS can you can you explain Sunshine laws and why why I just want to reiterate this is why the board setting up during public comment through negotiation season a specific amount of time at the beginning of public com for jcea and jba members to come and speak um to the board about negotiations or anything else is the reason we've landed on this structure um because the the board members there are law state laws uh related to how they can meet with people and each other so Julie can you can you give us like a little 101 on that absolutely first from the open meeting law perspective which is kind of what they were talking about if if three or more of them are together it's a meeting that has to be noticed in advance if two of them are together it's a meeting that has doesn't have need advanced notice but it has to be open to the public but the other piece that's sort of in this which is more of a labor law thing and I don't want to get all Technical and lawyerly but once each side has appointed a group of Representatives to be at the table neither side's supposed to make an end run around that like if we sent or the board sent a communication to your members and said we're unhappy with you know this proposal look at how these that would be completely inappropriate and my guess is we would hear from you and your council at CA very quickly right so some of it is it's just got to be at the table between the party's Representatives that's the delegation that both the board makes and that you all make thank you for that I just want to jump in because I heard Dr V say what happened which is really funny because that's exactly what I said when we had the meeting prior that director Reed was at director Parker was at and superintendent dorland I said the same thing I wanted to have a restorative practice conversation what happened we can't move forward and fix it until we know what happened do we need to know the background of personnel issues if that was an issue of course not but we need to be able to fix whatever the process issue was and I hear you're saying we need a facilitator we have haven't had a facilitator in years I want to know what you think we did wrong that we need a facilitator or maybe likewise what support of a facilitator you all think you might need what I heard last was um members of the negotiating the Jessa negotiating team saying that they felt that they were being disrespected that the that they were unhappy with the process and so it made sense to me to get somebody in who was a neutral party who could help that so that and I'm not saying it did happen or it didn't happen because that's not my place here but if we are in a situation where for some reason the district team is being disrespectful a a facilitator calls them on that and and is there to keep that from happening and vice versa so it really was it was not any it was not you guys doing something wrong it was me hearing what you were saying about how you were feeling about the process and trying to figure out how to get us back on track using that same analogy really that Aon used of when when communication starts to break down in a relationship it is sometimes really helpful to have somebody who's not in the middle of all of that now if you don't feel like that's what's happening this year great then then we don't need one except I think Amanda and I are doing great so that's good um yeah um in addition to the um the need for a facilitator last year I also expressed um in our monthly meeting our monthly leadership meeting not only the interest and a facilitator who can help be a neutral party to keep the process moving forward in a in a more positive direction than I felt like it was going the second reason um I really wanted a facilitator was so that we could have conversations and make some decisions about um like what type of negotiation process we were using and possibly receive some training on that so having worked in multiple districts and um worked with multiple associations um I have always found that it is most successful number one with the facilitator uh because sometimes we have to have hard conversations and disagreements about things and then we have to come to a negotiated agreement um but number two um I've I've always been in a situation when it's been successful where it's really clear to all of us what type of negotiation process we're using and we talked about this a little bit in the meeting last month with with Mary and Paula um whether it's interest based strategies or um traditional bargaining um I I actually think that this is my personal opinion I'm open to other opinions in other ways I think we're in a spot right now where traditional bargaining is probably the best approach for us right now and there there is a way that is trainable and learnable and for all of us to create Norms around related to a bargaining model so um that is another reason I'm interested in facilitation and collaborative conversations to say what model I mean I take bargaining very seriously I believe in employees rights to come to the table and advocate for themselves um but I also believe that there are ways to do that that are more efficient effective productive respectful um based on research and people who are really smart who've created these types of processes so I have interest in both defining our model together shared agreement around that and then facilitation related to what the protocol of that model calls for for example a structure like caucusing uh when you want to talk about it as a team red line or do whatever we're going to do and then come back to the table to talk some more so that's just an example of a structure that I think we need to Norm around so you know I um yeah I'd like to talk for just one minute um I hope that u in the last two years I don't um can't recall who where everybody was for that but I hope that there there's some recognition behind um who could have been prepared better we consider that to be disrespectful when people don't come to the table prepared there was a lot of time wasted being prepared so when we say we're being disrespected it's not specifically by anybody in particular here or anywhere but the process is very visual to our people and when they think we're they think that's disrespectful to come unprepared so we had a lot of different we had a lot of wasted time happen during two years ago in negotiations so moving on to the next year we were wondering what we were going to get into and then we ran right into Brett case so I understand where you're coming from it's hard to understand Colorado's for the common good and how what what that means to us and why we are who why we say we are I get it but it it sometimes it's not just up to us to to to step forward and say hey uh we really want to talk to you about something sometimes we need you if if you need to talk to us talk to us I I it's like you said you guys dig in you you wait you stop and say give me a minute we need to look into this and see why this is why it's being perceived this way so I don't know if that's a thing for the school board to be able to say hold on stop we need to talk to jba but I hope it is you know um as we said earlier we're not here to we're here for the same reason we love kids we love Public Schools um and we all want to be successful here so I hope from your perspective you guys can also see that our door is opened also to understand um I feel like uh Aaron that uh that it might be the whole com the whole Colorado ccg thing um can be a little uh provoking or whatever or just not easily understood but understand it you know dig into that in the future and find out what we mean we don't have time tonight to go through everything but um it is for the common good um and um I I hope the doors are open both ways but we look at respect in all avenues especially being prepared and if the scho district doesn't understand our the way we want to do business at negotiations then it should be figured out ASAP especially in the middle of it so that's that's that's my part um and I just want to in the interest of time now too thank you so much for coming here and you were obviously perf prepared so I appreciate that with the questions and your and your feedback um at this point I just want to ask you so that as a board we are aware of what you mean or what you want going forward as far as communication um being open we have talked about when you can come before the whole board which is preferable for us given the constraints we have on meeting individually or or in two or threes um and specifically if you still want to be able to reach out to an individual board member and expect and want that individual board member to respond to you during negotiations thank you I do want to piggy off a little bit of what John said um because I don't know you know kind of coming back to seeing how we're all showing up in the situation and this is not something that came from the board but as far as where jba or esps in general during last year was not feeling respected and I understand that Steve landrian is no longer here but do you remember his classes remark so there is a bit I don't know if certain you know we all have to go to trainings we all have to understand like for us for me specifically it's learning how to deescalate right it's I work in an ASD Center but sometimes I don't think it wouldn't hurt for people who are sitting in a position who aren't struggling to pay their bills or eat food to come to a place of understanding what their privilege is and not ever coming to the table and making a remark as classes as that saying that we were not educated was horribly offensive considering there are many many esps that are educated including myself not to mention the years of experience in that position that not other people have like what we do is a different qualification than teachers than what you do um and should never be treated as it is less [Music] than and I think you'll find this whole board agrees with you I think to answer your question Mary um obviously we'll follow the law I mean we don't want to do anything illegal when we try to communicate with you or have conversations um I think the the the goal is to trust each other right we used the word trust before um through action um I'm not here to trust anybody I'm here to do the things that will support students and workers so I think meeting each other in the middle and building that back because I I agree there's the last five years and jeffro for esps has been really difficult um when it comes to relationships with administrators management um we have workers who are being harassed every day mistreated management not following our contract um and so we show up at the table with real concerns about how we are being treated and it again it's not about trusting people to do the right thing it's about seeing you do the right thing um and so for us it's the communication piece is about being able to have perspectives we want you to have our perspective we want you to have us to have your perspective um and I think continuing conversations like this is going to be incredibly important to repair that I think Tracy you've said it a lot there is I mean there is we need to we need to have trust in each other we need to repair the relationship it's not going to happen overnight but it's going to take conversations like this to get us there um I appreciate the I appreciate you taking us seriously when we say we want to communicate with you and I appreciate that you're making an effort to make space for that so I think we can start there but I I I want to know and trust that if this breaks down again that we can come to you and talk to you that's what we want would members any other comments well thank you very much really appreciate it um and we've got another meeting next Thursday if you have more things you want to say we have the public comment period for you so please take advantage of it and uh I'm glad to hear things are going better this year to start with thank you thank you [Music] okay for our next topic this evening the board will have the opportunity to discuss the proposed 2024 Mill Levy certification resolution pursuant to Colorado revised Statute we will then vote the resolution for the certification of the mill levies and corresponding County documents were publicly posted for preview via board docs prior to today's meeting the resolution authorizes and certifies to the commissioners of Jefferson and Broomfield counties the total of 44.48416800 before I turn this over to miss Copeland to discuss it is there anything you'd like to add superintendent dor I just want to highlight for the board and the listening public that this is an annual um action that the board takes to uh study and certify our Mills it's timely um and allows us to make sure that we're working efficiently and effectively with the county as a taxing Authority so miss Copeland great uh good evening board members thanks so much for having um Mr Sammons and I this year we're doing a little bit more of a informational presentation in part because we want to make sure there's clear accountability to some of the actions that the legislature took um to ensure property tax relief for um our citizens and businesses and so that's part of the reason we're going to walk through a few computations in this presentation so this will be informational uh we do need you to vote this evening um to certify these Mills the rationale is of course we have a statutory deadline of December 15th um and your regular meeting next week occurs after that and so that's why we're doing it during study um once we get these certified we have to send them to three different groups the Jefferson County Assessor the city and county of Broomfield assessor and the Colorado Department of Education and technically speaking speak it's also to the County Commissioners and the city council but it's really to the assessor um and the key thing being these tax assessors are the folks who collect not just on our behalf we are a taxing Authority um but for example if I'm not mistaken uh Jefferson County collects on behalf of over a hundred um taxing authorities within the county and so it's complicated and so they need all of us to get our stuff in on time so they can um get these things published uh for uh folks to know what taxes they're going to owe in the coming year um final point is just um you know as we think about our Mill levies in Jefferson County Public Schools um and you'll hear from Brian who's going to provide some detail we've actually been lowering the number of Mills for our overrides over time and so when they were passed by voters it took more Mills and we'll say what a mill is in just a minute um to collect a certain amount of money than it does today so um one way in which Jefferson County taxpayers have experienced tax relief is the fact that we've been actually lowering our Mills every year to collect a set dollar amount um and that is a dynamic um that is very predictable for voters in terms of what they're going to pay essentially the same thing every single year regardless of the value of their home for that portion of our overrides um but it is a little bit of a constraint on the district in terms of trying to um meet and face inflation that's very real for all of us um and appropriate and very important for us to keep compensation pacing with inflation to ensure our employees can buy groceries all these types of things so again we're going to talk a little bit about that dyamic I just wanted to preview that part of the reason we want to make sure everyone's clear um is how our actual overrides work compared to maybe other districts um and we want to make sure folks see that that tax relief did happen okay okay thank you Miss Copan good evening everybody okay so what is a mill Levy and assessed value a mill Levy is a property tax as applied to the assessed value of a property the assessed value is calculated by taking the market value of a property and multiplying it by the assessment rate that is assigned to the property type so for residential property is 6.7% for the 2024 property taxes paid in calendar year 2025 so they assess your value of your home for last calendar year and you pay it on the next calendar Year's property taxes so to help illustrate how property tax are calculated we have included a hypothetical example here if your home has a market value of $600,000 with assessment rate of 6.7 your assess value is 40,200 if the M Levy rate for your property area is set at 25 Ms with an assessed value of 40,200 the annual property tax would be $1,005 in the calendar year 2025 there is a typo in the slide if you can see we have $4,590 we will correct that to 40,200 but I want to make sure that we metioned that here and sorry here I am bugging already um and just to be clear SP 222 38 and SB 23b which was the special session 001 um specifically lowered that residential property assessment rate so effectively the discount that's applied to market value to actually get to assessed value so we want make sure folks know that's reflected in that 6.7 number thank you okay so each year when calculating the mid Levy for JE Public Schools taxable area four critical data points are needed to determine the appropriate tax rates and ensuring the district can generate the necessary Revenue net asset valuation provided by Jefferson and Bromfield County um includes the total assess value for all taxable properties within the district boundaries as determined by the county assessor the assets valuations reflect the value placed on residential commercial and other properties within the district and it serves as the basis for calculating property taxes local contribution to school Finance act which is defined by law um requires local contribution to the school Finance act which helps fund public education this local contribution is set at a fixed rate currently 27 Ms the annual inflation is needed in order to compute the 2018 M override amount and each year the district must evaluate the bond Redemption fund to determine the required Debt Service payments for the calendar year um this involves calculating the amount of money needed to be meet both the principal and ins obligations for B ISS issued the Jeff Public School Mill levies um that we have broken out here the local contribution which was just mentioned above um is set of 27 Mills annually voter approved M Levy overrides are Pacific Mill levies that are enacted through local elections the number of Mills applied vary from year to year depending on the net assess value the abatements and refunds is a M Levy rate that is calculated to collect a set dollar amount that reflects abatements and refunds issued by the county this ensures that Jeffco still collects the required revenues despite the reductions and assess values foric properties and then the voter approved Bond Redemption levies are used to fund the district long-term debt obligations including the repayments of bonds issued for school constructions or inovation projects the number of Mills applied to these M levies can vary each year um but we have held it flat for the last few years so um I was mentioning that our overrides have gone down and on our stack bar charts here the blue section just in case you can't read our um uh little Legend at the bottom those are our overrides and you can see back in 2019 sorry and my glasses aren't even that good so I gotta look at the one on my page um are you just gloating with the good Vision okay 15.49 and then um for 2024 it's 11.31 so so so that's a four it's over a four mil decrease um so and that's pure reflection of the fact that as the sess value went up we're still collecting either the same dollar amount or for one of the Mills a dollar amount plus inflation which did not you know that's not going to be anywhere close to how much the assess value was going up so it's that blue wedge that's shrinking one another minor note the abatements you don't see the number in the stack bar chart and that's why the numbers don't add up but they're teeny tiny um like 2.3 um but that's the difference between the three numbers you do see in each bar and the top which is the full tally including abatements thank you okay so def Public Schools 2025 M levies so these are the amounts we'll be certifying today hopefully um year-over-year total Mills are decreasing 04 in total um we have the 27 Mills for the school Finance act um the voter approved overrides is going to be 11378 I must round to three decimals based on law so just please know that we're not not that precise all the time but that's just what we're required to have um the abatements and refunds that were provided by the counties uh equated to 0204 um like I mentioned earlier all the approved Bond Redemption levies will be held flat at 5.96 so total Mills of 44488 and then you can see the um the comparison year to year and I did include the ements on this side a little bit smaller so are larger so you could see the B there okay so um what we're trying to show here with this slide what we're showing here graphically is a loss of purchasing power by the mill levies due to each voter approved Mills being a set dollar amount and not growing with inflation annually with the one exception of the 2018 M override so as you can see the total loss in voter approved M override purchasing power um for the from the last physical year so the beginning of the M levies um was over 68 million so the plain English is if each of these had been passed to adjust for inflation inflation is real um we would be collecting 68.7 million more is thank you for the pling English Okay so as Brena mentioned in the first slide um I like to mention here again prudent toico state statute education certifi its Mills to the board County commissioners of Jefferson and Bromfield counties by December 15th which is actually Sunday so I will be submitting everything by Friday um to the different counties and CDE so thank you again now we're open for questions director s yes we have a question more of a comment um I the best way to learn something is to teach it to somebody else so today I was going through what a mill was and teaching it to my seventh grader so that I could make sure that I was understanding it as I was explaining it um so it was a lot of fun he was homesick today I don't think that's what he wanted to do with his time but I was I was teach I was taking him through the presentation and talking my way through it um I for the listening public I just W to um I want to lift up we essentially have four five days technically but now four because it's two on Sunday so do our math and so our certification of this is that we say the math is mathing this is what we've come up with right because we're a separate texting entity um and so in my notes I have why why why is it like this my hands up in the air a little it's very complicated but I want to say um thank you for doing all of the um calculations and Computing I'm starting to get a better handle on this than I had last year at our first board meeting that that I attended um when we were presented this information um just for clarification we do not make any discretionary changes to any of this information is that accurate correct thank you um and I don't I don't think I have any other questions I just wanted to clarify that is a quick turnaround but that we do the calculations separately because we're texting entities so we're verify as a board verifying that and then giving it back Jefferson County and they will continue to use that information then to collect is that accurate yeah I you know so we play a role our role is the computation so they give us the assessed value it's our role to keep track of what have voters approved and how to we compute the Mills to do what voters have approved um the good news is there's lots of people checking our work um including us and a whole bunch of other people and then we send this to CDE and they're always kind of looking at it and um the couny pay everybody pays attention um and we do still have a responsibility as the school district to do the computation so they aren't going to do it for us that's what I understood so thank you for verifying that thank you for that presentation uh do I have a motion to approve the certification of 2024 M levies to be collected in 202 2 resolutions as presented in board docs and to authorize District staff to submit them to the board of County commissioners of Jefferson and Broomfield to meet the December 15th submission date I move to approve the certification of 2024 Mill levies to be collected in 2025 resolutions as presented in board dos and to authorize District staff to submit them to the board of County commissioners of Jefferson and Broomfield to meet the December 15th submission date Z second second any comments it has been moved and seconded that the board approved the certification of 2024 Mill levies to be collected in 2025 resolutions as presented in board docs and to authorize District staff to submit them to the board of County commissioners of Jefferson and Broomfield roll call please miss Z Miss Applegate yes Miss Kenworthy yes Miss Parker yes Miss Reed yes Dr V yes and that motion passes thank you very much thank you it's now a little after 6:30 and um we are going to take 5 minute break [Music] [Music] as members of your Jefco School Board we help set the vision for our District's future we work closely with superintendent dorland and her staff to ensure that our goals align with our community commity values and the needs of our students whether it's improving academic achievement or enhancing school safety we are committed to jeco's Mission of providing a world-class education that prepares all Jeffco students for bright and successful Futures as local and Global Citizens [Music] [Music] [Music] school boards are advocates for students teachers and schools whether at the local state or even the national level we work to ensure our District's needs are heard this includes pushing for adequate funding better resources and policies that benefit our students and our community advocacy is a critical part of making certain our schools have what they need to succeed in providing the educational experience students deserve today you can view our board legislative agenda by visiting jeffcopublicschools.org [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] one of the key responsibilities of the board of education is policymaking we create and adopt policies that shape how our schools operate everything from curriculum decisions to policies that ensure every student feels a sense of belonging our policies help ensure consistency fairness and Excellence across all district schools we work hard to ensure they reflect our community's values and serve students best interests while following state and federal laws [Music] [Music] one of the most important roles we have as a school board is hiring and evaluating the superintendent who serves as a district CEO and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of our schools we provide the support and guidance they need to effectively lead and evaluate their performance to ensure progress towards our educational goals [Music] [Music] as a Schoolboard our focus goes beyond just today it's about the future we are committed to the long-term planning that ensures the district's continued success a thriving District where all students can achieve their biggest dreams from updating facilities to integrating new technology we consider how today's decisions will impact students in the years to come our focus is on sustainability Innovation and growth for the future of Education in our community [Music] [Music] all [Music] get [Music] he [Music] [Music] get yeah [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] [Music] as a school board we're responsible for overseeing the district's budget every dollar matters when it comes to providing the best education possible we carefully allocate funds to support teachers maintain facilities and improve student programs it's our job to ensure Financial transparency and accountability while balancing the needs of students staff and taxpayers [Music] [Music] he he [Music] he [Music] yeah he [Music] [Music] [Music] and for our next agenda item this evening the board will receive an update on the district's Financial condition through the first quarter of the 20242 school year for listing public consistent with statutory requirements the district prepares and publishes quarterly Financial reports that are interim and unaudited before I turn this over to M Rosario is there anything like to add superintendent Doran you know I do want to just acknowledge that this is the first quarter um and so it's a it's looking backwards even uh to numbers that we're looking at today because it it ended right at the first quarter and we're now into the second quarter in a healthy way and so um but it is you know just an early report about how things are going and where the expenditures are landing early on in our in our um uh fiscal year so looking forward I just want to caveat that um sometimes people can see these quarterly reports and think you know you times that by four and um and that's what it's going to look like um it's not that simple so I want to reiterate that for um our listening public um and at the same time I think it is important for us to report out on a regular basis and I'm glad we do that and thank you to um Miss Rosario and Miss Copeland for doing that work for us and presenting to the board tonight great thank you um I did make a mental note to remove all my times for comput um the time period is July 1st to September 30th and of course it is December 10th um so yes this data is old and brief um couple highlights of some things that are a little different and how we're presenting this compared to last year um we are constantly trying to improve the clarity and accuracy of the information we present so one change we've made is to budgetary benchmarks um affectionately these are the little dots on the bar charts that show a percentage of whatever the thing is whether it's budgeted revenue or budgeted expense and you compare the actual against that dot um we've adjusted the benchmarks this year so that they actually represent spending patterns from prior year which is to say in the prior year if we spent 23% of something in q1 for for example the general fund The Benchmark is now at 23% of budget for that thing or in that fund um we think this will help us when we're talking about is something on track that little dot now is a little closer to what actually is on track um we've also removed it for Revenue um we do effectively a version of cash accounting all year long which is to say um the money comes in when it comes in and it a whole whole bunch of it is in the spring and so just not relevant um honestly to try and estimate what percentage should we be at because also the school Finance formula is changing and who pays what is changing and how much the state pays in certain periods is changing so um we've removed many of the revenue benchmarks because it's not a relevant metric um we can go back if folks are like this doesn't make sense we can change that back you let me know um year-over-year comparisons so new in 20 fy2 is we're going to deprioritize year-over-year comparisons for many of the funds because of the fund consolidation project so a year-over-year we're not restating last year's stuff to reflect the fund consolidation so it's now apples to oranges so there'll be several places in this deck and throughout the year where we're saying eh you know don't spend as much time on current year actuals versus prior year actuals because it's app oranges um so I just want to flag that up front and then I do want to remind folks um you know of all the financial tools at your disposal to monitor the financial health of the district these quarterly reports are backward looking and they're actuals only we're not giving you a forecast um I come back with my budget director and generally give you some version of a forecast when we talk about budget but tonight you know don't try and do multiplic your to create your own forec this not a for you may here that seems one way and then when my budg director and I come back in January and say we are now trending in the following pattern and that seems a little different than q1 yep it's going to seem a little different than q1 this is not a forecast so I just want to make that really really clear um for the public couple reminders these are duplicate slides so I'm going to not even go over each one what is fund consolidation it is this transportation technology and a portion of child care representing upk all went into the general fund uh we presented this budget yep well the budget and the slide um back in September showing that the net impact to revenue in the general fund was plus 26 meaning we're restating the same Revenue but now Consolidated generated a plus 26 for the year expectation in the general fund similarly we presented this slide which said moving all these expenses in which is restating the same activity but now in one place added a plus 26 to the general fund expense expectation for the year as you'll remember the amended budget did not change our forecast or set of planned activities it just restated it and so tonight when you're looking at budget columns and so forth and so on it will be the amended budget and with that I'm going to pass it over to my colleague thank you okay so starting with the general fund um looking at our actual revenue for the first quarter ending September 30th we are on track with the amended budget based on what Brena just outlined with a where were we last year as a percent of total compared to where we are this year um the revenue represents an increase in our per pupil Revenue Less in the enrollment decreases as expected We additionally State Equalization share payments are now received by the district over nine months pre prior to this year it was re received over 12 months this is a benefit to the districts to um help with our cash flow so that also is a difference from looking at prior year um additionally we receive some exceptional childhood revenue or child Revenue um that is higher than it was in previous year by3 million so that that's the summary of the revenue the actual expenses on track again with amended budget the expenses higher than prior year and as planned um and budgeted for so it's going to include our increases to salary and benefits and um CPI increases that we included within the budget capital reserve fund the revenue is on track with budget the primary source of funding for this fund is uh transfer from the general fund of 30 million for the year actual expenses also on track actual expense this year includes follow the following it has annual Capital maintenance um expenses it has one-time spending expenses related to our special projects including Fletcher Miller our Vada Aquatic Center and our upcoming Erp project and just as a reminder we're seeing an increase in this expense activity within the capital reserve fund because now we are winding down the 2018 CIP spending so we're not using bond funds any longer for Capital expenditures we're now using this fund so that's why that um is budgeted higher and expected to be higher this year um compared to any prior activities grants fund grants fund is the revenue is on track with our budget we always budget slightly higher than all the grants we have at that time just because we also want to accommodate if we have additional grants that we are awarded throughout the year uh but the overall revenue and expense within the grant fund is less than prior years and this is um due to the finalization and spend out of all of the Esser funds so we will see that the revenue expense and Grant funds is less than prior years our actual expenses on track our grant SP spending typically accelerates over the course of the year so this is just getting w w winding up for the year as as we end first quarter on September 30th Food Services fund the actual Revenue in this fund is trending slightly below budget in our budget we um anticipated an increase of 5% on a year-over-year basis the first uh quarter is only 3% uh higher than last year so that's a little bit of a flag additionally um our our actual expense look on track with budget but once you dig a little further you can see that our food costs are higher than what we were anticipating and prior year and that's currently for first quarter being offset by some Capital spending that we saw last year that we are not seeing duplicated this year that does um Merit a little bit of caution so while the first quarter looks like it's on track we have to um proceed with caution looking at the food costs coming in trending higher and we'll have to monitor that we do see some Financial activity that may indicate that this fund will come to the board of education for an adjustment in the January revised budget proposal so we'll keep an eye on that one as we continue forward campus activity fund the actual revenue is trending slightly below budget compared to um prior year Trend it's suggest that potentially there's a fee collection that may be slowed down but it's really uh too early to tell because it could also just be the timing of the school year within the quarter the actual expenses on track with budget and in very similar in alignment with prior year Insurance Reserve fund the revenue is on track compared to budget again the revenue within this fund primarily is funded through transfers from the general fund and then there's additional Revenue that comes from any um Insurance receipts to offset any insurance claims that we had the actual expense is also on track with budget it's spending right at the budget um or spending right at The Benchmark when we compare this quarter spend compared to last year for the prior for the full year Child Care fund as Miss copelan mentioned in the beginning this fund previously included both both preschool and school aged enrichment activity the preschool portion of this is now in the general fund what's remaining is the school aged enrichment activities our actual revenue is trending slightly above budget um and so this may represent some prepayment of tuition for the um students that are participating in our school age enrichment program and before and after school program so we're going to keep a monitor on that the expenses also trending above our budget Benchmark once we did some analysis on that there is a non-cash expense that is recorded into this Fund in the first quarter that is related to the retirement of assets these are assets that um related to the preschool fund and um as they moved into general fund we needed to retire them out of this F and um there should I should have remembered to add a note to this slide we may also talk further about this fund at the revised budget okay so we'll keep an eye on this uh fund going forward as we monitor for Q2 activity and just note on this one we didn't show the prior year activity just because the activity was so much different than what we see this year because it included the preschool activity so we didn't include that column in this graphic the final slide for you this evening is just to give you an idea across all funds what the beginning fund balance was that's representing the fund balance as of June 30th for the end of our fiscal year 24 the total revenue total expense in each of those funds and then the ending balance as September 30th um calling out that you can see there is a line for transportation fund and a line for technology fund just demonstrating that those funds truly have been closed out and those activities are now fully in the general fund that's it questions thank you for this it's it is really helpful to just get the the re reference and and really ground ourselves in where we are um um some of these are refreshing the dust in my brain so forgive me I've probably asked these of you before the exceptional child revenue on slide six is that a state program it is a categor it is part of a categorical that we receive from the state yes okay um I know that esser's funding is rolling off we've had a lot of discussions about that is there any effort to increase and maybe this is a superintendent darling question are we putting any additional effort towards grants to replace any of that funding um I mean I think last year when we sunsetted this fall but last year when we were budgeting for this year we strategically looked at and if we look back at some of the budget presentations that you received last year you can see some of where we made decisions to continue investment in areas where we felt we were um having an impact so and and saw evidence of impact number one as an example um the increase in daily sub rates was something that we had been funding with Esser funds we knew that we didn't want that to drop back down once the SR funds were gone so we um shifted the funding source for that effort out into the general fund um some other uh categories um were like that where we were doing some things and we felt strongly that we needed to keep doing those things um some of them were tools and resources that students can use online to support getting to grade level and reading in math um and those kinds of things I don't think we feel like we've given up anything that we thought was impactful that we haven't already started funding with that being said we are definitely looking for Grants to do other work that maybe wasn't necessarily Sesser funded um that we aren't currently doing or that we want to shift to a grant fund to free up some general fund dollars great um and then in the child care remind me that does include the SAE program okay and I I think I've mentioned this to Mary and and to superintendent dland if the board is agreeable I would be fascinated to study that program um at a later date just to understand ins and outs there yeah that's a helpful reminder Lisa's been keeping a list of things the board may be interested in learning more about and so that'll be on our list thank you thank you just can I just a quick clarifying question are you asking about that program from a programs perspective or from a financial or both um really from a financial perspective um and the impetus behind that is it is especially in the elementary and preschool levels like ride or die if you can get a kid if your child can go to a school is if there's care um and there are literally Facebook communities on where they can get into sa programs because parents princial choice to those schools to get the after school care and so it is um very very much a part of my daily life and I know um other board members experienced that too and so I'm just curious not again whenever we can find the time and if the board is interested um because obviously I I can't dictate that but how is it funded how is it supporting itself is it you know what are the financials around it and um I mean I I think I'm familiar with programming but more in that light um I'm I'm just being informed through uh te technological manner reading of lips that we do have this scheduled because it's been a request of multiple board members I think we're all getting some feedback from families that they're worried about the processes and the availability March it's coming in March which fabulous thank you March 5th and you'll hear more about that when I my um preview of both consent agenda as well as upcoming agendas per um president Parker's request this week so more to come thank you and um per you know what I mentioned earlier um we will need to revisit SAE at the revised budget um in a nutshell it's not paying for itself and it's spending quite a bit I'm not surprised to hear either of those things and it is a critical resource for yeah no no no I know that's that's why I'm asking to study it um I have two questions the first one is on the Food Services fund um when you mentioned that the revenue um there was a planned 5% increase but that hasn't come to be what on What basis were we planning an increase or expecting increase um so so I both like honor the question and I would point out in the two month sense um Revenue has now exceeded projection so we're going to be telling you a slightly different story in January um so which is to say timing matters and these are random cut off points um in the end the reimbursements and and you know September really only has one and a halfish months of reimbursements they have to be posted on time all the things you're still getting kid counts you can go back and get reimbursements you know there's all the things um so now when we look at it everything's tracking and in fact revenue is going to come in higher and given that we have lower enrollment um what leads to an increase in Revenue um well there's year-over-year adjustments to all the reimbursement rates the meal reimbursement rates um that float with inflation um we increased service this year so we are now providing breakfast at 34 nonce sites um so that's just a volume increase that then translates to revenue increase right um so it's it's a number of different things there's Grant Revenue there was a grant that persisted in this fund um that got awarded I think in October and we weren't necessarily planning on it um there's a separate Commodities grant that we think might come in a little higher than we thought I haven't to know all this detail because I met this morning on it um but quite a bit has happened since September 30th thanks and then the last question I have is on the fund balance rule for the final slide um for all funds and I understand what you're showing us is what's happened and it's not a budget it's not a forecast um but under the general fund the beginning fund balance 216 and then the ending 146 um that's like when when I see ending fund balance I think the year but it's really at that point in time and so are there things that will replenish that fund balance over the next Y and um you know this is both transparent but maybe and accurate but maybe misleading which is to say um Revenue doesn't come in evenly and so what will happen is we do think we're on track for our Revenue projection and once everything comes in and the expenses come in the expenses are a little more even all year revenue is like low low low low High um and this is cash basis we don't acrew Revenue um and so that's what's happening thank you any other questions members no thank you very much appreciate it for our next agenda item the board is excited to hear an update from its District accountability committee or DC as it's referred to regarding the current DC business including the work of it subcommittees Dak members act in an advisory capacity on such topics as the district's budget and unified Improvement plan Dak members have the opportunity to hear updates on District issues and efforts and provide input on a variety of matters the board would like to thank the members of the Dak for their time and commitment before I turn this over to miss Pena and Mr Weiss is there anything you'd like to add superintendent D I'd like to um thank miss rednor and miss Armstrong for their incredible commitment to this group and being uh true leaders of the the uh committee thank you very much and for your partnership and working really closely with Miss Peña and Mr Weiss um it's a volunteer position and as our board members know it takes a lot of time uh to have this much commitment to the work that they that parents and community members do alongside us as staff members for the district so thank you genuinely for being here and for all the work you put in um and thank you Mr Weiss and Miss Peña also for your leadership Mr Weiss thank you superintendent boort uh superintendent dorland and and board um we the Dak gets just a few opportunities to interact with um the entire board throughout the year um typically in the middle of the year we come and have an opportunity to share what's been happening with the Committees that are in Dak Dak consistently Works in four buckets um the budget family school and Community Partnership uh the the duip and charter schools so um we're looking forward to the opportunity to share tonight where where things are at and have some dialogue with the board I'm gonna hand it over to our chair teres redmore thank you very much Mr Weiss um hello good evening uh so we're I'm not going to read through our um our slide deck so first we're just going to give you subcommittee updates and then our initiatives and really what we're looking for is time for questions and feedback as possible but it is important to talk and share with you what our subcommittees have been doing as Dave mentioned we have four uh the district unified um the diip subcommittee right now uh we certainly had sort of a rush at the beginning because of the timing of the duip we don't need to exhaust that topic anymore we know the timing is kind of janky um but they will be working a lot with midyear uh data after in our January meeting starting in January and uh they do a lot of work in the springtime uh the budget subcommittee uh they we have just released the sax survey so that went out to all principles and Sac chairs on December 3rd and with a deadline of December 20th um we do have one school that's asked for a little bit of a reprieve so we're going to keep that open for that one school but the budget subcommittee will really be diving into the sa survey because that's been reduced to really reflect just budgetary questions and also some demographic um questions as far as how many uh you know how often do saxs meet so that we can get a sense of how active the saxs are uh either by our articulation area or at an actual School level so they will be doing a lot of Deep dive into their work starting in January they have several meetings already planned uh they're super excited about that and uh they did have a question though Crystal Marine is our uh subcommittee chairperson she was asking if there's anything and maybe you could just make a note of this if uh this board if there's anything in particular that the board would like the budget subcommittee to dive into instead of just or in addition to the sax survey work um for Charter for our Charter subcommittee no updates at this time Jeff bacham our subcommittee chairperson he is looking forward to engaging with the board in the spring to talk about specifically more conversations with the board about improving the DC involvement for new and renewal applications um and our fscp subcommittee our chairperson is sitting here in the audience with us thank you Eevee Hudak uh I hope I do you proud I'm on the subcommittee the fscp subcommittee is really busy Committee in that they PL the subcommittee plans all of the um trainings that we do throughout the year and I'm really proud of this because this is kind of a newer thing in the last few years we do once the new a ARS are appointed in um June we do an a training and then we do the full sack kickoff and then we also do a DAC Retreat that the fscp along with all the members you know returning members of DC the fscp really takes a lead on doing all of that training um they I think also a really interesting change that might be very interesting to you is how we've changed the fscp has changed how the a ARS interact with the with their articulation areas so in the past the expectation was a ARS would try and go to as many Sac meetings at all of their different schools as many times in a month and that be was just unwieldy that just doesn't work right nobody could do it you felt like you're failing it was not a good setup so EV along with this um FSC subcommittee uh constructed a new expectation which has proven to be so far this first year we think it's pretty effective um every articulation area representative a will meet three times with their full articulation area principles are optional uh they're welcome to attend shockingly principes have a lot of meetings so they don't have to attend that's not man mandatory but the sac chairs are attending and so far the feedback has been this has been pretty robust so everyone had meetings in September and October with their full articulation area we're looking at midyear meetings like in January and then that will have end of the year meeting so the fsp took a lead on on constructing all of that um also between reviewing feedback from the sack chats during the sack kickoff um and then of course the fscp is very um we have our L on to the fscp subcommittee is Jim McKenna from um Miss Pena's team and we have we did a deep dive into the family engagement toolkit and particularly also the belonging calendar that is currently available on the internet with the um with the district Leadership School leaderships and there is a question out there if perhaps the fscp and DC members can have access to that as well as perhaps sack chairs have access to those um engagement toolkits and um the belonging calendar and we just have that question out there as for something for Miss peña's team to consider as well as the board to consider understanding that I'm sure there are you know some security things and how do we get access to that but that is a that is a request uh so that is the update from the subcommittees do we want to pause for any questions on subcommittee or keep rolling forward I feel like rolling forward okay I see I see President Parker saying yes keep rolling forward that sounds good so Dak initiatives I'm going to take three and then my co- my co-chair my vice chair the awesome Vice chair is going to take the other four um in an effort to close the feedback loop which is something that we talk about a lot at Dak and it is an important topic because without closing a feedback loop a lot of our members in the past have been left wondering what does my what does my voice matter I mean I'm great I I said this and what are we doing about it um so that is a huge effort for us this year is closing that feedback loop and uh we're going to close a feedback loop with the board uh last spring you asked us to implement a mentor program and indeed we have done so uh we started our Mentor program Annie Carpenter who is our secretary she really took the lead on this uh it is not a real formal Mentor program like one might um experience at a corporation that I experience on a daily basis uh but this one is pairing up new uh newly appointed a with returning a ARs and newly appointed nons we just kind of bucket them out that way um with nons because that's really kind of How It's divided in DAC and we uh paired everybody up at our DAC Retreat those that had not been paired up we've worked really hard to continue to pair them up uh there will be on the consent agenda on December 19th um midar appointees that we already have a plan in place through fscp to also appoint them um to mentors we carve out time during our DAC meetings not every meeting uh for mentors and mentees to um have some time to just Converse together ask questions uh give information back and forth um we have some guiding questions as well so our Mentor program is in place it's very sort of cottage industry Mentor program right just very familiar so we're always looking at ways of improving that though um second an initiative is we were assigned a DAC facilitator and we are thrilled with having our DAC facilitator our DAC facilitator is Trace fa and that partnership has been I would um offer becoming very robust in a partnership so Trace now has taken over facilitating our executive committee meetings and I know Trace loves doing that so they are doing a great job at that uh but a very welcome addition uh Trace Keeps Us on track um it sort of alleviates any um possibly uh any sort of side conversations and just keeps us really focused Trace has also taken on the facilitation for our um ad hoc subcommittee we're doing a deep dive into our code of conduct Trace will be facilitating that with our first meeting tomorrow morning and uh Trace is also facilitating the DAC meetings with myself and is taking lead on the special um assignment that we have to study chronic absenteeism which Elizabeth will talk about a little bit uh later and then finally I've already told you about this the sack articulation meetings that's been a big um initiative so that we can increase valuable conversation and um and and bring together the full articulation areas right so all the sack chairs can meet each other along with the A and that Fosters Community between all the sack chairs as well as um alleviates us an a trying to attend multiple Sac meetings you know over weeks of time uh so that three times a year Sac articulation area meetings um just Fosters more connection and yes it's a work in progress uh but it has really proven to be more valuable for everyone's time and communication now I it over to you Miss Elizabeth all right how about now good evening board um so one of the things that we have been working on this year is really standardizing a number of processes trying to make the deck as effective as it can be and make people feel like their time is valued and indeed have their time be valuable on the deck um so some of the the things that we've done one of which was um I understand interest of the boards was setting up an a membership appointment process and and we had uh considered doing that um in a way that would make it something you could expand to Other Board committees but uh Dak is a little unusual in its size so uh it may not translate well but we have put together a more standardized process there has been a fairly staple process but we have put together a standardized process uh which includes um review of the DC executive membership um where twice a year um after implementing midye appointments last year uh we bring in new members we currently have let's see 41 members of full deck would be 59 and we are putting forward 10 midyear appointments and we use this new process um to put forward those names um and anyone who did not make it um onto the list of suggested members for midye appointments be retained for uh if we have additional spots opening up um throughout the year for for whatever reason um and that's uh that'll be next meeting that uh those are presented to to you for your vote um one of the parts of this process we implemented um was something that I had talked to director Kenworthy about we ask you guys to to come in and talk to New Perspective DC members and then we don't ever ask you what you thought which seems silly so we would love to get your feedback um when you are able to attend those meetings on um on what you saw and what questions you answered in that time frame so that we can incl incorporate that as well um okay next is bridging communication gaps which theres talked about earlier that has been another initiative on Deck we were um getting some feedback that hey you know we come attend these meetings we make recommendations and then they kind of go into the void and we're sure what happens and and that's a good point um we want to make sure that we get back to that so some of that is coming back to the deck saying hey you know you voted on this recommendation we made it to the board and here's what the board did about it here's here's how that impacted um the board but we're also looking for um communication from the board specifically and theres alluded to this with the budget subcommittee really all of our areas of influence are asking for hey is there something in particular that would be helpful for the district to know from our parents and Community um committee you guys hear from lots of people people who whose job it is at least 40 hours a week to give you input on things uh and we would love if we could get some direction from all of you on what would be specifically of interest for you to hear about from the school level from the the sac level get filtered up to the deck and um to to you guys hopefully and also from that you know that really local input of what's Happening uh and where we can can have the the best influence so that's part of both the Gap and the loop back uh that we're asking for we're also as a DC trying to get better about putting out QR codes asking for feedback on what people thought of presentations what kind of impact they would like to have what they um and if they feel like their input is being valued and what types of engage and as a result of that we at the beginning of the year came up with a year to glance schedule of what we were going to do what we were going to cover made sure went through all of the statutes related to deck and made sure that we were covering everything that we were supposed to cover um that we had a plan to do so and then identify with the Deck members um how they could expect to to engage with that whether this was a listening session they need to bring that information back to their um Sachs or if it was something that they needed to be informed about so that they could vote later um on an issue that was going to be brought before the deck so that we could uh could bring that advice and recommendation to you um let's see what else um last is the special project which we are working on with Trace fa and this is really exciting it's uh it's something that I understand came from the board as a as a recommendation for each committee to take on a special project and um it's it's really exciting for the deck we have decided as a deck that chronic absenteeism is going to be our area of focus um a lot of parenting Community interest in that we've already heard from the district on some of of the scope of the issue and we're going to be receiving more information on the scope and impact so that we can uh inform what we're seeing at the local level and what suggestions we have or recommendations we have for how that might be improved and to just take the information back to our communities as well and say hey this is the problem that we're seeing um so that parents and community members can be more aware and involved in in coming up with a solution to to kids not being in school can't can't learn if they're not there so that's definitely um an exciting thing which we'll be spending time on at every meeting going forward um hearing about and engaging on did I miss anything did not okay so now we have time for questions comments suggestions thoughts I also wanted to say thank you very much to director Kenworthy and to Miss Parker who have been engaging last year and this here along the way yes absolutely with the deck you for this presentation I really feel good that we're doing it seems to me anyway more regularly hearing from the DC than we have in the past um board any comments questions director re um I just want to say I'm super excited about your special project because this is definitely something that we need to work on and I think that um a lot of the answers do need to come from community and family so I'm very much looking forward to see what you come up with from it thank you very much for choosing that I just want to say thank you because it's um superintendent dland alluded to it right these are volunteer gigs that are making a big impact to our schools and so you know to to leadership of the deck we appreciate you to everybody who participates in the deck you know it's it's a labor of love and it's something that the board recognizes and really values and this feedback is really helpful um I'm excited to think about what you are interested in seeing from the budget committee because I do think you have a window into a world that is really important um and so I have ideas but I want to Noodle on it and talk with some of my other directors um before giving kind of real feedback but I am I'm excited to that for that opportunity so thank you um I'm not sure if this is what you're asking for but um we've been talking a lot about um proposing a mill um for 2026 um and prior to this we've had polling done that indicated that people in the community may not trust the district for how we to spend their money um so much so that that um discouraged us from doing a mill now and to me it seems like one of our most critical needs is to address that issue so that we can be successful for a mill in 2026 so I would ask the Dak to embrace that challenge as um I think we as the board are and trying to understand that more and not shy away from it and say if we actually want to be successful in a huge Endeavor like that we have to say out loud people may not trust the district and how we spend our money which is what we heard from polling which suppos you know better than our opinion I guess um so I would ask the Dak to think about that from either a budget perspective um in terms of how do we successfully get our community and our uh Community leaders behind a Mill and alongside that how do we address this issue so that they will vote for this because they do trust us to spend the money in ways that they believe in as well um thank you for being here I get so excited about anything Dak or sack related at this point um and we were at the casby conference and I went to anything that had the word accountability in the um title um just because I'm I'm so excited I think um there's the theory of how our accountability process works related to sack Dak structures and then there's the reality and I want to lift up just how grateful I am for the ways that Jeff Co in the last I think three or four years The District staff and executive leadership team have worked together um and partnered to provide structure for a committee a large Committee of community volunteers um to address the size and the scope of what they're assigned with doing um I think we're we're down into dialing it in um we've created some really good overall structure for that group and now it's staling it in and making making sure that it works and adjusting um which I think that work has been done um in good faith and it hasn't always been easy but it's been really important and I just thank you especially the four of you who are sitting at the table here and in the audience and um those your fellow executive team members um I wanted to ask one question are you aware of any articulation areas that have expressed I don't know difficulty or struggle around the change in the a meeting setup or process um you know instead of AR showing up individually at Sac meetings convening sack chairs with the principal optional um I think there's some articulation areas that have been like yes and then I'm wondering if you've heard the I've heard the yeses I haven't heard any of the other but I'm asking if you've heard any feedback like that I would say that um I I haven't heard a lot of feedback like that where it's been oh no we don't like this at all [Music] um I've heard a lot of yeses and some it's about the same amount of Engagement as before um I haven't heard a ton of NOS uh and and I will say that where it has been particularly robust is where a lot of sack chairs specifically have shown up and they've had the opportunity to collaborate with each other um across schools um I did get feedback that it would be nice actually for High School sack chairs to be able to meet together because in one articulation area there's only one high school so they're collaborating with middle and elementary schools and they have different challenges so I did get the suggestion that maybe it would be good if if they had a separate meeting for secondary or or high school but I I didn't get much in the way of heck no um that wasn't that wasn't what we were looking for it's mostly been positive and I think some of the challenges just kicking off a new program and a new structure has been you know get um if you're especially if you're a new a sort of understanding historically and that's where you know we have time at the end of every DC meeting where Michelle kler and Evee Hudak um will will sit with the a ARs and we will carve out time for that so so that that group of of members can share successes share suggestions share trials and tribulations back and forth um some of our newer uh a you know found it difficult to get maybe the sack chairs emails and so there's some of that working through some of that and sort of understanding that oh we can you know we can have our own meeting and it doesn't have to bump up against maybe another community meeting we still get to have our own time um so there's been sometimes a little bit of that misunderstanding and we're working through that and that's what I think that a carved out time is really important for so that they can can so that group of with their specific challenges can can go back and forth and and support one another um and Michelle kler is our a coordinator so sort of a de facto um executive position that we just said yes this is now kind of a subcommittee um and she's been an A and A Very robust uh Communicator with them um and and and well-versed and I think is on her third or fourth year as as an A so she has a lot of experience so those have been the challenges I think some of it is just you know being new um to get back to I wanted to say yes thank you for recognizing the district leadership that we have I I can't I I just can't lift it up enough I mean talk about what a great structure so thank you superintendent dorlan for assigning them to us um we have worked really hard to sort of create a better structure and so for the last two years we've done an executive um so in addition to the DAC retreat in addition to the sack kickoff in addition to the a retreat we also do an executive committee Retreat for the DC we do that yeah we do two we don't just do one we do two in this in the summer time and with great you know so that we as an executive committee can can make sure that we're uh setting a good standard for for a good year with a lot of value and a lot of valuable voices coming through um so so thank you just want to lift that up yeah I I want to Echo Teresa's sentiments on that that we we feel very blessed with the district leadership that we have involved in this committee very helpful yes um I agree I I want to lift up um Michelle is on the executive yeah yeah um how important that a time is and when I was in an a how helpful that would have been for me to even understand what what I was actually expected to do so between that and the mentor program I just feel that you're supporting our community volunteers in some amazing ways just in the last three years since I you know started as an a um and I'm finding it interesting to be sitting in this position and seeing all of the amazing work that's happening there and um just letting you know that I'll be meeting with Trace also to talk about um how the board liaison position fits into the structures that have developed there so meeting with trace on Monday and I'm also thinking about how then as Leah is onto the deck how do I then Circle back to my fellow board members to let them know what's going on so that they don't are not only hearing about what's happening on Dak the two or three times that you come through to talk to us um so that we can have more communication going in both ways um but I'm really excited to work with you I'm glad that I get to continue to maintain my relationship and thank you for being here tonight um also your presentation you answered a bunch of the questions that I wrote down this afternoon when I was doing my homework so way to go well done us um I want to thank you as well and a couple things that just to reiterate what you've heard I'm thrilled about the special project The Chronic absenteeism also I'm really excited about your um now the new method for the a ARS to meet with articulation areas and I really appreciate the need for Sachs at the high schools to be able to have their meetings where they best practices and and you know you always learn something no matter what when we go to the casby meetings and here we are large District but we'll sit down with somebody from a district with 600 students in the whole district and just hear what they go through and you think well we're so different we couldn't possibly learn anything from you but you always do so I I really appreciate that um also just a couple of um things looking over the form um for the recommend new memberships there I just noticed that the um top I think it's top left hand corner when you're identifying which board member is that's their area we've changed our districts now so you might want to get the latest um list of it I know some board members have drastically different articulation areas that they're responsible for and then just the last thing I wanted to lift up too uh we know the challenges of a very large District but our challenges as board members in the large District goes down to the DC committee from a very large District again I've tried to ask the other um board presidents when I meet with them what does your dck do for Charter renewals what do they do for this or for that and it's obvious that their docks are are different they're smaller um makes it easier to get together you don't have um you know so many people that you have to communicate with but I just want to appreciate what you're doing even more realizing that you are experiencing the same challenges that we do so thank you very much for everything appreciate it thank you thank you okay all right have a good evening you too thank you um all right go moving on for our next to last agenda item this evening the board will study in an informational up date on healthy and Equitable start and end times as a reminder to our listening Public jeffo Public Schools implemented an equitable and healthy start and end times districtwide for the 2023 24 school year after six years of partnership with a group of fames staff and community members before I turn this over to Dr LeBlanc as far is there anything you'd like to say superintendent D I just want to um speaking of uh communic ation Loops uh thank you for that term uh to our DC members um uh we we promised um when we first implemented certain end times that we would continue to take a look in particular at some of the middle schools that um have 15 minute more longer day given um the transportation mostly the transportation challenges that were presented um in some of our areas and so um in honor of that promise we've done that Dr Kim um and U Miss tar have uh led the way with a committee of teachers to look at this work Mr Gatlin has come side by side with them related to the transportation and operations component of that I'm really appreciative of the thoughtful and intentional sort of analysis that they've done um in addition to just the um commitment to the teachers who we promised this to um and then we also promised you as our board that we would share this information with you once once the time was right so the time is now and with that I'm handing it over to Dr Kim thank you super superintendent Doran thank you president Parker and board members for having us I know great surprise that I'm coming to you with some data around healthy and Equitable start times um but I'm really proud of the work that we've done um I want to say thank you to CLA tar and to Jeff Gatlin for being my partners in this because it did take all three of us looking at different lenses um I'll start with our charge and our charge was District leaders um representatives from Transportation um and Middle School stakeholders including Educators uh were to meet to address concerns with Middle School start times and the variability in student contact time um and during the jcea 2324 negotiation session this was a particular conversation that we had that was of interest to their members so the work group Committed to um engaging with folks um having conversation listening to those concerns asking questions to get clarity and then coming back with recommendations to the superintendent and the board in December of 2024 so that's why we're here this evening um I'll point out just a reminder um I know you all many of you have been along this ride in fact I think probably all of you as we look at um when we launch healthy and Equitable start times in the 2324 school year this change was grounded in six years of Partnerships with families staff and community members um it really was to align to brain research around um how to adolescent brains work when do they learn best and then a desire to create some Equity among our instructional time if you remember we definitely had variability in the length of school day for our elementary middle and high school students so as we go through that um as we look at the Timeline we want to review the findings from The District's exploration um and then share recommendations and next steps I'm going to particular point out um director Reed you talked about bringing out your notebook and looking at your notes um in fact as a part of our meeting when we reported back out to the stakeholders we went through and read back these are the concerns that you shared with us to make sure that we were capturing all of what people felt like was either a pain point or a success from um our healthy and Equitable start times work that we did and so we'll share the recommendations and then next steps so you know the timeline from 16 to 18 community-led task force 19 to 21 research and recommendations were gathered collected built um around healthy and Equitable start times the decision making during 2022 and then presently um implementation and our commitment to and look at is the change doing what we committed to doing is are we seeing data that tells us that this is um helping our students so before the change you can see two middle schools started after 8 a.m. um the difference between the longest day and the shortest day at middle school was 24 minutes and a 24 minute net increase over 172 school days is significant um nine distinct day lengths ranging from 6 hours and 40 minutes to 7 hours and 4 minutes so after the change all of our middle schools are starting after 8: a.m. the difference between the longest day and the shortest day is 15 minutes and we have two day lengths when we look at our middle schools and that is really due to the distances that our buses have to travel and the switch between bus routes whether it's Elementary to middle middle to high Etc back and forth so we went back and grounded um with the stakeholder group that chose to engage with us in the December of last year 2023 survey results if you remember 54% of all Jeffco families and staff responded to the survey um with an indication that they had adjusted to the new start time they felt like you know they may have had pain points in the beginning but they were at a point where their family had adjusted I think the biggest feedback we got in that which Claire and I kind of laughed about was please just don't change it again we've adjusted just let us be um for 49% of Jeffco families with a middle school student agreed that they had adjusted to the new start time and you can see some of the data broken out on the right around um strongly agreeing agreeing neither agreeing disagree or strongly disagree from elementary middle and high when we ask the question around have you been able to successfully make an adjustment so on November 5th um Claire Jeff myself and Greg uh aidian met with a group of Middle School stakeholders in fact we met with um jcea in our normal monthly meeting and asked um Brooke Williams our president to uh suggest some Middle School teachers who were interested in having this conversation she suggested three um teachers who had expressed interest we invited all of those teachers to come to the table those teachers along with um two uh principes and um the associate chief of school met with us to sit down and just we simply opened up the conversation and asked about start times and end times what's working what's not what are the challenges what are the challenges through the lens of students what are the challenges through the lens of Staff um families what are you seeing and and what are you feeling the focus was really looking at um start times end times and the variability of contact that was really what we focused a considerable amount of our energy on so in the feedback that they provided us again Paula from my notebook as Claire helped me synthesize we pulled the themes out theme one was um our stakeholders perceived that staff and student outcomes have declined due to the new start times specifically they offered that they believed that um there was an increas in student fatigue a decrease in student engagement behavioral issues challenges in balancing extracurricular and homework potentially leading to kids being pulled out early to leave and or absences in that last period when they spoke specifically about the impact on staff they talked about increased rate of Staff burnout turnover um diminished staff culture due to the challenges of the new schedule including the increased use of guest teachers the second theme that they brought up were looking at the role of transportation and setting start times and end times um specifically asking us is there anything you can do differently with transportation to modify our start times or end times and really the focus of the conversation was around the five middle schools in the southern part of our district that have a 7 hour and 15 minute day versus the rest of our middle schools throughout our district that have a 7h hour day so that was part of the conversation so as we looked at theme number three they wanted us to look at making all middle schools start earlier um start and end earlier obvious logic there shortening the school day for those five middle schools or potentially rotating which middle schools experienced a 7 hour and 15 minute day now what we did have to explain with the rotation of a 7 hour and 15 minute day is the reason for that 7 hours and 15 minute day really is the length and distance that our buses have to travel the terrain in which they have to travel and the switch back and forth between where the buses come from to serve our Middle School families so to to Simply move that to save the north doesn't make sense logistically and just simply doesn't work and as we were able to explain that that made a ton of sense to folks so we moved on really focusing on the other two within theme three so what Claire and Jeff and I focused on was really digging into what data do we have to really explore all of the feedback that the Educators gave us what do we know about whether it's you know our students really leaving are we experiencing more uh discipline um are we seeing less engagement in students are they being less successful are we seeing higher absente rates in in our in our Educators so we looked at survey data we looked at discipline data we looked at Guest teacher requests we look at early release and tardies bus route data um we looked at as many different data points as we could identify tied to the feedback that we got in looking at all of that um we put together a presentation to share with that group early in December right after um Thanksgiving break we've gone through the the conversation with th those folks to share the data that we're sharing with you this evening so to start with student fatigue are students more tired are they getting the sleep that was part of the hope and the goal um in looking at the start times for our secondary students in fact 60% of Middle School students are reporting in the healthy kids Colorado survey receiving eight hours or more of sleep now I'll point out there's only one bar there and the reason is healthy kids Colorado uh data that we had on our middle school students we didn't have it in those previous two years um we didn't have that that particular data for Middle School we did for high school so you can see 19 21 and 23 we did not have data for Middle School in 19 or 21 but in 23 you can see that 60% you can also see what our high school students reported and in fact the third year there the orange bar is after the start time change so there is an increase there in the number of students who were reporting that they are sleeping eight hours or more so then we looked at the five schools that specifically asked us to dig into their data um the ones that are operating on a 7h hour 15 minute student day and in fact those schools are cared Deer Creek Falcon Bluffs Kim Carrol and Summit Ridge and so as we look at student engagement data we specifically looked at those five schools the majority of topics that students were asked to respond to and respond either favorably or negatively the majority improved for cared for Deer Creek all areas Improvement um in Falcon Bluffs three topics no change two topics improved and two topics declined for Ken Caroll and all topics declin for Summit Ridge um student engagement for when we talk about panorama as our students report being engaged either um higher engagement lower engagement do you see relevance do you have a connection positive connection with your teacher all of the student engagement factors that you would pull out of Panorama and I'm going to show you what those are in just a second yeah absolutely why are you tying that to start times because the feedback that we got from the teachers were that students were less engaged less interested in their classes having the longer day and the longer day was not benefiting students so we pulled that data to find out did we see a change after we lengthened the the the day to 7 hours and 15 minutes in those five schools maybe correlated not no and and thank you for pointing that out that was one of the things I was going to say a minute ago while this data is going to tell us what is current reality today what was reality prior to the start time change the data tells us what the reality is it does not tell us it's because of start times because there are many things that happen schools may have worked on climate and culture schools may have implemented new programs schools may you know there are a number of different things that could happen however the data at the points in time at which we did have different starting end times to now when we do have them we're looking at does the data tell us that we're seeing a connection there that make sense well and I think D um we yeah yeah I think Daniel if you look on slide eight part of what this part of what was driving the data was the the worries and claims that the teachers were sharing with us not asking about that I'm saying like in when you present data like that this is the outcome usually what you're trying to say is that the the the input that the independent variable rate affected that we can't say that here we can't that start times affected engagement we're just saying at the data show that engagement changed but like you said it could have nothing to do with start time it have nothing to do with start times but to say it went down it it has not indeed gone down it has indeed in many areas that I'll show you tonight it has gone up now I can't say it went up because of start times but it has indeed gone up and it has not gone down now we also talked about honestly U we had a really good conversation with the teachers around you know your experience is your experience it is your reality and it may feel that way you asked us to pull the data and this is what the data tells us which is why we encourage them if they want to come and and engage in publicon and talk about why does this feel like this to me we encourage them to do so absolutely so I'll keep going in in looking at some of the impacts on students when we look at student discipline between the 2223 which is the pre pre-art time change to 2324 in those school years there there was a 5% decrease in the number of incidences and suspensions at Middle School specifically that that trend is also present within those five middle schools that we talked about with the 7h hour and 15minute day again not talking causality but I am talking about what the data truly is for a myriad of reasons one one would expect thus the reason why causality of any kind measuring in education is really challenging because there's lots of different factors as you know so as we look at student attendance we looked at that as well this was probably one of the most challenging polls you can imagine as we looked at not only attendance in first period tardies in first period attendance in last period leaving early in last period um there's a lot of noise in the data specifically toward the end of the day at the high school level because so many students are involved in activities in athletics but we have an amazing research team that pulled all the data for us to help us make sense of it so what I'll show you here is the top two scales that you see are first period tardies and I'm resisting the urge to walk to that board because the teacher in me can't stand it but I'm I'm going to sit here um when I look at the one on the left hand side um as you look at that you're looking at 2023 which was pre start time change on the right hand side is post so 2024 after we made the change each one of those colored bars is a grade level so you have sixth grade seventh grade e8th grade nth grade 10th grade 11th grade 12th grade and the number that you see at the top is the number of increased absences or tardies per student for the entire year in 24 so can I point out something I'm sorry I'm gonna get up sorry got for for My overall is that um just the schools in the little sample or is this across the district okay did thank you for the question director V we did pull out those schools and what we looked at is there were a few notable middle schools that were outside the norm for early release and even in these cases the impact was the equivalent of 2.7 missed class periods per student for the entire year and that was Dunston Evergreen King Caroll and Summit Ridge is that yes and do we know what time those schools start L can pull that she'll do that while I keep going if that's okay so we also looked at when we talked about student engagement we looked at staff engagement we looked specifically at the questions in our Panorama survey um on student on overall staff engagement and well-being and between the 2223 school year and the 2324 school year survey data showed an improvement in the majority of Staff well-being questions with some variability and we pointed out the variability kedy all topics improved Deer Creek had all topics improved Falcon Bluffs had all topics declined and in conversation that principal Tom was a part of our discussion on in November and he was very quick to point out we moved from a um seven period Day to a six period day and our teachers lost one planning period and we believe that that had a greater impact than our start times again it's speculation but it is a variable that was within the mix that he said you know in otally talking with staff that had a greater impact on them in King Carol all topics improved and it Summit Ridge um two improved and one declined in the topics that were specifically out of our p Panorama survey around student engagement and or sorry staff engagement and wellbeing when we looked at the impact on staff attendance from the 2223 to 2324 school year the number of guest teacher requests decreased at all middle schools by 6% and by 9% at the five middle schools that have the longer days the schools that have 7 hour and 15 minutes they actually requested 9% % less um substitute days than the overall average the previous year and then we broke it out to say was it for athletics was it um leave without pay was it parental leave was it sick leave was it other we really wanted to know I mean if they're coaching that was kind of an odd way to look at it right but if it was folks really were experiencing more burnout or more sick Leaf um that would show up in as we dis dissected out the reasons for people being out so we looked at that as well finally I'm going to hand this over to Jeff to really dig into the transportation data because he and Jeff really took ADV sorry he and Greg really took advantage of some of the technological tools that we have now to really look at how we're serving our schools with um transportation thank you so we uh this data was requested by the stakeholder group to really understand how transport um or what kind of role Transportation has regarding start and stop times and so we analyze route data for a sample of middle schools uh this out of the South and the West terminals uh and current route data demonstrates that that buses are highly utilized with with little to no flexibility for adjustments and I will say meaningful adjustments and and meaningful adjustments because it's an all or none approach you know we have to be able to make meaningful adjustments with all of our routes to be able to make and support a change so I think that's important caveat uh 80% of our routes complete an elementary or High School run within 10 minutes of starting a middle school run uh and as you know our our buses are going Elementary then high school and then middle and high school run drop offs uh are you mostly about 8: am there are a few outliers to that meaning they they move immediately to picking up middle school students but we wanted to show you a little bit of the data that we have access to the data that we looked at so you could just understand the the level that we did go into this to see if there was a possibility for um some type of meaningful shift that we could support uh we looked at where and when routes start and what time they drop off students to Middle Schools uh like I said in an attempt to look for those shifts we we did this analysis for Cary Deer Creek Falcon Bluffs King Carroll uh Summit Ridge and just wanted to point out um one specific route to to kind of go through the analysis that we did was route s26 um supporting Cary Middle School and this like Dr Kim mentioned we have access to some pretty neat tools with some of the upgrades that we've made in transportation really looking at well here's what it looks like on paper what does it look like in practice because it's it's one thing to say yep the route is showing it can't be done but what does it really look like when our bus is on the road uh so we looked at uh just that data we have access to that that chart along the bottom uh is really showing when the bus bus is moving and when it's not moving and you know this particular bus uh supporting Cary Middle route s26 you know you can see starts at 622 and it might have been a cold morning might have been idling for a while to warm up the bus and then it starts moving and it's going through a series of navigating traffic stop lights picking up students and then there might be a larger Gap where maybe it's doing its first drop off at a school then going on to the next school and so what we were looking for in this data were are there large gaps in there where we could say hey you know what there is opportunity for Meaningful efficiency gain in time um but we didn't we didn't see that knowing that it it it needed to be isolated in between the uh the high school and the middle school or else we're starting to create a ripple effect of if we shift the time here now we have to shift a time and and so on and so forth um and so that was the the analysis and and also to just kind of showcase some of the cool uh tools and access to technology that we have to take a deep dive into this type of a of a of a question that we wanted to explore further and then the the last one with this and Dr Kim really already spoke to this was just around uh could we rotate this this idea that we have a group of schools experiencing 17 hour and 15 minute uh instructional day can we shift that around to a different area maybe next year I'm not exactly sure the the the frequency that that that that was that was being considered for that but really like Dr Kim mentioned it was more around the the geography of the areas that we're serving in the buses in in the south in the West in particular are just covering more distance and it's taking more time with the resources that we have so we really didn't see it being feasible to to to really try to shift this um around in in in in a attempt to be to to be Equitable in a way that that you everybody's exper this over experiencing this over a certain amount of time so I think I'm handing it to Claire now yeah we're gonna hand this to Claire to kind of wrap up in terms of our analysis and then sort of the next steps that we engage with the stakeholders right thank you um so first I want to answer director vard your question about the length of the or the start time of the for days the four middle schools that seem to have a greater frequency of early releases so those were dun Evergreen K Carl and Summer Ridge all four of those middle schools start at what we' call our our typical time so they start between 8:55 and 9:00 two of those schools Dunston and Evergreen have a 7-hour day and then two of them have the 7 hour and 15 minute day and that's K Carol and summeridge so getting to the analysis and findings when we look across all of this data um we find that when we look at the data we don't really see evidence uh that the change in start times caused any large scale or systemwide negative impacts uh to middle school students or staff and uh leaning on what Dr Kim was sharing earlier again this is not I know I just used the word caused colloquially but statistically we're not saying that start times is causing any improvements or causing um any of this data but when we look at these points in time we don't see the types of declines that stakeholders uh might have thought we would see because of the shift in start times we also see due to the transportation data that buses are highly utilized there's very little downtime and there's very little room to compress and when we look at the routes and understand the limits on Transportation it is not possible to change the Bus drop off or pickup times at middle schools unless there's a really significant change in transportation Staffing or operations uh do you want to do the recommendations so our recomend mendation large scale throughout the district was to maintain our current start and end times um District staff you know as we all came together looked at all of this data that said we also acknowledge that a 7h hour and 15 minute day is a different day for the five schools that um are experiencing that and so we engaged in that conversation with them and really we dug into um what could be done to support those schools recognizing that transportation is still very much um set the way that it needs to be to work for the entire system so part of the discussion we invited all of the principles from those schools to come to our second meeting and really engage in the conversation and what we said was if you engage with your alt and your Olt and you all can do some problem solving with your schedule and staff are willing to find ways to rotate through and cover that 15 minutes so that you can have a seven-hour day we are absolutely supportive of you working together to solve that challenge whatever we can do to support you in that we will gladly you know provide that thought partnership and and figure some of that out we don't have resources to pay for Staffing for that 15 minutes every day for the entire year for those five schools but you have fairly large staffs and have the capability should you choose to figure out ways that folks can cover that 15 minutes so that you can make that a 7-hour day they immediately begin to problem solve and figure out can part of it be at the beginning part of it be at the end so it isn't a 15minute block so they were very much engaged in that said if we can engage in that with our staff that gives us something to work on so that was our encouragement for them and certainly um offered for any of us to come out and sit down and have that thought partnership and and also encourage them to work with their Community superintendent to see if they can come up with a creative solution that we would support them finding a way to get to that seven-hour day if they could and now we'll open it up for questions thank you or directors questions Dr Kenworth I have just a couple um the first one is um the focus group that you put together were there any non-employee family members involved in that we didn't because we had the survey data from all of our families from December of 23 in terms of what did they want did they want us to change it did they not what we did hear was the recommend of Staff who still felt there were very much pain points by students and themselves and so those are the people that we brought to the table to have that conversation we can go back out and do that at any point in time and in fact I think when we made the changes to start times we committed to periodically to continue to look at it and say is this still serving our students and our families and our staff the best way possible and I would tell you that you know in education we're cyclical so we're going to look at things over time to continue if we have data or feedback that tells us we should we will I think um in including them in a second iteration or a third iteration might help you have some meeting makers or folks in the community so it's not just District staff who are telling this story from a data standpoint you know around us not changing or revising um at this time um just so that there's Community Partners in that in that conversation because I think the community perspective um and having them feel part of that process and that evaluation is really important um so I would just I would just mention that might be a helpful thing to do kind of in the future um what are my other questions here you talked to us about the topics pulled from Panorama data um and it's good to have that available in this instance does the 15 minute difference between those two groups of schools have any implications for teacher contract time specifically I mean I think that's what you alluding to it's that principles are talking about how they're going to address it but I just want to know are their contract contractual implications specifically we had that specific conversation around you know our contract is an eight hour contract a day um within that there's a minimum amount of planning time that folks have um certainly there's a certain set amount of time that can be dedicated toward plc's and meetings and all of those are met within the 7 hour and 15 minute day schools um I think the pain Point feels like I'm serving kids for 15 minutes longer and my colleagues are getting 15 more minutes of planning time PLC time Etc and so like I said we acknowledge that one's experience is real I mean it absolutely is and if we can problem solve some of that certainly we want to empower alts and OLS to do that great thank you I just um I'm going to kind of build on that so when we look at the data um from the families we see that the majority of our families are not adjusting well to the start times it says 49% are so that leaves us with 51% that are not of the middle school I believe it's 54% of families on average so across any grade span 49% of Jeffco families with Middle School agreement AG with Middle School agreed that they had adjusted so the majority of them are still struggling um and I'm wondering what if anything we can do to partner with community members for that that is what I hear more than anything else I I really haven't heard from people saying that they felt like there was more there more discipline problems or kids weren't sleeping or anything like that what I'm hearing is from families saying this just doesn't work with our family schedule and middle school kids are kind of tricky because they're not really you don't send them to dayare but also they're not really ready to be on their own so I'm wondering you know is there anything that we can do to work with Community Partners or or whoever and are we doing are we reaching out and trying to figure out how to help these families can I add on to that before you answer because one of my questions was going to be in that same Slide the strongly agree from middle school is about the same I have a line as the strongly disagree so do we have the ability to reach out to those strongly disagree families and say yeah I think we always have the ability to reach out and ask for folks to make meaning for us in terms of what is the lived experience that you have and certainly can do that I think that um in discussion with um Patrick's team specifically around Athletics and activities um I know he has worked to try to build strong Partnerships with our Community Partners who offer extracurricular activities for kids in the community to try to align times um certainly it is challenging I mean I know that you know you all as a board made the commitment and and the investment to ensure that our high school students still got the opportunities even though you know it got dark earlier to make sure that they had lighted facilities and I think we talked about that earlier this year that that certainly there was a an appreciation for that at middle school we don't have that and they are out at approximately four o'clock um I know superintendent Doran has expressed a number of times that you know if we could make it work with Transportation it would be nice to start a little bit earlier with middle school and end a little bit earlier the challenges the logistics and and um trying to make that happen and if we ever got to a place where um shortages of drivers wasn't an issue I think we probably could have that conversation I I think it's a combin of shortage of drivers and infrastructure um Vehicles the other thing I would say is when we did this survey we also asked Families how comfortable they would be with multi level being on a bus together because having done this very complicated work in two different districts I think that's really the only solution to trying to get middle and high school closer together in time it would probably extend the amount of time that some kids are on the bus because they'd be dropping off high schoolers are dropping off middle schoolers and then going to their school whatever vice versa um and then we if I remember correctly I think our families were kind of split on that although more comfortable with middle and high being together than elementary and middle so we can go back to some of that data and look at it um and and so we we can think about ideas like should we pilot that kind of model and see if there's any Improvement the other thing I would say around this child care piece you know I when I had kids in middle school they were getting out at 2:15 um and I remember thinking as a parent this is just one parent and I'll own that um uh I would much rather have my kids sleeping in and going getting himself or herself to the bus um a little bit later and being in school until 4:00 and not having as much time in the afternoon after school just the way my family worked and I also know like for every family that that works better for there's another family that the other works better for totally acknowledge that so um there's just a lot and I know in in in my previous District in Adams 12 they we worked really hard when we implemented this because it was the same kind of thing you always have to have um middle schools go last there's just logistical reasons for that and a large system the middle school we worked really hard with our SAE program to provide before school care um because they started so late and initially we had quite a few sixth graders taking advantage of it we worked hard to get this provided Staffing it organizing it managing it um and by the third month of school nobody no kids were coming so it's just I just know that's one District's experience so you know it's yeah it's complicated um I'm curious what is the ridership percentage for these schools so we talk about busing we talk about that but how many of our students are actually riding the bus in these schools I'd have to pull that as the total or percentage I I could get that to you and I know that's complicated because just because they sign up for the bus doesn't mean they're writing it every day and but we we are we are capturing the data though of actual students on the buses so I can I can pull that and and get that to you for sure no not off the top of my head I just I wonder how that that would be an interesting factor to me also here I do know in part of the conversation Greg um on Jeff's team talked about the fact that there are a number of buses at at least three of those middle schools now what is a number probably at least 8 to 10 um because part of what they asked was we see some of our buses getting here 20 minutes before we let out three or four of them yes but you have 11 and that's not the case that all of them get there when we'd pull those three and well those three came from an elementary here the others had to actually do a high school route which made them get there right at the time and so the the complication of that really is the I think um president Parker I think you used the analogy at one point that you know when you pull out one thread the whole tapestry starts to unravel and that's genuinely what happens with the transportation sort of piece if we start to mess around with it a little bit yeah I'm just curi curious as to how many families in these positions you know you look at that survey data I'm curious how many of those families are also using the bus yeah um I am curious also so you you heard a lived experience that maybe the data didn't match and obviously causation and correlation are very different things um what was their response when you went back to the stakeholder group you know it was it was a good conversation I think they there was a disappointment of like oh it really and it doesn't match and and but it feels like uhuh and and they engaged in the conversation but I think they were very quick most of them we're very quick to shift to well if we could change to that seven hour day that would help a lot let's start thinking about how we could do that and principals were talking each other about their schedules the teachers were chiming in you know this is what we've started talking about how we could do that so I would say it moved to a more productive conversation pretty quickly by the majority of the room going okay I'm going to go back and we're going to try to see if we can engage alt and have that conversation um overall what they asked was you know please don't communicate this let us do it let us talk it through because we want to bring our teams together and and do this and help them understand can we use the data so that we can walk through that with folks and be productive with it so they would have liked to have us be able to change it for them and they also acknowledge that the data did tell us something different than what what they were maybe assuming was the reality um when we do the Panorama survey is that the only time we survey for this specific question the start times and end times or have we done other surveys around that we've done specific surveys to start and end times last year the last time we did a full scale one was last December of families um and staff vaguely remember that one yeah that and there were just under 10,000 people that responded to that one the first one we did um was when we first started doing this work and there was 22,000 23,000 people that responded then when we asked again like I said we got just under 10,000 we haven't asked full scale in terms of start and end times we have continued to ask within Panorama engagement questions and are you get in healthy kids Colorado around getting enough sleep and some of those so we pulled data from a number of different um surveys to say what do we know about a student lived experience with that um some of those get asked annually some of those are every other year like healthy kids Colorado versus Panorama we ask every year I'm really sensitive to the fact that 10,000 feels really it's great and it feels low thank you so much it's really interesting to see the data I have some questions um I I would be interested in the data split by those middle schools that start at 9:00 a.m. and those that start earlier the the thing that I hear consistently is that n 9:00 am is so late and one reason why this is really B my mugling me is because there's a middle school that has changed their entire day so they only offer electives last period because so many kids leave and this is like because the impact of them starting at 9: and getting out at 4 and having so many early releases is that they can't have classes other than electives last period so this doesn't align at all with like the things I'm hearing and I mean the people I've heard from are definitely more than an N of 10 like even in one group so I'm just saying like and but I where I am up in my area I think all the middle schools start at nine at when we first this first happened there was a spreadsheet I can't find it today it just showed us all the start and end times it was like when it was first done all the newspapers published that that's how I would find it now everything says go to school finder so you have to look them up one by one so I would love as a board to get the spreadsheet again of who's starting at 9 and for the reason I drive five middle schoolers to school is because all their parents have to be at work I mean so this is like a real problem and we don't we can't all ride a bus so there's like I'm I am a lived experience saying wow like thank goodness that I have the kind of job where I can start my meetings at 9:10 because I can rush back home but all of them cannot so that's there's just a lot that just feels like it's not aligning here it's and then hearing that like that group overwhelmingly felt this way I just think we should do a lot more in terms of getting feedback um also I just wanted to point out the there's just hu there's also just a disparity here around um income because we know that kids who are in lower income areas have less access to after school activities organized activities and things like that so this is also impacting people disproportionately across U all kinds of our other factors so um you know whether they have something to go to or or not um when these times are flexed like this I've actually never heard anyone say anything to me about a longer The Seven Hour 7 hour 15 minutes day not not one person that's ever said that but I I I can tell you when school I go to they tell me we're going to they don't even know I'm a board member they'll say in parent teacher confer is we hear this is going to change we hear that they're working on this to change it for us and I mean I've been like oh noted I'm not they don't even know that who I am so it's a conversation but I'll just end with this like the reason that this data presentation is really actually bothering me so let's imagine that we this presentation the topic was increasing teacher pay and last year we gave raises so we put a slide deck together that says we gave raises look at the the results you could do the same exact presentation we see better engagement we see better all the results that were better and I understand we picked these outcome measures because of the comments that were made in the focus group fine but anything could be on the left side of that equation start and end times is completely arbitrary to what you all are presenting here so we could also say the state cut funding and look better engagement in schools better outcome better outcome there's there's literally nothing connecting these two and I wonder if there's like a time lag even that's not captured in here like our parents reflecting on time that was prior to these interventions you know so it's like this day I am a huge believer in data and data can also tell a false story you know and I worry we could use this presentation and put anything on the left side of this equation and give the exact same presentation so it worries me to to have a presentation like this that especially that's countering so publicly the lived experiences and expressions of people who are who are in the middle of it right now so it it feels very uncomfortable to me to have data like this that's so counter to what you heard from a very small handful of people and say and there the first finding said there is no evidence that there's any disruption I just I just find this not to be this is my job I I said I'd like to question this I I just want to say I'm I don't agree with that because I think the data they presented us was in response to their focus group their focus group said let me let me finish let me finish please okay so they were listed um several um what did you call them for uh yeah there were three areas of um m them of feed only there was there was a theme that um there were uh the students were tired they were um their morale was bad all those things that was a theme that was presented to them so they said you know they gave them the data back you you're afraid that they're not engaged you're afraid they're missing school you're afraid that they're whatever it is that that is not happening and it's connected to that one theme and it makes sense in this presentation because that was what their focus group asked them or or raised they didn't raise they didn't say teachers were paid more what's the outcome I know that's so I don't no my point is you're you're complaining about something that's not valid it's the the connection between start times and those outcomes it does not exist that's their present that's what they're saying to us it does not exist people in the focus group said it exists the people in focus group said you made the change in the start time and the results are going to be all these bad things what there what what you all have said is that there's no evidence that there was disruption I don't remember what the bullet said implying that start times had an impact on engagement correct that's what you're stating no actually I think I said when we started out that causality doesn't to correlation which we understand that we looked at what the data said after start times are we seeing an increase in discipline are we seeing an increase in absenteeism are we seeing a decrease in student engagement the answer is no we're not I didn't say it's because of start times in fact I said we can't say it's because of start times but I can look at the data and I can say this is what the data tells us I I I we completely disagree on this and I'm looking at it from a from a validity and reliability question of the data being presented this way and I don't find that it's credible in this narrative because you could you could turn this into any narrative we wanted this could be manipulated into any story we wanted in this District right now and that would be as a statistician I respectfully disagree yeah okay so um thank you for making that point um I would like to say a couple things things I agree with people who um would like to see more input from um parents because I think most of my complaints came from parents early on it was teachers who were worried about things um but then once it happened I heard from parents and um and I think and one of the complaints I have not a complaint but a um U comment on this presentation is that parents wouldn't like it okay because parents are not saying the things that the staff said the parents would say I I can't miss work I it's a delay this so so question we can go back and do another survey it's been a year we can ask again um with some of the same questions because we do have Baseline data now right thanks and they also think that um middle schools are just so different and especially since several of them are in my district it's the difference between the six period and seven period um the schools especially if you change it on them so I'm not surprised that staff had a lot of you know agitation over that um but I'd like to say that um in respect to addressing all those schools that are still 7 7 hours and 15 minutes if you take Summit Ridge and Dakota Ridge if we could combine um bus schedules that way because they're right next door to each other they just you know around the half a block if somehow we could get those students All In the same bus then maybe we could eliminate that extra 15 minutes for Summit Ridge possibly I think we also have to look at do the kids who are going to Summit Ridge on the bus um are the same areas that they're going to to pick up kids for Dakota Ridge as to whether those can be the same buses yeah obviously there's that but it just you know we have several schools down the South that really are close together so could help but anyway thank you very much for this presentation sure yeah what I'm thinking I'm going to follow up with these guys on so two things I hear as following up on one is um consideration of um another survey of parents and we need some time to think about like what does that mean is it J middle school is it2 so we'll we'll do some work with that and get back to the board is that a thumbs up from board members okay so some parent perspective um and then the second thing is re maybe resurfacing this idea of a combination bus for lack of way to say it multi-level busing and could that somehow get our middle and high schools closer together and therefore allow our middle schools to start a little bit earlier and maybe the interest in that sort of comes out of this survey depending upon what the survey says and I mean I I do hear from parents they hate the 9:00 start um and and I think the only solution is really trying to combine some kiddos and I don't even know what that looks like so those the two things that I if I'm synthesizing that correctly can I add one note to that I think in the combo bus idea it would be fascinating to see the writers ship numbers that's a third thing so that that might be a third thing but typically as students turn 16 a lot of them will drive themselves and so I wonder if it's a smaller percentage of high schoolers on some of those buses so just food for thought okay thank you um and now for the last item on our agenda this evening the board will receive a preview of the December 19th consent agenda as a reminder to our listening public superintendent Doran will be providing a preview of items for board action anticipated to appear on the individual action items or on the consent agenda at our regular meeting next week I'll now hand it over to superintendent Doran great thank you Mary and thanks to um Lisa Ru who puts this together for us and keeps us organized um just so board members are aware um we have included both the preview of consent agenda items for next week which I'll go over in a minute and then Mary asked earlier this week on behalf of the board could I also preview for you some upcoming agendas I think one of the things that's happening is um board members are asking oh can we study this or this is a interest to us and then we're scheduling it in but it might not be for a couple of months or it might not be till this monitoring report so we Mary requested that maybe we could look at that so board members could make sure their requests they see where their requests for topics are falling so um it'll be a little bit longer than normal but next week um we have on your consent agenda item uh materials will be ready this Friday for you uh the approval of the DC midyear appointment recommendations um in your executive content this week on this agenda item that we're talking about right now that we're in right now you have some information there if you want to begin to study that um and you heard about that process from the DC and I'm really grateful that they've leaned into thinking about that process of uh appointment recommendations for the board to consider um you'll have the approval of your 2025 legislative agenda I have a I have a to-do to follow up with Mary on my list around the comments that um director Kenworthy made and some um agreement from board members so we'll follow up and revise uh accordingly and get that uploaded um it is contemplated that you will approve the superintendent contract next week the supplemental funds notification um for December 24 which is 2024 which is a regular um sort of Grants and other things and you can see some of the details there in the two tables you have a project for wheat rdge High School which is their phase two work which will be happening this summer um and that the information about what that Phase 2 includes will be also presented during um a working session before your consent item so we will be highlighting some of what's in phase two for you um there'll also be some detail on the agenda item on consent but and that uh you'll see the budget there and the funding sources is the 2018 CIP and this is a contract that you'll be approving for the work to begin uh the another project the Alam International gym hbac improvements when Alam went through its improvements before the gym was not included in what what was uh done with the HVAC and the air conditioning and and the gym was very hot and has been hot so um they're uh um updating that and you'll see that's another contract for you to approve um and then you'll see next we're talking about your preview of board agenda items so in January during your study session you'll um similar to tonight with jesa you will have jcea joining to to do their annual presentation for the board you'll look at the revised budget you saw the first quarter tonight January will be revised budget um midy year on revised budget medical benefits contract uh will be part of your study session so you'll learn about that um and then the E Erp contract um and the arvat Aquatic Center IGA is another piece that you'll be studying by the way I I reserve the right that some of these things may shift a little bit because some of these things as I'm reading them out loud I'm remembering that they're dependent upon some other moving parts so what did I say you said it right it's just oh okay yeah so some of these things are obviously going to change including typos um in the regular meeting in January you'll have an executive session um a legislative update uh Jeff Co student leadership board will be coming our favorite thing ever the Aur will be presented to you in January and you're going to also be um learning about the Naran awareness and a Colorado statute for that you have a second special study session on January 17th where you'll be getting monitoring report um 3.2 um which is around um the curriculum decisions being reflective of students ability so we can ICS ethnicities race religions sexual orientations and gender identities and 3.4 uh which has to do with uh respect for families and employees in those same categories monitoring report 1.1 we'll um do an update there uh around academic growth and a body of evidence um that includes uh classroom and summi of Assessments in February we'll have a study session and again the monthly legislative update given given that it's legislation season um the Jeffco negotiations team will be coming and talking to you about um the bargaining process and the district's interests um at the bargaining table there'll be a boundary study followup related to the Jefferson articulation area um and the secondary Ela curriculum adoption which is exciting and we'll have monitoring uh report 1.4 um at the regular meeting in Fe February there'll be a dedicated public comment for negotiations as we talked about before and shared with jba um Erp contract part two High School reimagined update and another deck dialogue in March again you'll have your legislative update um we'll begin budget development for fiscal year 26 we will um be talking about the Strategic Capital master plan and the process to develop that and we will have an update on SAE programs uh so you'll be able to study that good example of why it's fun to preview these so you guys just know what's coming um and then in the regular meeting we'll again have the dedicated public comment for the purpose of negotiations for our association Partners the Q2 financial report will come your way and you will be able to engage with your board committee uh TD pack so we decided just stop there because after that it might change quite a bit but um Lisa is going to add in just one thing um we had initially added an additional uh session with your when you approved your board calendar for March 7th We Believe will not we will not need that session so we will be canceling that so you can make uh more time for your school visits uh we just we'll we'll be amending the calendar likely in January just wanted to give you a heads up about that and I also want to say that we're going to have a board retreat uh February 21st and that's another opportunity for us to review the agendas that are coming up and for us all to um make any changes and add additions so forth so um we've made changes over the years um in the agenda setting process when we first got on the board we had two members of the um board sit in on um monthly agenda settings and uh we got away from that we're now doing it and board retreat so that everybody can be there for the whole discussion and um that does mean that we go longer between the board all getting together to talk about it we just have two Retreats a year so therefore we need um the ability for board members to express their interest and I think we've done that like tonight um throughout the the session yeah and if this is helpful for the board for me to go both review your upcoming consent agenda um and that to alert you to those things that'll be loaded in Friday's packet and then also preview a couple months ahead of your upcoming agendas just so if you're wondering when am I going to be able to learn more about this or when was this coming to the board at least it's highlighted for you each month during the study session when I do this review um so that's something we're trying on for size tonight thanks to Mary's um advocacy and I'll just if I can just add one more thing um we actually do have the agenda sort of out for the year and I'm happy to always sit they change a lot but happy to sit down with anyone and show you all just when we were doing the agenda planning one month at a time it was really difficult for us to get ready for the agendas for the meetings um so this gives us more time but I also want to recognize that you all mention things a lot during your meetings that you're interested in and we're always taking note of those things so I hope Dr B it's okay if I use this an example you mentioned some a program I can't I'm going to mess it up now Parent Connect or partner connect or something at a at a meeting we had that that you said is interesting Tara knows what that is and she's including that in her in one of her monitoring reports so sometimes when we hear you mention something we we we know we're going to include it in a monitoring report too and I can do a better job of following up to make sure you all know that may I add one thing to your list Lisa I'm so sorry um sustainability was a big topic of conversation for a lot of public comment okay it's in April perfect um so we'll show that to you sorry we didn't go as far as April but it is it um Jeff and I have been working on that so environmental sustainability is in April thank you all right well that um ends the consent agenda discussion and now is there a motion for the Board of Education to convene an executive session under CRS 24-6 424 fi to discuss of personnel matter specifically the superintendent contract I move to convene an executive session under CRS 24-6 424 fi to discuss a Personnel matter specifically the superintendent contract is there a second second any comment it has been moved and seconded that the Board of Education will convene into executive session roll call please Miss saada Miss Applegate yes Miss Kenworthy yes Miss Parker yes Miss Reed yes Dr V and that has been approved so the board will now convene an executive session which is closed to the general public the board will of Education will reconvene an open session approximately 9:45 to adj Jo the me adjourn the meeting please end the live stream [Music] he [Music] he [Music]